Your Views for April 25

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Trailers ban

City dwellers and country dwellers have different thought processes. Doesn’t make either right of wrong. Just different.

As our population increases, we are seeing numerous complaints from newcomers about how we do things. The response to these criticisms is to restrict ongoing practices, resulting in added hardship for rural residents.

How long it takes for a vehicle to unload at a transfer station depends on the time of day, how many slots are open, the weather, if it’s Monday, how many elderly people (like me) are ahead of you, and ultimately the overall size of the refuse section. Nothing to do with trailers.

Solutions have always been available. Redesign stations to accommodate increased population, providing for a variety of vehicles. And keep it ongoing. Stop trying to please squawkers who are on mainland or Oahu timetables and have forgotten why they moved here.

Country people work in the rain to get the job done. We don’t demand that the county stop the rain. We schedule taking our opala to the station to conserve fuel and wear and tear on our vehicles. We work after dark to finish the job. Our trucks are tools, not status symbols. We are already limited to how much we can bring in a truck.

What’s next? Ban all trucks?

Plan for the future! When we don’t, we create problems rather than solve them — i.e. the new roundabout at Ainaloa Boulevard and Highway 130. It’s too small for the number of vehicles. Traffic is backed up for miles! Poor planning!

County government needs to function like it knows what is going on. If we need to fund improvements, raise taxes. If residents want problems solved, they must pay the price.

Stop the practice of restricting. Change to redesigning to accommodate everyone.

L. E. Goldstein

Keaau

‘No accountability’

Exactly what are police trained to do during an emergency response?

In the case of Ma’Khia Bryant, the 16 year-old girl, it was to shoot her four times.

She didn’t get tased, she didn’t get shot in the leg to slow her down. She got shot in the back four times.

For conservatives, to understand my point, pretend she was white, or pretend you’re a real Christian. Picture all of the black people murdered by poorly trained or outright bad cops, as white people.

Shooting four times at close range illustrates, at best, panic on the side of the officer. At worst, he is another bad cop who took advantage of a situation to murder a black person and get away with it.

No other country, aside from the worst Third World nations in the world, has police like America. No other country.

You might find these types of poorly trained or racist cops in some African countries, in the Middle East, and in America.

The reason it persists is no accountability. When a police station has a lot of complaints, the U.S. Department of Justice needs to go after them, because these police stations with bad cops are a direct threat to our citizens.

And if you think you’re a good cop, who looks the other way when you know there’s a bad cop at your station, guess what? You’re a bad cop too for enabling their behavior.

Ma’Khia Bryant had a knife. She was lunging at another person. But a bullet to the leg, or even both legs, would have sent her to the ground right away.

And this girl, this minor, would have lived to see her 18th birthday in two years.

If she needed therapy, she would have gotten it.

Instead, she got a coffin.

Dennis Chaquette

Keaau