Awaken the giant ADVERTISING Awaken the giant I once heard Hawaiian Paradise Park described as a “sleeping giant.” It’s awake! HPP has changed a lot in the 30-plus years I’ve lived here. It has grown into a community rich in
Awaken the giant
I once heard Hawaiian Paradise Park described as a “sleeping giant.”
It’s awake!
HPP has changed a lot in the 30-plus years I’ve lived here. It has grown into a community rich in cultural diversity, with multi-talented and educated people of all ages, from young families working and raising their children to retirees with exceptional knowledge and experience.
Our community needs now, more than ever, the input of these residents/lot owners to make sure it grows into a place we can all live in peace and security.
Thus far, most of us allowed the homeowner’s association to manage our affairs, many times with poor results we end up paying for. In it’s bylaws, the association is charged with the duty to “ascertain the needs and desires of lot owners and represent those needs and desires,” as well as “foster an atmosphere of cooperation and harmony that encourages participation of lot owners in management and operation of the association.”
In my experience, owner input has not been welcomed, which is why, I think, most of us have abstained from getting involved with the process that governs our subdivision’s finances, roads and development.
This cannot continue or we will bear the responsibility (financial and otherwise) for the outcome.
If you are satisfied with the way HPP is being managed, you are free to continue to let the association make decisions for you. BUT, if you question the wisdom of how your (ever-increasing) annual road maintenance fee is being spent; worry about the threat of Department of Health fines for fugitive dust and the growing piles of waste by the community center; are dissatisfied with the conditions of our roads, the debt we’ve incurred, our non-existent working relationship with the county and state, OR the attitude and actions of the association board or management, it’s time to speak up!
I URGE you to get involved by attending the Board of Director’s meeting (at 6 p.m. the third Wednesday of every month) and the general membership meeting scheduled for 3 p.m. Sunday, June 29.
This is our community! Let’s insist “cooperation and harmony” are more than just words on the paper of the bylaws. The status quo is not working to our benefit.
S. Collins R.N.
Hawaiian Paradise Park
A beacon of light
I sincerely think in the hearts of tens of millions of us, Edward Snowden is a great American who deliberately and knowingly endangered his own life in order to enlighten us when the National Security Administration was hiding what Snowden, as a highly intelligent human being and a true patriot, realized it had no right to hide.
The proof of his service was the announcement last Monday that the Washington Post won the Pulitzer prize, which is the highest award for journalism, because of “groundbreaking articles on the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities based on leaks by Edward Snowden.”
Thus, it is not Snowden who “humiliates himself,” as reflected in the article by Stephen Stromberg in the April 19 edition of the Tribune-Herald, but rather Stromberg himself and his own “bankruptcy of principle” by siding with the NSA in this case.
One indication of how troubling the conditions are at the highest level of our government is the arrogance of our executive branch spying on the members of the Congress.
This alone should be sufficient to impeach President Obama, for whom I voted enthusiastically in 2008 and very reluctantly in 2012.
Our security forces at all levels are, at their best, our nation’s legitimate immune system, and, at their worst, the greatest threat to the foundation of our democracy.
We have the right and responsibility to know what our government is doing domestically and internationally so we can do what we need to do to keep our nation a beacon of light for humanity, rather than a source of fear and continuous concern.
Abraham Sadegh
Hilo
