The woes of growth
Bye-bye Hilo. Hello, “Hilolulu.”
Two or more traffic light cycles to get through Hilo intersections? Big Island population breaks 200,000? Developers avoid building affordable housing by making discount payments in exchange for rezoning benefits? Half of vacation rental homes are owned by nonresidents? “We buy houses” papers nailed to telephone poles? Big squeeze applied to the Hilo Farmers Market? Service industry workers already have been priced out of Kona housing. Where do they go live and commute from outside of Hilo? Shall we rename our town “Hilolulu”? The Big Island just cracked the top 10 list of Trip Advisor vacation destinations. How long will that last in a Hilolulu and Konafornia?
Meanwhile, we are still on an island importing 90 percent of our food, in a shooting gallery of East Pacific cyclones and Mauna Loa volcano is restively heaving.
William J. Mautz
Hilo
Listen to them
It was soul-warming and disturbing to witness this past weekend’s nationwide, nay, worldwide, demonstrations against our plague of gun violence in America.
Soul-warming to witness our children using the tactics of peaceful demonstrations of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. that my generation used to address the social ills and injustices that succeeded in bringing about the changes that have enabled the United States to become the country it is today.
Disturbing, in the reaction of nativism and reactionary response to the plea, by our children, for real solutions to the insanity/terrorism of guns in the hands of our children.
Disturbing, by the complete lack of reaction and response by the president to this call for action by millions of Americans and world citizens, and by the lackluster response by our elected representatives to the continuing tragedy and horror of school shootings.
What has happened to us? Have we become so inured and indifferent to the everyday violence of these tragedies that we can’t even hear the cries of our own children? Are we so jaded and preoccupied by the excesses of this president that we fail to recognize our declining social responsibilities?
The past year has seen our country slide into a miasma of social division and international confusion — all under the guise of “bringing America together again.” We don’t seem to be able to hear and answer our own children’s pleas for safety.
Shame on us.
Michael Grigsby
Keaau