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Please respond

Please respond

The people of the Big Island need to know why, since gas prices have gone down more than 20 percent in the past weeks, our food and electricity prices have remained the highest in the nation. As those prices have risen during the past year, we were told it was because of rising gas prices.

Seems that what goes up here never goes down, and that is not right. Many people are suffering because of inflated prices.

HELCO and grocery stores, please respond.

Francine Pearson

Hilo

Ease HPP congestion

Memo to motorists who will now have to drive through Hawaiian Paradise Park when coming from Railroad Avenue, Beach Road, etc., and then reverse the process on your way home. To speed up your way through HPP, it would be wise to use all of the roads that are paved from Makuu to Paradise, Kaloli or Shower Drives.

Dividing up road usage will mean much less congestion and fewer unnecessary delays. If we all used Makuu to Highway 130, we would be lucky to get to Hilo in two hours. Let us maximize our road usage and get to where we’re going on time.

Here’s a list of some of the PAVED roads across HPP: 29th, 28th, 27th, 24th, 22nd, 19th, 16th, 7th.

Don Bremer

Keaau

Enough ‘wait and see’

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists have said the lava could continue in the general direction it is now for several years. With the current county government policy of “wait and see,” what are we likely to get?

Oh! There goes Malama marketplace!

Oh! There goes Highway 130.

Oh! There goes Hawaiian Beaches and Shores subdivisions!

Oh! There goes Pahoa!

Oh! There goes Nanawale subdivision!

And so on, until lower Puna is not a viable place to live. Even Ainaloa, Hawaiian Paradise Park and other subdivisions might not be immune to the ravages of lava flows.

In 1980, a report was published in which the HVO and U.S. Air Force analyzed the results of previous bombing attempts at diversion. The summary stated “modern aerial bombing has a substantial probability of success for diverting lava …” With the advances in military technology during the last 34 years, it is reasonable to assume that success would now be virtually certain!

The government should immediately call in the U.S. military to study the situation and make recommendations. Anyone who agrees can add their name to a petition calling for this at www.ipetitions.com/petition/divertlava.

One of government’s functions is to protect communities and the infrastructure that supports them. Diverting the lava flow at the source is the only way this can be done. If there is a viable way of doing this and the government does not do it, then this is government negligent. It could be argued to be criminal negligence.

Jack Caldicott

Pahoa

Disrupts learning time

In many schools, such as Paauilo Elementary and Intermediate and Honokaa High and Intermediate, students are forced to serve lunch at school.

Forcing students to serve school lunch is unfair to teachers and students because it takes away our teachers’ teaching time and the students’ learning time. Making students serve lunch also is unfair because students come to school to learn, not to serve lunch and have our education time taken away.

To solve this problem, we could stop using tax money on unimportant things and use that money to keep the workers in the cafeteria, or add more workers so students are not forced to work in the cafeterias.

Making students serve lunch for their school is a good thing because it gives students a chance to help their school and contribute for all the hard work the employees do in the cafeteria, but it takes away their important education time … When students are forced to serve lunch at school, they are forced to do many things such as wash dishes, sweep and wipe down the tables where other students eat and make a mess. Students are also forced to wear a hair-net, apron and gloves, which can cause students to get teased by their friends and the other students in the school.

Without students having to serve school lunch, they would have more time to learn and get caught up with their school work and would not fall behind because they had to serve lunch.

K. Maarsingh

Honokaa