Letters to the Editor
Feeling of community should be shared
Feeling community is something we in Hawai'i experience time and again. When Angela became Miss America, when Benny brought the Mets into the World Series, when the Ehime Maru sank, when the Black Hawks crashed and when June Jones had his auto accident, the majority of us shared the same emotions of gladness or sorrow.
This is a very good thing when we become one as a community.
Some years ago when a massive hurricane was approaching O'ahu and was to our immediate east, collectively we prayed and the storm turned north. We all felt good about it. The same thing with Coach Jones. At the first news that his condition was upgraded from critical to guarded, we all felt good about it and thankful tears fell.
I cannot understand why this feeling of community cannot manifest itself with aloha for Hawaiians and overcome the anxiety of supporting the determined and sincere effort of Hawaiian people to reclaim what is rightfully and legally theirs so they can pursue their own happiness, obtain greater prosperity and secure a brighter future for their posterity.
To me the essence of aloha is sharing.
Michael Akin
Hale'iwa
There was no need to revoke health benefits
Among my colleagues and friends at the University of Hawai'i, there are three couples facing extraordinary situations.
One of them just found out the joyous news that they are soon-to-be parents. Another has a 9-year-old daughter with a fractured arm in a cast, needing constant treatment. And a third couple's 1-year-old needs continuous care and repeated visits to the pediatrician due to health complications.
I don't know how many hundreds, if not thousands, of my colleagues in UHPA and HSTA are faced with similar situations — elderly parents, sick children, ailing spouses, themselves — needing urgent medical care. I can only imagine the anxiety and tension that fills their lives right now as Gov. Cayetano has, in effect, revoked our health benefits, claiming that the strikes are "unauthorized" — though we have played it by the book at every step.
After these strikes are over, we all have to continue to live, work and interact with each other as a community. The aloha with which we do so depends crucially on how we conduct ourselves at this time.
Irrespective of how and when these strikes end, I know one thing for sure: My own enduring memory of these days will be the speeches and actions of a governor who respects the educators of his state so little, who treats them with such utter contempt, that he would do such a thing.
Sankaran Krishna
Teachers are striking over students' future
Regarding Lloyd Y.S. Kim's April 7 letter: I'm amazed. I'm normally patient and calm, but when I read that we teachers aren't "truly concerned for our students" by striking, I just couldn't help but respond.
The reason I am striking is precisely because I am concerned for our public school students in Hawai'i. The future of our children's education depends on attracting high-caliber teachers to our state. If we don't get our teachers pay raises, who in their right mind will want to enter the teaching profession here?
Teachers must be treated fairly, or our problem of getting qualified teachers will only get worse.
Teachers love their jobs. We all want to be teaching. Settle now so we can.
Jan Olson
Third-grade teacher, Sunset Beach Elementary School
How can governor put students on hold?
Gov. Cayetano has money for UH scholarships and a park to be built on a golf course. He has money to give a raise to department heads, making their salary $90,000. He has plans to build an aquarium.
How does he sleep at night knowing that the future, the students of Hawai'i, have been put on hold?
Dayna Wong
9th grader, Mililani High School
Hirono should not have visited picket lines
After reading The Advertiser's April 5 online edition, I was shocked to read about our Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono basically showing up her own boss by visiting the picket lines in support of the HSTA and UHPA.
That was a very classless move by such a dignified lady who is very well liked in the community.
She goes on to say that there is nothing political about her appearance on the picket line, yet she will run for governor in 2002.
Frankly, I don't think the public will be fooled by her candor, but rather will view her as a traitor who played two sides of the fence.
D. Castillo
Teachers should go back to schools
We should not have to pay additional taxes to pay for a teachers' pay increase.
It is hard to understand how the teachers are so intent on a 22 percent pay increase, knowing this could be at the expense of better facilities, instructional aids and reading materials.
How many teachers would be willing to leave Mainland schools or more secure jobs to teach in schools that do not have a learning environment conducive to teaching children?
Teachers should go back to work and finish the job they started and talk money in the summer when everyone has time to deal with it.
D. Elmore
Love of teaching doesn't pay bills
I am a student, a lecturer and a non-credit instructor at Honolulu Community College, so I see the system from all angles.
Each one of my instructors would be valued at over $70,000 per year in the private sector. I have a hard time believing we can keep these high-quality instructors if we don't pay them competitively.
This is my first semester lecturing within the University of Hawai'i system. I love teaching and that is the only reason I teach. I am presented with offers well over $50,000 per year to work for private companies. It will get harder and harder for me to turn down these offers.
I love teaching, but love does not pay the bills.
Utkal K. Pandya
California's problems have no parallel here
Phillip Hauret advocates putting in the Wa'ahila Ridge power line because of "the situation that now affects California" (Letters, March 29).
