Puna bias
Puna bias
“Discrimination: The treatment of a person or particular group of people differently, in a way that is worse than the way people are usually treated” (Cambridge Dictionary).
Jenny Ruggles is right. Call it “bias” or “discrimination” or “just plain screwed,” the Puna District has been ignored, shorted and, at times, a victim of premeditated government neglect for decades.
She is not being divisive; she’s standing up for the voters in her district.
If the other rural, gutless-sheep council members don’t have the backbone to stand up to the Kona-Hilo power hui, that’s their wimp-out problem. Puna is not the only rural district discriminated against, but we’ve got the only council member with the guts to say what it is.
They just want the junior member of the council to sit down and shut up.
To the other council windbags: She works for us and not for you!
The fact list of government neglect in Puna is long and historical. It’s the fastest-growing district, the size of Oahu, and is served by two ambulances for years (I think it’s three now). And until the new police and fire station in Pahoa, the police and courts were (and are) working out of 50-year-old buildings (Keaau) or, as Pahoa police did until recently, a trailer.
Or how about the yearslong effort of the council to steal the FEMA money to resurface Highway 137 to use in other districts? FEMA finally said “use in the Puna District or lose it.”
You know it was a federally funded job. It was done in four months; the county would have taken 25 years.
What has the council done for us lately?
So, if the rest of the council has their collective panties in a bunch over this, so what?
She’s standing up for Puna, and we will back her up.
William Wade
Kehena
Dangerous actions
I cannot fathom why the only road for thousands of Puna residents (Highway 130) should be closed for eight hours because of a two-vehicle wreck.
I’ve actually been present on a two-lane highway when eight people were killed in a fiery head-on collision, and also in car wrecks where half a dozen cars were involved on major freeways in California and Germany. The removals of the injured or dead bodies (with hydraulic rescue tools) and car removals and investigations took from one to three hours.
What about the lives that are endangered in Puna by the shutdown of the only life-saving artery to their doctors, hospital and jobs?
And as an aside, why hasn’t the shoulder been opened full time so people will not be passing on the left into oncoming traffic (which is legal), and so thousands of people won’t spend thousands of dollars on wasted fuel and time waiting in long lines?
Get serious!
Gerald N. Wright
Pahoa