Letters to the Editor
Tax relief opinion had inaccuracies
I am writing to response to your Oct. 26 editorial "To do good, tax relief must be fair, sensible."
It is unfortunate and surprising that The Advertiser would include certain factual inaccuracies, addressed below, in support of its conclusions. While we understand that different opinions will exist, all conclusions must be based on accurate facts.
In regard to the Seaside at Kapolei project, which The Advertiser recently reported has been put on hold, your editorial mistakenly assumes that this $500 million project was part of the Ko Olina Resort & Marina and would be entitled to the 10 percent hotel tax credit. This is not true.
First, Seaside at Kapolei is not a hotel or resort project, but a moderately priced residential and golf course development. Therefore, it could not qualify for the 10 percent tax credit.
Furthermore, even if the Seaside at Kapolei project had remained on schedule, construction work would not be started, at best, for another three years since the land is currently zoned for agriculture. Therefore, this project would have not qualified for even the modest 4 percent tax credit for residential construction because of the bill's July 1, 2002, deadline for incurring residential construction costs.
The second significant factual inaccuracy revolves around your statement "Could the same $80 million or so be better used, say, in upgrading public school classrooms ... ?" This statement is, at best, misleading and inflammatory. This is a tax credit against future state income tax liability, and not a payment by the state of money it could use otherwise. The money doesn't exist; therefore, there is no use of public money.
Jeffrey R. Stone
New medical school facility isn't justified
How in the world can the Legislature justify approving a new medical research facility during the special session, which is supposed to address urgent problems, not the wish list of the University of Hawai'i?
Could it be that the small group of academics, developers and politicians who want to build the facility are trying to avert close public scrutiny of the project, using the phony excuse of "emergency" to ram it through the session?
Thanks to people like Sen. Dan Inouye, former medical school dean Terry Rogers and many others, the Burns School of Medicine has done a great job for Hawai'i. If the existing building is in bad shape, the Legislature should fund renovation or even a new building on campus. But the notion of creating biotech and cancer research facilities is another thing entirely and ought to be carefully discussed and debated in public.
The Advertiser has called for a Marshall Plan for K-12 public education. Shouldn't that be our first priority in education, not a research project that will create jobs for a relatively few people and at unknown cost to the taxpayers?
Webster Nolan
Hawai'i should host world's fair in 2004
Hawai'i is clearly in trouble and in need of bold, imaginative leadership with a workable plan to invigorate our stale visitor industry. Numerous public meetings and legislative head thumpings have produced some good ideas and some zany ones.
Here is a bold proposal for use of some of the millions the state is prepared to spend to prime the economic pump: Hawai'i should have a world's fair.
The state should immediately announce that in 2004, Hawai'i will welcome any nation wishing to display its wares, demonstrate its inventiveness or show its art, science and cultural achievements to the world. Each island could host part of the fair.
There would be no more suitable place than Hawai'i for the coming together of nations from every continent. Hawai'i has dependable weather, ample accommodations and a visitor industry just aching to show our aloha spirit.
So far, the 21st century has not been very pleasant. A terrible schism is fracturing the human family. Perhaps the theme for a world's fair in Hawai'i might be "The Family of Man in Harmony."
Harmony is a beautiful word. Hawai'i is a beautiful place. Together they would bring benefits to everyone and energize our visitor industry as well as our nation.
Jack Harter
Kilauea
One-house Legislature, tax change would help
I have two suggestions for our legislators that could save the state millions of dollars:
• Make the Legislature unicameral, as is Nebraska.
• Simplify our individual income tax returns. Simply have the taxpayer submit a copy of his federal tax return, with a one-page cover form, calculating a straight percentage of his federal amount due as the state obligation. This would be a blessing to the poor taxpayer (use whichever meaning of that you prefer), by making the tax-paying chore less time-consuming and cumbersome.
It seems logical that it would require a lot fewer warm bodies in the tax office to process the simplified returns. I have read of at least one other state that uses this system.
Chriss Heyd
California survived eatery smoking ban
I've read with interest the articles and letters on a possible smoking ban in restaurants.
Prior to moving to Hawai'i seven years ago, my husband and I lived in California. We go back a couple of times a year to visit family, both in the Bay Area and in Los Angeles. California has banned smoking in office buildings, restaurants and bars for several years, and the overall business is better than ever for restaurants and bars.
Some Californians and visitors still grumble about the change, but most, including most restaurant and bar owners and even most smokers, admit that it was a change for the better.
I think Hawai'i's business people would find that they, too, will benefit from a change to a no-smoking environment.
Sherry Bracken
Kailua-Kona
Trask wish fulfilled
It hasn't been too long ago that I saw Mililani Trask and her followers posting signs and handing out flyers in Kapi'olani Park admonishing the tourists to go home and stay there. They should be elated now that the tourists are staying away by the thousands.
Robert W. Foote
State should focus on people, small business
I am ashamed of the leaders I helped to vote into office. I am not only referring to the governor. I am referring to the legislators also.