I keep seeing references to the California power crisis, as if there but for the grace of God go we. There is nothing whatsoever here comparable to the electric power situation in California, nor will there be in the foreseeable future.
Years ago, California chose to acquire its power growth from cheap Pacific Northwest hydro power over the external grid rather than building local generating facilities running on fossil fuels, which cost more than hydro until recently. The external grid is now holding California hostage by charging large wholesale rates in a deregulation environment. We in Hawai'i of course have no external grid, and we have ample generating facilities operating or planned for the foreseeable future.
California enacted an idiotic law whereby the electric utilities were not allowed to pass along their extra costs of providing electricity to the ratepayers. The utilities, caught in the squeeze, are therefore near bankruptcy and power is being withheld by external suppliers because of the utilities not paying them. Thus, the shortages.
In Hawai'i, Hawaiian Electric is allowed to pass 100 percent of any increase in the cost of generation to the ratepayers. There are no shortages now or in the foreseeable future. HECO is in excellent financial shape.
The Wa'ahila Ridge power line would be only a backup to a backup, at a cost of over $30 million, and is not intended to provide new power. It would have prevented only 40 minutes of regional power failure over the last 30 years. We don't need it, and California is not our problem. Shortsighted HECO thinking is.
Jim Harwood
U.S. has nothing to apologize for
I knew The Advertiser was always anti-Bush, but the March 6 editorial is just too much. Quote: "A pugnacious refusal to apologize, a sophomoric assertion of the plane's 'sovereignty,' and a demand for the immediate return of the plane and crew." Pugnacious? Sophomoric? Give me a break.
Also, considering the Chinese created the whole mess in the first place and could have easily and quickly returned the crew, why again should America apologize?
I guess the diplomats sitting on The Advertiser's editorial board would rather kowtow (pun intended) to China than see American interests — the return of the crew and plane — satisfied.
If it were a contingent of American journalists being held by the Chinese, I suppose you would call for a commission as well. Right?
James Ko
Bicyclists also have to obey traffic laws
To the arrogant, inconsiderate, unsafe and "I'm helping the environment" bicyclists: Get used to motor vehicles of all sizes because they're here to stay. Quit crying and learn to ride safely and defensively.
Bicyclists are, I agree, entitled to use the roadways just as cars, trucks and "giant gas-guzzling dinosaur SUVs" are. However, if bicyclists want to use the vehicular traffic lane, then the laws that apply to the safe operation of a motor vehicle on a public road should also apply to a bike rider using that same road.
Just because a bicyclist sticks his arm out to show he intends to enter another lane does not automatically mean it's safe to do so. Bikers should look before they go. Car drivers do it, and so should bikers.
When lines of cars are stopped at a red light, what gives bikers the right to squeeze between the lanes to get up to the front of the line? Is it because they fit, so that makes it OK? My car probably fits in the bike lane. How about if I use the bike lane to get up to the front of the line of cars at a red light? I know I'll be first because if there was a biker there, he already went through the red light. Since when do red lights only apply to motor vehicles?
When there is a bike lane, why not ride in that lane rather than right on the white line? Don't you know that when you tweak out into the next lane, it causes a chain reaction of motorists slamming on their brakes trying to avoid killing you?
John H. Mayer
Hawai'i Kai
Sex treatment facility belongs at Kahi Mohala
As chairman of the state House Health Committee, I must respectfully disagree with your March 29 editorial that states the Juvenile Sex Offender Program should remain at the Waimano Home facility.
In our committee site study, our starting premise was that moving the program should not require additional costs and it would consider the best treatment milieu for the population of youthful sex offenders.
Our study revealed that the decision to build the facility was made in haste because of the Felix Consent Decree. It resulted in the expenditure of $1.6 million for facility construction plus an additional $600,000 for the security fencing. Add the $1.8 million for the contract with the present service provider, and we end up spending $4 million to service the current population of six patients.
This is the kind of spending that represents the reason for consent decree expenditures spiraling out of sight.
If the Department of Health had originally contracted with Kahi Mohala, it would have cost the state a lot less since a new facility would not have to be built. It is also in the best interest of the state to develop locally based programs rather than contracting with Mainland firms.
Finally, in terms of the facility itself, the committee feels that Kahi Mohala provides the opportunity for treatment in the least restrictive environment, which is important when you consider that the goal of treatment for these adolescents is to eventually return them to their homes and communities.
Since moving the program to Kahi Mohala immediately would involve added cost, the committee recommended instead that the department negotiate for services with Kahi Mohala when the current contract expires. The director, Bruce Anderson, promised that there will be an open, competitive bidding process for the juvenile sex offender treatment services at the end of the current contract next June.
The committee feels confident that the process will result in the program being moved to Kahi Mohala next July.
Rep. Dennis Arakaki
