Letters to the Editor
HPD also must obey the laws of privacy
This is in response to your June 21 editorial ("When men in blue step into the gray") urging more openness from the Honolulu Police Department about administrative and criminal investigations of police officers. Please let your readers know the truth: We follow the rules.
Like all public agencies, the HPD must adhere to numerous (and sometimes competing) laws that address privacy and openness. When information is requested by the media or anyone else, we release it if we can legally do so. Otherwise, we do not.
To imply that the HPD could legally do more if it wished to is inaccurate and misleading.
Lee D. Donohue
Chief of Police, City & County of Honolulu
Tax on food is truly an oppressive tax
The July 3 letter calling the estate tax oppressive overlooked the worst tax in our state, which is the 4.16 percent tax on groceries.
This truly regressive tax on food, a necessity, hits the lowest-income families the hardest and hits the highest incomes the least. In other words, it is not based on ability to pay the tax, nor on choice, such as a luxury tax, but on the food we all need, rich or poor. This is oppressive.
As for the estate tax, the letter writer is apparently ignorant of the history and background of such a tax. In a democracy, we try to place some controls on inheritance of great wealth in an attempt to prevent the rich from getting richer through no personal effort. We broke away from the English system, trying over the years to use taxation to strengthen our democratic system.
The estate tax can be modified to benefit middle-class taxpayers without throwing away the basic concept, but the unfair food tax must be abolished.
Corrine Goldstick
Hawaiians suffering while trustees bicker
I am appalled by the childish actions of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees, in particular the attitudes of trustees Linda Dela Cruz, Clayton Hee and Charles Ota.
As these trustees bicker among each other, OHA's beneficiaries are still falling through the system of this American society my kupuna never asked to have.
Solutions to problems cannot be addressed when opprobrious attitudes are used in board meetings. We need new trustees to replace these trustees who flaunt their verbal filth on TV and in other media. That is why I supported Lehua Gibson, Vicky Holt-Takamine and Hannah Springer.
Adrian Kamalii
State's bureaucracy rears its ugly head
Of all the ridiculous bureaucratic nonsense I've ever beheld, nothing can compare to the state Department of Health's stance toward hallways at Lunalilo Home.
Why were the rules not made clear before the renovations were undertaken?
Here is just one more example of how the State of Hawai'i's bureaucracy defies good sense and logic.
If we have a care home that cannot accept wheelchair patients, then we're going to have an empty care home. Then what would happen to Lunalilo Home? Would the trustees have to then sell the home because it can no longer serve our Hawaiian elders?
Robin Williams Makapagal
Kane'ohe
Whole-coast approach is needed for Ka Iwi
The state and city should take a whole-coast approach to the Ka Iwi coastline.
The state presentation I heard recently at the Hawai'i Kai Neighborhood Board was certainly not reassuring. It was bad enough that the state's plan jammed parking for almost 500 people into the purchase land up near Makapu'u Lookout. Safe provisions must be developed for lookout viewers and hikers, but the state approach requires serious revision.
What concerned me most was that its plan only dealt with the recently purchased land. Instead, planners should be addressing the entire coast, from Sandy Beach Park through Wawamalu Beach and on through the purchase land: the big picture.
That Wawamalu Beach is owned (and ignored) by the city is even more reason for there to be a coordinated plan and treatment for the entire Ka Iwi Coast. Just because it makes the matter more complicated for the state to sit down with the city doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.
The situation at Wawamalu Beach is atrocious. Cars, SUVs and trucks are driving on the beach and crashing right through the dunes over the naupaka. There is litter everywhere, from car parts and tires to beverage containers and dumped trash.
William Reese Liggett
