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Letters to the Editor

Pray children grow up forging what is right

How does bigotry, the root of hate, continue to exist from generation to generation? Slave owners indoctrinated the manifestation of human segregation by skin color. What makes one color superior when another color also bleeds red? The holocaust entailed the persecution of millions for certain religions. For what? Religious fanatics in the Middle East train children to operate machine guns to advance their beliefs. The attack on Pearl Harbor attack led to the Japanese internment camps. Color, culture, faith – we’re all human with the same virtues. but masters of ...

Proper free will comes with attainment of wisdom

Free will is a much-heralded gift to mankind. But a little thought will reveal its dark side. It’s obvious its potential can create chaos and madness. This side is the result of uninformed, distorted or evil choices, but also a result of conflict between karma and free will; and the Primal Energy called God by ancestral cultures. Upon observation of the situation in America, one could rightly conclude that maybe free will should have been individually earned and not given to all alike. That is, since the proper use of free will can only come slowly along the evolutionary path ...

Stop waste of public funds to extend road by .44 mile

Stop the waste of millions of dollars of public funds to extend by .44 of a mile Liloa Drive, also known as the North-South Collector Road in Kihei. Maui Department of Public Works obtained a Raise Grant of $25 million in February 2023 and allocated it to extend Liloa Drive across Waipu’ilani Gulch, a major source of Kihei flooding. The road is part a decades-old community plan from the 1980s. There are no flood control provisions in its design. The government needs to reconsider this project. They need to think long range into the future. Maui needs climate resilience. Kihei in ...

Take more nuanced approach with banning short-term rentals

Senate Bill 2919 allows counties to phase out short-term rentals island-wide in an attempt to solve the island’s critical housing shortage. While I applaud the intent of these rather draconian measures, I feel the unintended consequences have not been fully explored. Back in 2008, Maui Mayor Charmaine Tavares closed over 1,000 unpermitted short-term rentals on Maui’s north shore. Legally, the mayor had every right to take this action. I was playing music at a popular north shore watering hole back then and the place was usually packed every night with visitors, especially ...

Making Maui better place via community action

Some 60 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson led the passage of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 in Congress, part of his War on Poverty. The act led to the creation of the Community Action Network of a thousand locally focused organizations to uplift the lives of those in poverty and create financial stability. A year later, Maui Economic Opportunity was chartered and joined the Community Action Network. The beginning was a humble one, the creation of the Head Start preschool program, which today enrolls 180 three- and four-year-olds at eight sites on Maui and Moloka‘i. From ...

Raising visitor tax easiest to fund needed housing

The easiest way to have more money collected for housing is to increase the tax on purchased services and goods. Locals pay 4.5 percent. Let’s double the tax that visitors pay to 9 percent. With Hawaii ID, there are discounts for kamaaina, but visitors will not have the ID. Tourists save great sums of money for a “trip of a lifetime” to visit Maui and I’m certain they don’t examine restaurant checks or sales receipts on items they enjoy while we they are here or want to bring home. Ron Reader Lahaina