Letters to the Editor
New rule on surfing could pose dilemma
If the Board of Education rules
school "surf clubs" are OK,
then surfing will be taught
at public school every day.
This could pose a problem,
which will confuse quite a few,
who, when hearing "Surf's up!"
won't know what to do.
Will waveriders who play hooky
and want to be cool,
turn their backs on the ocean,
and sneak off to school?
Art Freedman
Different divisions matched teams better
Damien shouldn't forfeit its football games with St. Louis.
All of the ILH schools have students from around the state. We know one thing for a fact: St. Louis gets students specifically because they want to play football. But with the ILH playing each other, and when there were red, white and blue divisions for the OIA, the teams were very well matched, but in the end the Big Dogs (Wai'anae, Kahuku, St. Louis and Kamehameha) met in the Prep Bowl.
I agree that if guys from Kahuku or Wai'anae went to those schools instead of St. Louis or Kamehameha, those teams would be tougher, but even without them, those teams are still tough.
The reason for the red, white and blue divisions was so the weaker teams played each other. But of course when they went to the playoffs, they either got killed or won a hard-fought battle ('Aiea vs. Leilehua 1992-93 season, for example; Roosevelt won against a red team as well that year).
Damien should play the game of "David and Goliath." I agree with the ex-Damien middle linebacker who now plays for UH. You don't know how good you are until you play somebody better.
Randon Roman
Friday games won't work for many of us
As UH football season ticket holders, my husband and I have been disturbed by the fact that the University of Hawai'i would even think of changing any of its home games to a Friday night.
Has UH considered the fact that loyal fans work for a living? Most will still be at work at 4 p.m. on a Friday.
Also, can you imagine the traffic scene around Aloha Stadium at 4 p.m. on a Friday with rush-hour traffic? What a nightmare.
We certainly hope the university will want to refund money to season ticket holders. We will certainly want our money back.
Get it together, guys, and let the loyal fans decide. After all, the loyal fans are the backbone of the UH football program.
C. Makalena
Will natives now get their land returned?
In these pages, I have now been told that a U.S. senator is following the lead of a royalist missionary trust and that so should the rest of us.
Sen. Akaka said, " ... We must fulfill the king's legacy of unification."
Does this mean that this $6 billion-plus Protestant missionary trust is going to give back to my Kalaeloa clan and other native families our land that Mr. Bishop wrongfully took in the mahele? This would be unity.
I have read that a state Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee represents that the state will give itself revenues of "a portion of our own ceded lands" through this Akaka Bill. Does this mean OHA, the same state agency whose election process was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court because it discriminates against non-"Hawaiians," will now shed its old state skin and emerge as a "federal" Office of Hawaiian Affairs?
Or, that the state will "give" this new OHA some percentage of the revenues of the public lands to replace the state's legally shaky, collusive "settlement"?
Does this mean the state's debt to the natives will be flim-flammed away? Had the state done as Congress originally intended, the natives would be today at least as wealthy as the Protestant royalist missionary trust that arrogantly expects Congress to make it "native" now, using the Akaka Bill. Will the state return directly to the original families our land, while it gives a federal OHA revenue for these same lands that it leases out?
This Akaka Bill, as written, only serves to add more confusion and guarantee decades more of litigation. It is not the justice our great American nation is known for.
Maui Loa
Hereditary Chief Kalaeloa Kalakaua Lono Makahiki Ehu Hou Lahuiohana
President, Sovereign Nation of Hawaii Inc.
Stand-by electricity rate is appropriate
Rep. Hermina Morita's June 19 Island Voices commentary about HELCO's stand-by electric rate is perplexing.
Certainly, if large commercial businesses find an economical option for obtaining their power, they are free to pursue it. If, however, they want to get electricity from the grid as a back-up whenever their own generation is unavailable, is Morita suggesting they should have that insurance for free?
We'd all love to have an insurance policy we pay for only when we have an emergency and have to use it.But that's not the way it works.
Similarly with an electrical system, in order to ensure all customers can be served, the utility must have the facilities generation and transmission in place to meet that need whenever called upon. It makes sense that the customers asking for the insurance of backup power pay part of the costs incurred to provide them that guarantee of power rather than requiring other ratepayers to foot the bill.
The PUC, with concurrence from the consumer advocate, who represents the interests of all customers, understands this logic and recently granted HELCO the ability to charge the stand-by rate, if needed.
Further, to support the growth of renewable energy for our state, HELCO also made it a point of exempting renewable energy generation from the stand-by rate. So you have a rate that doesn't hurt renewable energy development and protects residential and small-business customers. What's unfair about that?
In her opinion piece, Morita also criticized HECO for being a "rule-following" institution. We'll accept that.When it comes to making sure that power is available fairly for everyone, rules are important.
Fred Kobashikawa
Hawaiian Electric Co.
Aloha Tower parking lot coverage was in error
The Aloha Tower Development Corporation (ATDC) seeks to make the Aloha Tower Marketplace and surrounding area a better place, a gathering place for all of Hawai'i's people. It is the ATDC's obligation to consider many options to improve and enhance the area.
