Geothermal issue
Anyone living in the vicinity of geothermal operations who is convinced that their proximity to Puna Geothermal Venture is a threat to their lives and health has had ample opportunity over the last 20 years to address those concerns by privately selling their holdings and resettling elsewhere.
Claiming victimhood and demanding guaranteed satisfaction for their choice to wait 20 years for a buyout for only 130 percent of fair market value is self-defeating and ignores the inevitable cost to their neighbors. That is not aloha … just stupid.
It doesn’t take a deep thinker to conclude that the relocation shakedown will last as long as the stated primary purpose for establishing the asset funds remains buying out unhappy homeowners and dispensing those insufficient funds at the sole discretion of our little geniuses in the county government. If 100 percent of the eligible applicants cannot be accommodated, taxpayers can always be counted on to cover any shortfall. Problem solved.
It should not surprise anyone to learn that a few of the past recipients of relocation funds never left the area and are some of the very folks who hope for a fresh opportunity to capitalize on “relocation” again … and again.
D. Fleming
Pahoa
Pick the most honest
I’ve attended some of the forums featuring our “leading” mayoral candidates — Billy Kenoi, Harry Kim and Dominic Yagong.
I realize the editor probably won’t publish this letter if it includes an endorsement, so instead I’ll just ask anyone reading this the following question: In your heart of hearts, which of the three is most trustworthy and honest? For me, it’s no-brainer.
That’s the person we MUST elect!
A. Yamamoto
Hilo
Enough already
To the mayor and governor: Why do we still have squads of helicopters flying low surveillance these last two weeks in Hawaiian Acres?
Day after day of helicopters burning fossil fuel, back and forth, hour after hour, hovering and breaking into everyone’s privacy — and for what? To monitor medical marijuana growers? To hassle people like me who grow tomatoes in a greenhouse?
For years we have been down this road. You can’t spot meth-houses from up there. You can’t profile potential terrorists from up there, find fugitives, confiscate illegal guns or target invasive species from up there. Not in the Puna jungle, you cannot.
It’s time to cease and desist before you bust all of the freedom, privacy and respect from democracy. If it’s a question of law and order, it’s a miserable law and has nothing whatsoever to do with order, unless this is a police state.
Louis Dula
Keaau
Puna shortchanged
Elected officials deserve to be treated with respect, but they ought to do the same for their constituents. The incumbents seeking re-election are trying to woe us with some very lame catch phrases: “Working for Puna,” “Together we can.”
Really? What is that we can together?
We already pay taxes for getting zero services, unless we reside town. No fancy bus shelters in Puna; you get wet by the side of the road and you pray hard that you will not get run over by speeding cars. Not one single bus schedule that would take us to those “tourist jobs” in Kona, either. No police patrolling the main highway, unless they happen to be traveling for a shift change. Officers claim not to have the “administrative support” to serve the community; didn’t their union just endorse the current administration?
The mayor wants to bring back free buses, isn’t that great? But wasn’t he the one that imposed the fee to start with? I guess he is having second thoughts with election time looming. And if tourism is our No. 1 industry, why hasn’t the mayor done something about Mooheau station and downtown? Who in the right mind wants to spend thousands on a Hawaii vacation, only to end up sitting in that filth?
More than brilliant talkers, we need brilliant doers. Would the capable people out there please stand up? I have a vote for the taking.
Jeanne Seimer
Hilo
