Bad place for a school
I am one mile away from the proposed Connections Public Charter School campus location. I can only access my home via Edita Street.
I am strongly opposed to the building of the Connections school campus on Kaumana.
Public safety is the biggest reason I am against the campus. The campus will be located in an area that has inadequate infrastructure to support such a project.
The proposed campus will be located where there will be a traffic bottleneck for both the campus and the surrounding homes. The traffic bottleneck will take effect immediately at the start of the construction phase and becomes a permanent problem when the campus opens to students all year long.
The campus is only accessible via Edita Street. Edita Street is the only access to the entire Pacific Plantation subdivision. The Connections school campus will effectively be a blockade to the subdivision. How would you like someone putting up a blockade by your front door?
The same area of Kaumana is fed by a small water tank up the hill. That water tank is meant for single-family dwelling units. It is not adequate to provide water to a school campus.
Will the county requires the owner of the school to improve the infrastructure for the community before approving the permit? There are questions about where the school is getting water for their use. The questions have not been adequately answered.
Waste from the construction phase and actual school use will be increased tremendously. That area of Kaumana has a network of underground caves, porous lava rocks and adjacent river tributaries. During a rainy period, which is very often, the rain water will leach whatever undesirable substances and carry them down stream into the various rivers and eventually into Hilo Bay.
Do we want more toxic runoffs? Has the county adequately addressed the waste issue created by the school? Will the school install an adequate sewer system to carry their waste to the county sewage treatment plant?
Just imagine a large school campus located in a quiet residential neighborhood with access provided by a narrow country road. What happens when grandpa needs an ambulance at 7:30 in the morning, but the ambulance is blocked by school traffic?
Hansen Tsang
Hilo
‘Beacons of life’
A fire was burning its way to a chapel of God, Sequoia National Park.
If you have ever stood next to a 3,000-year-old being, as I have, you recognize the sanctity of that moment.
How did this being survive? What safeguards prevented its peril?
We can all agree that lightning happened multiple times throughout history. And yet, these beacons of life survived; in fact, they thrived!
So, what changed as humans encroached on their territory? Could it be that their remoteness provided a barrier to their danger?
Maybe humans denigrating nature is an inevitability?
But, why is this happening now? Has our so-called society denied its responsibility to the holy things surrounding us?
I’m not sure when society stopped respecting the gifts that God and nature gave us. Those who deny climate change are looking pretty foolish now.
As the catastrophes pile up in recent times, isn’t it time to stop asking for proof? Are we facing the Armageddon prophesied by the Bible?
I once had a friend who suggested I stop talking to God and listen, listen to everything around us — especially nature! Listen to His words, listen to His prophecy. Be willing to humble yourself when faced with the obvious.
Our grandchildren will not be able to experience the wonders and sights our eyes have witnessed, and that is just plain wrong.
It should not matter what political obligation you affiliate yourself with. We have a duty to our children and grandchildren to take measures to conserve and protect those things that have survived and continue to outlive us as a legacy to their future.
It is the very least we should do.
Sincerely,
T. Vincent Keelan
Honokaa