Help stop the Kahoma Village project

The Kahoma Village project and its companion development mauka appear to have been put on hold. Do not trust appearances when money is involved, though; greed never sleeps.

The common thought is that the developer, Stanford Carr, did not get approval for water use for the entire scope of work representing about 270 homes (203 at Kahoma Village and 65 plus or minus mauka). In a fair and honest political climate, a “no” vote on water use could be the death knell. But we do not have a County Council, commission or advocate representing West Maui’s wishes.

I am not privy to the chicanery and corruption in county government. I know it is rampant, but other than using plural pronouns to identify the beast, I lack anything specific. To even the kindest of hearts, the Planning Commission’s behavior when presented with 600 signatures against the project redefined vulgar and obscene.

All citizens of Maui and particularly West Maui, you and I are on our own. If you really want to halt the projects, if your heart hurts at the thought of it succeeding, you have to get off your okoles and form some committees, hire legal representation and secure funding through any number of devices referred to as crowdfunding, such as Kickstarter, GoGetFunding, GiveForward and a host of others available on the Internet. There are decent folks living here that will help with the legal fees, including stop work actions, injunctions and on and on. It will take work, but in the end, you will feel fulfilled in ways you never knew.

The first thing that must happen is that you need to organize and elect a board, then get the funding going. Surely many of you have some money, equity or something to put up as a “bridge” loan during the process. There is a reason Maui is one of the most sought-after and wealthiest locations in the world. My Social Security check is not it.

Time to talk is over. Fortunately, we still have time. Begin a money search, then get 1,000 signatures on a new petition stating clearly that water is already a critical issue and we have none to spare. Print fact sheets for several thousand West Maui homes and provide an honest assessment of the project’s impact now and into the future.

Without exception, water use should be a headliner. To begin, each and every person uses 80-100 gallons of water a day. A typical bath uses 36 gallons. A shower uses five gallons per minute. Landscaping use is about two gallons per minute. People with a full set of teeth use about one gallon per minute. I only have one tooth, so I use less!

You get the picture. Five people living in 270 households and using 80 gallons of water a day will use 108,000 gallons of water A DAY! Approximately 108,000 gallons of water per day times 365 days equals 39,420,000 gallons of new water use a year. That is almost FORTY MILLION GALLONS of water. If you take pride in your yard, that’ll use a couple of gallons a minute more. Take a moment and think about that. Where is all of this water going to come from? The natural aquifers are stressed; the natural carsts or tunnels are stressed; there are only so many wells that can be drilled. In the future, wars will be waged over water. Continuing the course mankind is taking assures us that the only water available in the future will be tears falling from our drying eyes.

Set up your coffee tables at the cannery, along Front Street, at Foodland Farms and Foodland/Nagasakos. Set up playpens for the little ones, maybe play some Canasta or Parcheesi. Walk door to door; get to know one another. You will be surprised at how much you have in common.

Stopping the two developments is more important than one might think! This could very well be the last chance for all of you old time guys and girls, and new ones, taxpayers all, to unite and take back your island and not let the gargoyles of greed run roughshod any longer. You and your ancestors will forever regret it if you do not stand now with your brothers and sisters and stop this!

The righteousness of your mission will compel that history take a good turn for once. David Malo, along with all of the other ancestral brothers and sisters, will stand by you. After all, that site was once their home. You will never be wrong if your cause is right!! Imua!

DAVID DROWN, Lahaina

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Be considerate during rush hour on Lahainaluna Road

To parents of Lahainaluna High School students: since hardly anyone appears to use the bypass, on behalf of the residents of Lahainaluna Road, I would like to ask parents or drivers who use Lahainaluna Road to get their children to school to please be considerate when the residents try to get out of their driveways.

It only takes but a few seconds to either slow down or stop so we can get out into the road and join the traffic.

We appreciate and respect that you all are on a mission to get your children to school on time, but we sincerely ask that you reciprocate, because we also are on a mission to either have to drop our children at school in a different direction, or we have to get to work on time.

If we are more considerate and respectful of each other, the flow of traffic, both up and down the road, will be harmonious instead of causing frustration.

NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST

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Don’t let crime invade Maui’s streets

There are a lot of questions about police enforcement and reform in the Mainland cities. Many big cities have already folded because of crime.

Gangs have taken over many areas on the streets, and guns are plentiful. Drugs and alcohol, along with prostitution, add to the mix.

The news media know if they report every detail, state revenue will fall short. If too much information is given to the public, it would give leverage to lawsuits and hinder tourism. The list is long on both sides.

This situation will only get worse. Gangs are ready for race riots. This will scare the Mainland rich out first, and then the homeless will follow. Guess where they will come? Hawaii!

What’s happening on the streets on Oahu could happen on Maui. We need to put some strict ordinances in place before this happens. Mainlanders know we have a good police and military force in place.

By the way, mahalo for your service and protection. None of us are perfect, so let’s help each other and be prepared.

ENRIQUE GUZMAN, Lahaina

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Lahaina Bypass just a shortcut

I read Steve Omar’s submission to the Lahaina News and, all in all, I think he’s right. What an incredible waste of money and time! What we ended up with is not a “bypass” to anywhere. It should be renamed “The Shortcut to Lahainaluna Road,” as it is “The most expensive project ever funded by all the taxpayers in Hawaii to create a shortcut to Lahainaluna Road for a very limited group of residents.”

Am I missing something here? Isn’t a bypass supposed to actually go around and bypass something? This shortcut to Lahainaluna, which is ONLY for the residents who live up Lahainaluna, starts in the outskirts of Lahaina by using a traffic light to further impede traffic for everyone else and doesn’t even go halfway through town. Some bypass all this compromise produced.

I wonder if we can submit the project for the “Golden Fleece” awards given by members of Congress every year. Surely we would at least get honorable mention…

Okay, enough of this sarcastic rant…

The bypasses we all wanted to see would have a true onramp just north of Launiupoko, unfettered by any stoplights, and would have run to Honokowai, where there would have been a true onramp merge with Highway 30. Along its path, there would be several intersects, but we really didn’t need to add a new stoplight by Puamana.

The present “Lahainaluna Shortcut/Bypass” is just insulting to our collective intelligence.

We still need an operational true bypass from at least Launiupoko to Honokowai. We could, just as Mr. Omar pointed out, use several miles of now unused agricultural roadways by just paving them and allowing them to feed into Highway 30 (though, hopefully, without adding any other stoplights on the highway).

But really, we need a bypass that actually bypasses the existing day-to-day gridlock entering Lahaina. The next time some traffic accident closes the highway for an eight-hour period, we’ll have a way to really have an alternate route.

Indeed, with the rate of rise of sea levels, some sort of alternate roadway could easily end up being our only roadway in the not too distant future.

Let’s connect the “Steve Omar Memorial Bypass” to that bit of silliness I’ll refer to as the “Shortcut to Lahainaluna” and really end up with an operational bypass alternative. After 30-plus years, surely we can do better than this.

STEVEN JENISON, Napili