Letters for Monday, February 2, 2009

" Re; Visitors Beware...
The walk in rates for car rentals at the Airport gouge residents too. Recently a friend came to visit me on Kauai from Maui. It was a spontaneous decision so she didn't book a car in advance. The rate quoted at the desk was outrageous. She walked out, called their toll free number from her cell, booked a car, then walked back in and picked up the vehicle for about 1/3 of the walk in rate, not 5 minutes later!
When we questioned them about it they sputtered some lame excuse about only having so many cars for last minute walk ins, blah, blah.
As residents it was a slap in the face too, so this doesn't happen just to visitors. "

" Aloha. At face value the promises of a State Lottery are of great potential.
The realities of all of the promises of funding are not as great, as evidenced by the California State Lottery System. The promise at inception was for a large percentage of the Lottery earnings to augment California education and schools, and years after the Lottery was voted into State law the schools have yet to see any funds sent to the districts. The promised funds for almost all categories are little or non-existent.
The fact is that the State has used the Lottery funds to shore up an increasing amount of debt from huge loans that were necessary to keep the state's finances solvent. The problem with a State sponsored Lottery System is that the funds almost never get to the promised assigned entity and usually end up paying for State debt in hard-hit sectors.
A State Lottery system costs millions to set up and is almost never paid-as-promised to the citizens. Yes indeed, if you look at the promises still on the Lottery web-pages they are promoted as if they were yet being funded as promised. If one were to check behind the glossy web page design and find the hard numbers for funding to any promised entity, one would get a big surprise - and it wouldn't be "I won!”

Response in regards to the following letter to the editor:

Lottery to help finances, written by • Cece Fern, Lihu‘e and posted on February 2, 2009 Letters. "

" I keep reading about how the Super Ferry will be responsible for bringing crime, traffic, drugs, and invasive species to the island (Time for truth). I'm sure every one is keeping current by reading the newspaper and if not I'd like to enlighten you, by telling you that the top story for the past few weeks on Kaua`i have been thefts and burglaries. If you missed reading the Police Blotter, drug arrests are at the top of those lists. We all know traffic has been a problem for years, so nothing new there. As for invasive species goes, the last time I checked Coqui frogs were included in that list. And guess what? They made it to the islands before the Super Ferry was even thought of. We are all aware that Young Bros., Horizon Lines, Matson, and air cargo is shipping in everything we need without having to perform any extreme cargo inspections; the occasional spot check being the exception. I worked for a major retailer and when we opened those shipping containers we'd see spiders, weird looking bugs and insects, and the occasional stowaway cat.
Then there's the removing of resources from the island. The writer is stating that 400 pounds of fish was removed from Maui in a month. Wow! Did you know that if you catch a few Uluas weighing in at the 80 to 100 pound range, then it doesn't take much to reach 400 pounds. Having worked in the Seafood industry, I saw firsthand the local fishermen come in with their catch and sell fish to our company and the handful of other local Seafood companies on the island, to support their families. Know what they did with the rest of their catch? It was packed up and shipped off the island to neighbor island purveyors via air cargo, occasionally by barge. Know what our company did with the excess fish that we couldn't sell locally to the grocers or restaurants? It got packed up and air flown to the neighbor islands and to the mainland.
So while there are some good arguments out there, that things may occur. It isn't like all of these problems aren't already here. And who knows, the Super Ferry might impact the islands in a good way; by helping boost the economy. Remember, in the ancient days there weren't any airplanes; so neighbor island travel was all done by sea. "

" Mickens and Lewis and all the other grumblers are just mainland hoales who've moved here and decided that they know better than all us locals. They're the problem: too expensive houses, choke traffic, no more nothing for local people. The haoles wanna make it all their way - never mind how us locals feel. Maybe the best thing for them to do instead of always grumbling is to take their money and their cars and their stink attitudes and go home. We tired of them already. "

" There is an attitude represented here that is more than a chip on a shoulder. It is a wedge being driven deeper into the Island each day. The message needs to go out that the respect you get is equal to the respect you give. You don't get it from a bumpersticker that demands it. I have disagreed with Mssrs Mickens and Lewis many times. Nevertheless, they have my respect and I'm glad that they share their ideas and opinions. That's how a productive democracy works. As for driving those who think or look different into the sea; that's how tyrants work. "