As taxpayers, customers and parents, what recourse do we have? We've paid taxes to have our children educated for a full school year. UH students are making up their lost time. (Must be important.) Of course, they pay direct fees.

Regular-education and special-needs children cannot afford to miss out on what should have been taught during the strike. Many were behind before the strike started. They can't be expected to learn any faster or come in on weekends.

Do we just roll over and take it? Do we just chalk it up to lost time? I certainly hope not.

I'm thinking seriously of running my children through the same grades again next year. How can they have learned what they were supposed to have learned minus 20 instructional days. If dissatisfied "customers" were all to bring their "product" back for the full service, what would the DOE and BOE do?

Greg Weathers
Kane'ohe

Car can be a deadly weapon against police

The April 23 editorial criticizing the prosecutor's determination that two police officers need not be charged for firing at the driver who was attempting to run the officers over with her car is shortsighted.

As a recent graduate of HPD's Citizens Police Academy, I learned about the department's policy of use of force. A car can be a deadly weapon. I suggest the reporting and editorial staffs take the free 11-week course to gain a more enlightened view of the training that officers undergo and the decisions they must make at a moment's notice.

It is exactly this type of one-sided reporting and editorializing that contributes to the blatant disregard of authority our citizens, including police, security and teachers, must suffer.

Andrea Barnes
'Aiea

It's time to get going on new power line

After reading the observations of Kurt Yeager on April 20 regarding the Kamoku-Pukele power line, can anybody still be against the Wa'ahila Ridge project?

Here's an outsider, a professional in his field of electric power generation, making the point of power redundancy to improve the quality of electric power and improved transmission line capability to be able to shift usage to meet future demands in East Honolulu. And in his opinion, our problems compare with those of California, despite the critics.

It is time to act, rather than reacting and getting caught with our pants down.

Leonard K. Chun

Kaimuki face-lift must include parking

I read with interest the April 23 article concerning the upcoming face-lift for Kaimuki and tend to agree that the main need in the area is parking. Many times I have avoided shopping in Kaimuki due to lack of parking.

Maybe if one takes a bus or walks, shopping is easily accessible, but for those of us who would like to shop on our way home from work, most of the Kaimuki stores are inaccessible. Wider sidewalks may be nice, but more street parking is a necessity.

Tracy Clinger

City must purchase Luana Hills property

I urge all O'ahu residents, not only those from the Windward side, to immediately contact your City Council members and ask them to support the city's proposed budget allocation for the purchase of non-golf course property at Luana Hills Country Club in Maunawili.

Creating a city park on this land would protect one of the last available beautiful scenic areas of O'ahu for use and enjoyment by future generations, as well as ensure there is no further housing development in Maunawili as outlined in the Ko'olau Poko Sustainable Community Plan, which was approved by the city.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to tell your grandchildren that you played a part in protecting this beautiful environment forever?

Carol Ann Ellett
Kailua

Manoa pronunciation battered during strike

Because I favor higher pay for all teachers, I didn't want to say this during the university faculty strike, but perhaps now with the higher pay, UH can attract spokespeople who can at least correctly pronounce Manoa, the name of the beautiful valley in which the main UH campus is located.

It was embarrassing to hear professors and union leaders in televised interviews mispronouncing Manoa, Kapi'olani and other beautiful Hawaiian campus names.

Keith Haugen
UH alumnus

Bicycles, skateboards endanger pedestrians

I would like to add my comments to those who have recently written your paper concerning the bicycles, skateboards and rollerblades on the sidewalks of Waikiki.

Practically every day, I dodge them to keep from getting run down. This is really becoming a major safety hazard for pedestrians.

I believe there is an ordinance against riding these on sidewalks. However, I have yet to observe a police officer stopping anyone and giving a citation, nor making any other effort to ensure safety for pedestrians on our sidewalks.

There are two signs posted along Ala Wai Boulevard prohibiting bicycles, skateboards and rollerblades. I suggest that visible signs be posted on Kalakaua, Ala Moana and Kalia, as well as posting more signs on Ala Wai Boulevard, stating the consequence of this activity.

It is time for the Waikiki police to open their eyes to these dangers and begin issuing citations.

L. D. McAteer

Hundreds at Wake surrender still alive

With all due respect to Benjamin Xanwah Kau and all those who suffered his experiences, Charles Turner's April 20 letter that Kau was "One of the last surviving prisoners of war of the Japanese capture of Wake Island ... " is inaccurate.

One would assume from that statement that only a handful of people who shared Kau's experiences still survive.

