I am compelled to respond to the May 15 commentary, "Keeping it country can mean keep out."
Twenty years ago, the decision-making government agencies focused on the plantation workers and the unions and ignored the input of the community at large. The latter, in a survey conducted five years earlier by SMS Research, clearly supported the preservation of the rural nature and lifestyle of the Ko'olauloa area.
The communities of Hau'ula, Punalu'u and Ka'a'awa as well as Keep the Country Country Inc., a citizens group for sensible growth, presented arguments warning of negative social and cultural impacts of large resort development on the North Shore of O'ahu.
They also cautioned that such development would have serious effects on the two-lane Kamehameha Highway from Kahuku to Kahalu'u and Kahuku to Hale'iwa. They were concerned about impacts on the water supply, on the shoreline and on educational, health, police, fire and emergency services. They were concerned not only for Kahuku but for all the communities from Kahalu'u through the North Shore.
Today, the lifestyle of not only our "new friends and neighbors" but of our families in Ko'olauloa who go back many generations is being threatened. The monetary value placed on real estate is making it more difficult for our people to remain here.
Other developments on Maui, Hawai'i and Kaua'i have been displacing the people of those lands. These areas have new communities with replacement populations.
We should not let this happen in Ko'olauloa.
Creighton Ualani Mattoon Sr.
President, Punalu'u Community Association
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