Kerrill Kephart comments

Aloha,Like many other residents here in West Hawaii, my husband and I are shocked at the recent, self-serving actions of the County Council. Arbitrarily removing West Hawaii council members from key positions and voting to maintain a 22% raise in salary for themselves made it clear that Mayor Kenoi and his minions are cavalier in their scorn for island-wide representation. If a split into two counties would result in a more responsive government, then we are all in favor of it. We would like to see some of our own tax monies going to improve the infrastructure on the West side. Our highways are clogged in Kona and Waimea. We desperately need completion of Saddle Road as well as some forward motion on the Waimea and Kawaihae Road bypasses. We also need county water in subdivisions north of the homelands in Kawaihae. We are forced to buy private water, and it is exorbitantly if not prohibitively expensive. We need more services in Kawaihae in order to reduce traffic on the Kawaihae Road. A post office branch and a bank branch, for example, would reduce the number of trips people have to make to Waimea. We would like to see our parks maintained (How long has part of Hapuna State Park been cordoned off due to flooding several years ago?) and some campgrounds opened to accommodate locals and middle-income tourists. I won't even go into the superferry fiasco. We must be the only archipelago of any size that does not have inter-island ferry service. Government here is so wasteful because it takes years, if not decades, for anyone to act on anything important. The amount of time spent on discussion and study is excessive and expensive. I believe that the Waimea Bypass was first proposed, for example, in 1963. We need leaders who are willing to make decisions and then act upon them. Our current government is paralyzed by inertia and fear of offending vocal minority groups. Finally, we need to overhaul the state school system. What I see is a culture of failure. The state could start by allowing a few areas to exercise local control and see what happens. It couldn't be worse than the status quo, which is essentially a two-tier system. Those who can afford to do so are sending their children to private schools because their perception is that the public schools are ineffective. Those children whose parents cannot afford private-school tuition make up the majority of the population in the public schools. Public education should level the playing field and not opt out from the mandate to provide a quality education for all kids no matter the income level of their parents. Thanks for "listening." Kerrill Kephart