In fact, although we'll observe the 60th anniversary of the events that resulted in the surrender of Wake Island this December, the survivors of that battle, all of whom spent the entire war in Japanese POW camps, still number in the hundreds.

There is one organization of defenders, primarily members of Marine Corps ground and aviation forces during the battle, and another group of survivors who were on Wake as civilian construction contractors.

There are also a few Chamorro survivors on Guam who were working at the Pan American hotel in support of the China Clipper flights.

Ron Wheeler
Communications supervisor, Wake Island

Weed & Seed drug sentence appropriate

As reported in the April 14 Advertiser, U.S. District Judge David Ezra sentenced Iupeli Migi on April 13 to a prison term of nearly eight years after a federal jury convicted him of six counts of selling and possessing crack cocaine in A'ala Park, which is within the federal-state Weed & Seed site.

As a result, I read Rob Vaughan's April 24 letter with great interest. Vaughan, of the American Studies Department, University of Hawai'i, cites this as "an excellent example of this country's insane drug policy" and questions whether incarcerating Migi in a federal penitentiary is the "wisest use of taxpayer money."

Ezra considered a number of factors, including Migi's criminal conduct and his prior record, in determining the appropriate sentence. During Migi's sentencing, the assistant U.S. attorney pointed out that since 1996, Migi had been arrested and convicted of five felony drug offenses, all of which occurred within the Downtown-Chinatown area, within the Weed & Seed site, and within the close proximity to playgrounds, public housing and businesses.

The assistant U.S. attorney also pointed out that since 1994, Migi had been arrested and convicted of numerous crimes of threatened and actual violence, including harassment, terroristic threatening, assault and abuse of a household member. During the commission of these offenses, Migi threatened to shoot a security guard, rushed police officers and had to be subdued with pepper spray, punched a police officer in the face, entered an apartment and punched and kicked his girlfriend and assaulted her two children.

Based on Migi's prior convictions, previous terms of probation and incarceration and continued violation of the law, the assistant U.S. attorney characterized Migi as a "chronic violent drug offender" and requested the maximum term of incarceration for the protection of the public, particularly in the Downtown-Chinatown area.

Ezra sentenced Migi at the middle of the applicable guideline range of incarceration. He also sentenced him to drug rehabilitation and treatment while he is incarcerated.

Given Migi's prior record and his apparent refusal or inability to follow the law and avoid victimizing his family and fellow citizens, Ezra's sentence was appropriate and indeed a proper use of taxpayer money. Society will be protected from Migi while he will have the opportunity to address his own substance-abuse problems and hopefully straighten himself out for his return to society several years from now.

Steven S. Alm
United States Attorney

There's no 'vendetta' against Wong

I am responding to your April 20 news article, "Wong charged again with perjury," and your April 21 editorial, "Wong charges are waste of time, money." This letter is my own and not part of any official statement from my office.

I have been a part of the Department of the Attorney General's investigation of the former Bishop Estate trustees since August 1997 and am the lead attorney in the criminal charges that were brought against former Bishop Estate trustees Henry Peters and Richard Wong.

The April 20 article states that the charge brought against Wong by the grand jury was the fifth time a former trustee had been prosecuted by the department. While literally true, it could easily be mistaken to mean that Wong was being prosecuted for the fifth time. It is only later in the story that it becomes clear that Wong has been prosecuted once on theft charges, which are pending a decision from the state Supreme Court, and twice on perjury charges.

What specifically caused me to respond in this instance is the comment in your April 21 editorial that "the state's repeated efforts to get some charge to stick against former Bishop Estate trustee Richard 'Dickie' Wong are beginning to smell like a vendetta." Prior to the printing of your editorial, our office provided one of your staff reporters copies of orders issued by the court in the original set of perjury charges brought against Wong. In particular, the order, which was filed on Dec. 29, indicated, in pertinent part, that, " ... Nor did the Attorney General misuse the criminal process to bolster the civil surcharge action brought by the former trustees of KSBE (Kamehameha Schools-Bishop Estate).

"There was no evidence to show that either the previous indictment (theft indictment) or the present indictment (original perjury charges) brought against Defendant Wong was improperly motivated. ..."

How then does a second presentation of the same perjury charges that were found not to be improperly motivated suddenly "begin to smell like a vendetta"?

Jurors are always told to keep an open mind and to listen to all the evidence in a case before making their own decision on a case. I know of no better approach with which to view the charges that are pending against Richard Wong.

The merits of the cases pending against him have not yet been decided. There should be an open mind kept until then. Wong is not the only party who is entitled to a fair trial. So is the prosecution.

Lawrence A. Goya