Shameful mess
The impasse on Maunakea has gone into the fourth week. There’s plenty of blame to go around, and let’s start with the obvious.
Shame on you, Gov. David Ige and pandering politicians, for failing to enforce the law and allowing anarchy to rule the day.
Shame on you, protesters. In your blind zeal to vent for past wrongs, you chose the Thirty Meter Telescope as your sacrificial lamb and robbed the island’s youth of a future they truly deserve.
Shame on us, the silent majority, if we let TMT go to the Canary Islands. We’d hate to explain to our keiki that they’ll need to go to the mainland to find fulfilling jobs.
Call and write to Gov. Ige and your legislative representatives. Let them know that you support the rule of law and you see science, education and economic development as the future of the islands.
Ruisheng Peng
Hilo
Reform OHA
According the 2017 state audit of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the OHA trustees have been depleting their state-granted funds for a number of years. These trustees have been basically spending this money — which was supposed to be used to place Hawaiians on Hawaiian lands — on themselves and their friends.
Gov. Ige seems not to be concerned with this blatant misuse of state funds and is doing nothing to rectify the situation. Ige also recently vetoed a bill that would reform the property confiscation law in Hawaii and make it constitutional. So it seems that Ige is perfectly comfortable with certain parties taking money and property to which they have no lawful right.
It also seems that Ige does not intend to enforce the law that prohibits protesters from blocking public roads. I understand the TMT is an emotionally charged issue for some Hawaiians, but those who oppose the TMT are doing so for emotional, rather that factual, reasons. Under the old Hawaiian Kingdom, only the highest ali‘i could go to Maunakea. The commoners could not! Today, everyone can go to Maunakea.
There would be no road to Maunakea without the telescopes. So, the typical form of Hawaiian worship — driving up to Maunakea in a pickup truck and loading it up with snow to play in back home — would not have been possible without the telescopes. Also, OHA would get 20% of the $1 million/year rent that the TMT would spend when finished.
Like some emotional Hawaiians, OHA also has been suing and blocking the progress of the TMT — basically shooting itself in the foot financially.
If Hawaiians really wanted to improve life for the Hawaiian people, they would protest OHA and demand that it be reformed. OHA should do the job it is supposed to do — getting Hawaiians back on their land without wasting OHA funds on the trustees.
Herbert Dorsey
Pahoa
‘Too bad,’ astronomers
Wow, too bad about the astronomy observers losing time observing the universe during the past (three) weeks!
As I understand it, Hawaiians have been going without land and homes, decent jobs and the opportunity to worship in their temple, Maunakea, for well more than 100 years.
Sandra Lee
Kurtistown