07-19-2010, 07:47 AM
quote:
Originally posted by StillHope
I heard about electric poles.It was 20-25 years ago.Was the whole Puna wild west then?
The dispute about electrical poles in the 1990s focused mostly on the electrification of Seaview, Kehena and another nearby subdivision, Puna Palisades, I believe. While there were some who didn't want to see that kind of progress at all, most of the resistance centered on some residents' insistence that the wires be put underground so they wouldn't mar the view. HELCO, however, maintained that it would have been way too costly since that would have required digging almost entirely into rock. Since the utility was footing the bill, it prevailed and poles were used.
For some wilder stuff, you have the efforts beginning about 40 years ago to put telephone and electrical poles into some of the upper Puna subdivisions, particularly Fern Forest. There were a number of occasions there where pole crews heard what they took to be warning gunshots as they made their way into the subdivision. When I lived in FF in the mid-1970s it was not unusual to see bullet holes in all types of signage.
Regarding lower Puna, there was the time (in the late 1970s or early '80s, I believe) when someone fired a few gunshots one night into the entrance of what is now the Pahoa Village Cafe (I think it was called the Pahoa Inn at the time). Such incidents were rather isolated but are what helped earn Puna its "Wild West" image.
And in the vein of rebellious residents, there were the more recent efforts by a small group that fought the county's plans to repave Highway 137 with black asphalt, saying that they wanted to "keep the Red Road red." But that's a story for another day ....
***Edited to change Highway 130 to Highway 137. While the former is the Kalapana Highway, the latter is of course the famed coastal Red Road, which earned its name from the original red cinder paving***