Power plant ‘madness’
I am a 73-year-old grandmother living in the village of Pepeekeo. I’ve been following the progress (according to the Hu Honua newsletters) of the old sugar mill for many a year. Clear-cutting forests, trucking trees many miles through our towns, burning the trees at extreme temperatures, taking our water and adding chemicals is not progress in my book.
First, the plant’s president, Mr. Warren Lee: He was a bigwig at HELCO for some time. Now he’s the top man at the plant. HELCO sponsors the plant’s opening. HELCO has put limits on private residents’ solar panels now. HELCO calls itself a public utility. How is a monopoly a public utility?
I heard Ms. Valerie Poindexter say the plant would create jobs for our local citizens. Hawaii’s unemployment has been the lowest in the nation for five years. The plant manager, Mr. Kevin Owen, moved from the mainland to run the plant. The plant’s spokesman, Mr. Kevin Johnson, lives on the mainland. Who knows how many more Hu Honua employs from wherever, but Hawaii, the Big Island?
Hu Honua’s financial backer from the mainland is a multi-billionaire who invested for tax credits. Rumors I hear are she will sell the plant after it’s opened, and she gets her federal tax credits. Then what?
I wish she would come meet the people of the Hamakua Coast, discover the ‘aina and talk story with us. Maybe then she would understand the concerns for our neighborhood and our lives.
I appreciate the efforts to stop this “madness,” as my granddaughter calls it.
Fa Jung Yu
Pepeekeo
Not a combat veteran
Your paper is once again misrepresenting Tulsi Gabbard (“Tulsi in 2020?” by the Associated Press) as a combat veteran, which I believe is factually incorrect.
A “combat veteran” is one who was in actual combat, and nowhere in Tulsi’s online literature does she make that combat claim. One suspects that she would gladly do so, if it were true.
Those of your readers who would support Tulsi in a possible bid for president would like to do so on the basis of facts and credentials, not myths created by her supportive local newspapers. Those same readers also would like to avoid possible future embarrassment on Tulsi’s part if and when she might have to publicly reconcile your inaccurate reporting with the truth.
Please honor those readers with the truth.
Skip Sims
Ninole