Erroneous claim
In reading the front-page article on the GOP stance on abortion (“Abortion bans raise fears in GOP about backlash in 2024,” Tribune-Herald, April 16), I was offended to read that Susan B. Anthony’s name is incorporated in the name of an anti-abortion organization.
My understanding is that Susan B. Anthony worked to increase women’s rights, not remove them. According to the National Susan B. Anthony Museum, the claim that she would have opposed abortion if she were alive today is erroneous.
This assumption is based largely on an article written anonymously in Anthony’s publication that clearly disagreed with proposed laws against abortion but called it “child murder.”
The National Susan B. Anthony Museum examines the matter in detail on its website and states that there is no fact or logic to connect Anthony with the article in question.
Karen Cooper
Hilo
Nice teamwork
A big mahalo nui loa to Councilwoman Sue Lee Loy for answering her phone and helping us to get the bathrooms at the county office buildings open during the Merry Monarch parade.
The crowd of families located on Pauahi Street were so relieved when Mayor Mitch Roth and his wife came by and notified everyone that the bathrooms were open.
Mahalo Mayor Roth, security and maintenance personnel. That’s what we call teamwork!
Kauilani Almeida
Hilo
Roadside
panhandling
In regard to roadside panhandlers asking for money at several major intersections around Hilo, my letter does not focus on their social and/or financial situations, but rather addresses safety concerns when soliciting money at busy intersections.
Soliciting alms often takes place at very busy intersections such as traffic islands at Puainako and Kanoelehua, Makaala and Kanoelehua, Kanoelehua and Kekuanaoa.
Lately, it seems that some of these individuals have dogs with them, and I’m not sure if these dogs, and most times the dogs look ill, are being used as “props” to gain sympathy for the solicitor’s cause.
Bottom line, these individuals are putting themselves and their pets in harm’s way by loitering at such dangerous heavy traffic areas.
Some areas like these are designed for pedestrian crossing, not for loitering.
Aren’t there any laws that forbid loitering in these areas? If there are, I highly suggest that enforcement action be taken against such practice.
Soliciting in these areas are accidents waiting to happen. Before it is too late, officials please take a proactive approach to this problem, and not a reactive one.
Rick LaMontagne
Hilo