During a time when the people need to be the first priority, businesses are getting the first look, as usual. Thousands of jobs were lost recently and many more are to come. The people are becoming weaker and weaker because no one is helping them.
Residents need tax breaks before tax breaks can be considered for businesses. Without the residents, who supports the businesses? What about the city cutting residential property taxes and asking those who own or manage property rentals to keep the cost of rentals down?
I understand that revitalizing our economy requires new business, but instead of trying to bring businesses to Hawai'i, why not invest in the small businesses that are already here and established? Why not invest in those wanting to start their own business? It seems that the State of Hawai'i desperately wants to invest in future opportunities, but has no interest in trying to invest in the people of the state.
The state could offer businesses a break by expanding the State Health Insurance Program and taking that burden off employers.
If the state could find a way to ease the burdens of small businesses, small businesses could continue to operate; if small businesses continue to operate, they can grow and diversify.
M.S. Pata
Money better spent
One cannot underestimate the loss of life on the Ehime Maru and the desire of family members to give them proper burial. But perhaps a better memorial would have been to use the $60 million it cost to recover their bodies to build a beautiful, modern technical high school dedicated to the study of the sea and foreign languages in memorial to those who gave up their lives in this tragic accident.
James Curtice
Kailua
Hawai'i Kai speeders endanger many of us
I am upset by the residents of Hawai'i Kai who routinely speed on Lunalilo Home Road. Above the last light, at Hawai'i Kai Drive, the speed limit is 25 mph. Children, joggers and walkers are continually endangered by the impatient, aggressive driving.
Walking my dog each morning and evening, I have observed that most drivers go 40 to 45 mph (sometimes more), whip around left-turners and seem totally oblivious to others attempting to cross or enter the road. I don't think I have ever seen anyone going the speed limit. I know many are parents, as I see child car seats in the vehicles. I can only wonder what they are thinking.
Mahalo to the city for trying to plan some traffic-calming landscaping, but I don't think trees are going to make much difference in the near future. I would respectfully suggest stop signs at Wainiha and Maniniholo would be more effective, much less costly and might reduce the road-racing impulses that seem to prevail on a long, uninterrupted stretch of roadway.
Rene Garvin
Hawai'i Kai
Why haven't gasoline prices plunged here?
I recently heard on National Public Radio a news feature that Mainland gas prices have dropped an average of 26 cents per gallon since September, with some prices in Midwest states dropping by over 40 cents.
How much have Hawai'i gas prices dropped? Three cents? Four cents? Maybe a whole nickel?
And the local fuel companies say there is no price gouging? What do they take us for, fools?
As Hamlet said, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
Pete Wokoun
'Ewa Beach
State failed on special education benchmarks
We appreciate the Oct. 15 letter from special education teacher Rebecca Rosenberg in which she differentiates the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) from the court's mandate in Felix vs. Cayetano.
It is true, as Rosenberg notes, that certain performance requirements or benchmarks imposed on the state are not specifically addressed by IDEA; however, those benchmarks are all based on previous agreements among the parties and ordered by the court.
In the Felix Consent Decree, issued in 1994, the state agreed and was ordered to construct a system of care that complies with IDEA and was given until June 30, 2000, to complete the process. To monitor the state's progress, the parties agreed to certain intermediate benchmarks with the court's approval. Unfortunately, the state failed to comply with benchmarks on several occasions and with the June 2000 deadline, resulting in the state being held in contempt of court.
To the extent that any of the current benchmarks may not specifically be authorized by IDEA and may impose additional obligations on the state, it is because of the state's prolonged violations of IDEA — affecting past generations of children — and its recent failures to comply with the consent decree by which it promised to deliver all necessary and appropriate services to children by June 30, 2000. Additionally, the court is concerned about the state's commitment to continue to provide services in accordance with IDEA after the Felix litigation is concluded.
Thus, for example, we are seeking assurances that the reading capabilities of special education students — which were literally ignored for many years — will continue to be a priority even though IDEA may not specifically speak to the process by which that will be accomplished; we are concerned that the medical requirements of special education students will be addressed in their schools as required by the U.S. Supreme Court (if not specifically by IDEA); and, of course, we want assurances that after Felix, well-trained and capable teachers, aides, speech pathologists and mental health professionals will continue to be hired in sufficient numbers to meet the needs of children who qualify for their services under IDEA and other federal laws.
None of this would have been necessary if the state had been complying with IDEA all along — not the lawsuit, not the consent decree, not the judicial monitoring process or any of the benchmarks. Because the state was held in contempt, there currently are intense pressures to complete the process, and those pressures are affecting people in the education and mental health systems at all levels — as Rosenberg indicates; however, progress is being made, and we are hopeful that within the current timelines, a proper system of care soon will be functioning and can be sustained for the benefit of Hawai'i's children.
Shelby Anne Floyd
Eric A. Seitz
Counsel for the Felix Plaintiffs
