Letters to the Editor

THE NORTH SHORE HAS SUFFERED
The region that surrounds the Turtle Bay area is not what must be considered when determining the environmental impact of building in that area. What it does to Hawaii’s surfing community is indirect. Building in that area will certainly have the effect on North Shore development as what occurred on Maui when Kaanapali was developed. Having surfed Honolua Bay when it was relatively uncrowded I will have to say that Honolua suffered serious overcrowding with Kaanapali’s overdevelopment. Honolua has become Maui’s Malibu. Reef and vauna helped keep the crowd down until everyone wore leashes. The depth of that tragedy is only appreciated by those who knew what it was about before it was lost to the crowd. The North Shore has suffered from overpromotion for decades. The money grubbers have been selling its’ soul for far too long. The reason that secret and sacred are such similar terms is because they derive from a synonymous definition. There are no tour buses in a surfing Paradise. Hotels, whether legal or illegal, just aren’t a part of the equation. Paradise Lost has tour buses, hotels, vacation rentals, is overpriced and there are way too many kooks with surfboards. To get some waves to yourself you have to enter the annual winter air mattress and rubber dicky contests. Contestants stay tethered to leashes and you have to wonder who knows how to swim. Those tour buses are going to need even more sophisticated parking facilities when the promotional machine enters second gear. Wouldn’t it be smarter to have the State purchase the Turtle Bay property and have UH use it for research and development of wave energy. Converting swells into electrical energy has already been done elsewhere. Providing wave energy to Hawaii’s homes and industries has far reaching potential. It could certainly curtail some of Hawaii’s present tourism dependence. Hawaii could easily become the leader in such development. I would suggest that such energy production could provide substantial revenues for the State if the State owned the facilities.

TURTLE BAY - WE NEED TO WORK TO SAVE PART OF HAWAI'I
When I heard Gov. Linda Lingle's proposal to purchase the Turtle Bay property, a quote I used to have on my refrigerator came to mind. It read, "Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men's blood. Make big plans, aim high, and WORK." Here was a big plan and it stirred my blood. My only disappointment, and it probably shows my political naivete, was that the plan did not seem to stir everyone's blood the way it did mine. If the property is available for purchase, we should not care who gets the credit for the vision of acquiring it. We should not care whether it is consistent or not with some past environmental decisions by Gov. Lingle — because on this one she is right. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to save a piece of vanishing Hawai'i. Rectifying a bad planning mistake of 20 years ago comes with a price. What is the price? I do not know. What I do know is that the price of not acquiring it will be much steeper. Let's aim high and work. There are many creative ways to bring together dollars, but there will never be a way to restore to future generations lost beauty that rightfully should have been theirs.
Ursula Retherford - Kailua

< Back | Next >