There has recently been much media coverage about the future of Irwin Memorial Park that has included serious misinformation.
First, several media reports speculated that the ATDC has plans to build a five-story parking garage at Irwin Park. This is simply untrue. There has never been any such plan for a five-story structure. The ATDC's own development rules set a height restriction of 30 feet for the Irwin Park site.
The last plan that the ATDC considered for this area was to build an underground parking structure that would be one story high on half the park, and the site would be completely covered with grass, trees and an amphitheater. That plan was not implemented and the ATDC is not currently considering any plans for the site. Instead, the ATDC is simply trying to remove a deed restriction, which was waived and released many years ago.
Second, it was implied in the reports that Helen Irwin Fagan had donated the entire 2 1/2-acre site. This also is untrue. Mrs. Fagan donated 24,300 square feet, or approximately half an acre of the entire Irwin Park site, before waiving and releasing the territory from any conditions on the use of the site. The rest of the site had been owned by the territory.
Ronald N. Hirano
Executive Director, Aloha Tower Development Corporation
Telecommuting would solve snarl problems
In October 1993, Advertiser reporter Vicki Viotti wrote a feature on my service business, Work Options, which helps individuals successfully negotiate telecommuting and other flexible work arrangements at their current job, and which I continue today.
With the King Street snarl about to begin, it's time to be reminded that there are thousands of service professionals whose "knowledge work" can be productively done from a home office one to three days per workweek.
I invite O'ahu's working folks to explore the resources at WorkOptions.com/ and telecommutingproposal.com/ to help them to get their boss to say "yes" to telecommuting. It's time to get off the road and save gas, time and frustration. Telecommuting from home can be part of the solution for thousands of O'ahu employees.
Pat Katepoo
Freeway tie-up wasn't handled very well
The most recent freeway closure was an example of public dollars wasted. A man jumps from an overpass. Eleven police officers, three fire rescue trucks with full crews and two ambulances respond.
Why so many?
Emergency vehicles blocked traffic both 'ewa and diamondhead-bound. Lane closures caused traffic jams, which caused road rage and other accidents.
Why close traffic lanes unnecessarily? There is a better way.
David Joslin
Outlaw, drag racing are different animals
It could come to somebody's attention that drag racing is not associated with the World of Outlaws. Outlaw racing is on an oval dirt track and drag racing is a quarter-mile straight line.
Please let your editor in on this. I've seen this listed on the sports page for what's on TV for about three weeks. Please pay more attention.
Hal Clark
2001 graduates got a wonderful sendoff
On behalf of the Committee of Moanalua High School PTSA, Project Graduation 2001, we would like to continue to wish all the 2001 graduates our best wishes as they step into the next chapter of their lives.
Over half of the graduating class enjoyed a fantastic all-night event that took a year and a half in fund-raising and planning. We appreciate the hard work of the volunteers who made this event such a wonderful, successful celebration that was safe for our graduates and safe for our community.
We say thank-you to all the parents and teachers and staff who cheerfully volunteered throughout the year and who chaperoned that night. We are so very appreciative to our local community and business partners who have supported us with money, door prizes, food and beverages, transportation and goodie bag donations, which made the evening extra special. We couldn't have done it without you.
We now pass the torch to the next year's class with a sigh of gratitude that our job is done and hope that next year's celebration is also wonderful.
Susan Scott
Corresponding secretary, Moanalua High School PTSA, Project Grad 2001
Focus on morality, not age of consent
I support the governor's decision to veto the age-of-consent bill, although I'm not sure of the motive behind it. Why is it that so many actually believe that raising the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16 is going to solve a problem?
Let's consider for a moment the real problem. The youth in our schools have been counseled that there are no moral absolutes. Instead, what's moral or immoral is a matter of personal opinion. So-called sex-education classes are simply indoctrination that undermines family and church strictures against premarital sex. Lessons of abstinence are considered passe and replaced with lessons about condoms, birth-control pills and abortions. Therefore, the undermining of parental authority came with legal and extra-legal measures to assist teenage abortions with neither parental knowledge nor consent.
Who is teaching and encouraging these things? Adults.
Parental teachings, traditions, morality and godly examples, not laws and government regulations, are what makes for a civilized society. The importance of morality is that people behave themselves even if nobody's watching. It appears that the theory behind raising the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16 is to protect our youth from amoral adults. But if our youth are actually consenting to have sex at the age of 14 with an adult, why are we so surprised? Where did they learn it was OK? From educators and lawmakers who see such things as abstinence as demeaning and valueless.
So now we're paying the price and lawmakers want to fix it all by raising the age of consent.
Let me offer an alternative: Let's try raising the standard of morality and traditional values our grandparents and great-grandparents had. And let's start with us. Then our youth will have good examples to pattern their own lives after.
Rich Wilbur
Write, if you find work
I would like to contribute my $300 IRS rebate to the makeellengoodmangoaway.org/ Web site. That's the kind of social change I'd like to see. Who knows? Maybe I can make a difference.
Jane Kirby
Kailua
