Time to be gateful... er, GRATEFUL!

Happy Thanksgiving! Let's be thankful for the kind people who live on beachside lanes that still allow their neighbors to use their streets to get to the ocean. Can you picture some of those gated-road homeowners at the first Thanksgiving? "Hey, Squanto -- get off our private property! Can't you Indians read? The signs say 'No Trespassing'! Go back where you came from!"

In effect, that is what they are telling locals and Native Hawaiians when they put up gates. So much for being good Christians and good neighbors, eh?

NEWSFLASH: One of my sources tells me Rep. Cynthia Thielen may be introducing a bill to move back the shoreline setback for building on Kailua Beach. If true, that would be great. But why isn't our City Councilwoman Barbara Marshall doing anything about it?

Speaking of more City government dysfunction, remember the yellow 911 beach emergency response signs that were put up in January? The Honolulu Emergency Service Department's Ocean Safety division made a big to-do about how they spent two years putting that together... Then a few months later I noticed Sign 89A at the Kailuana right of way on Kailua Beach was gone.

So I called the Emergency Service Dept. and was told they would look into it right away. Two months later, still no sign. I call back again. The guy tells me it's not their job to check on these signs, or to have them replaced! Turns out the Dept. of Parks is supposed to maintain them. Why didn't the Emergency Service Dept. notify the Parks Dept. then? After that second call, the sign was finally replaced -- just four months after the first one mysteriously vanished.

Thankfully, no one needed to use the emergency location sign while it was missing. But these signs are also helpful because they identify where the few public rights of way are. And the next closest public access to that 89A Kailuana right of way is HALF A MILE DOWN THE BEACH!

Yet Barbara Marshall says Kailua has plenty of public beach access. Really? Take a walk with me along Kalaheo Ave., and I think you'll change your tune real fast.