Letters to the Editor
Need another luxury tax? Try desserts
Our governor is determined to raise an already high alcohol tax so that it can definitely be the highest in the nation.
Never mind the restaurant and hotel industries, which are hurting already, or the tourist industry for which the state contributes millions to attract visitors. I guess once we get them here it's too late — they can't get in a car and go to another state. Nor are the residents who enjoy a cocktail or wine before or with dinner considered.
We all are being lumped into a category of people who create traffic problems and cause health providers to expend scarce funds for alcohol abuse. Here lies the justification for a luxury tax on alcohol.
Well, Mr. Governor, here's an idea for a "luxury" tax on a yet-to-be-tapped source. Everyone will agree that bread is a diet staple. But are doughnuts, pastries, pies, cakes and other assorted baked goods?
Can you even estimate how many such items are consumed every day at business meetings, conventions, offices, breakfasts, fast food stores and many, many other areas? And can you imagine the revenue that would fill the state's coffers if every doughnut and pastry had just a one-cent tax or eight cents on each pie (eight pieces), 10 cents on each cake, etc.?
And the revenue could go to the health providers for treating diabetes, obesity and heart problems, very, very serious problems in Hawai'i and nationwide. Think that's enough justification for a luxury tax?
George L. Kekuna
Mililani
Pedestrians should wait for cars to pass
A recent letter to the editor bemoaned the fact that a teacher was struck in a crosswalk. I agree that this was unfortunate, but one of my pet peeves as a pedestrian is when people in cars who should keep going stop for me to cross the street just because I am standing at a crosswalk. I either remain standing and wave them on or even turn my back until they go on.
The California law that gives pedestrians a false sense of security is both insane and has caused many deaths. I am proud that the Hawai'i Legislature defeated a proposal to toughen pedestrian crossing laws.
While the motive seems good, it flies in the face of physics. Any pedestrian is capable of stopping on the next footfall, but even at 15 miles per hour, a car requires time for the driver to respond, the brakes to be applied and the friction of the brake pads and tires to stop the momentum of a car most often weighing close to a ton or more.
Thus, if a car is legally traveling at 25, 35, 45 or 55 miles per hour and a pedestrian steps out in front of the car thinking that because a law says the car must stop, it can't override the laws of physics. So you have an injured or killed pedestrian who could have waited perfectly safely for one or two cars (or maybe more) to pass, costing only a few seconds to at most a minute or two.
Therefore, it makes no sense to command the car to stop when it may well be physically impossible.
So please, if you see me standing at a crosswalk, go on. Please do not stop, because I will turn and wait until you have gone.
I am teaching my family as I was taught. Never go in front of an in-motion car. Always go behind it.
Rev. Samuel M. Smith
Congress providing ferry funds for Hawai'i
At long last, Hawai'i can have a sea-kindly, safe, environmentally sensitive interisland ferry system. The vehicle having these qualities is the navafoil, a new design of ferry by Pacific Marine, carrying 149 passengers at speeds up to 36 knots with 15 percent sea margin.
Congressional Transportation Bill H.R. 2299, now on the president's desk awaiting signature, appropriates $5.11 million for a ferry for Hawai'i. These funds are sufficient to build a navafoil ferry on O'ahu and to test her in rough Hawaiian waters for evaluation by the public.
Rainbow Island Express has proposed the construction, at its expense, of a maritime transportation center for cruise ships and ferries in return for a long-term lease to Piers 18 through 21. The facilities for cruise ships are needed now, as this segment of the maritime industry grows.
After successful test and evaluation of the initial navafoil ferry, Rainbow Island Express can fund and operate four additional navafoil ferries to create a system, again at its own expense. The entire project is expected to attract about $100 million into the economy of our state.
I have proposed to the Department of Transportation that it devote the forthcoming federal appropriation to the building and trials of a new design of interisland ferry, the navafoil.
E. Alvey Wright
Kane'ohe
There's a reason for banning fireworks
Until this just past New Year's Eve, I have lived so long in places where private use of fireworks and firecrackers are banned that I had forgotten why.
Now I remember.
It is hard for me to believe that the majority of people living in Hawai'i like to be subjected to hours and hours of incredible noise and acrid smoke. But perhaps they do.
Or perhaps they just don't know what it's like to have relative peace and quiet in most areas so people can observe the New Year as they wish while those who want noise and pretty explosions can go and see them in public areas.
Jonathan Becker
What enforcement?
When does the ban on aerial fireworks take effect?
Eugene Carr
Mililani
More buses should be put into service
This letter is written about a major tourist problem that has developed on the "Beach Bus" route.
I take the No. 22 or No. 58 bus from Waikiki about once a week to go to the Costco in Hawai'i Kai. In order to take one of those buses, I go to the stop at Kuhio and 'Ohua and go west to Lewers. I then go across the street and catch the No. 22 or No. 58 east to Hawai'i Kai.
On Dec. 27, I got on the 10 a.m No. 22 bus at Lewers. When I did, I got the last seat available, and the bus then filled up with standees at that stop.
The bus driver then had to pass up the rest of the stops in Waikiki and leave the people who had been standing there for up to an hour waiting for the No. 22 bus. We passed up an average of 25 outraged tourists at each stop.
The tourists who were standing have to ride that way to Hanauma Bay.
I moved here nine months ago. I have seen this bus overload happen every time I have caught, or tried to catch, the No. 22 bus any morning, except Tuesday, when Hanauma Bay is closed. That is why I go west to Lewers to catch the bus. It is the last stop that you have a chance of getting a seat in the morning.
I cannot understand the failure of the bus company to correct this situation. Hawai'i has spent a lot of time and money since Sept. 11 trying to attract tourists and make sure they have a good experience here. This failure to give them enough buses certainly does not help.
Bill Millan
Abandoned vehicles should be targeted
On Christmas Day, my wife and I drove the Windward O'ahu coast on Kamehameha Highway. Between Temple Valley and Turtle Bay, we endured repeated and not-so-lovely Christmas greetings from over 20 gutted vehicles — including a full-size bus.
How lovely such "aloha" must seem to malihini visiting the Polynesian Cultural Center, Hale'iwa and the North Shore.
Maybe some of the cash that will be extorted in the state's nascent, half-bright photo-speed-enforcement effort will be spent to track down those kama'aina who rudely abandon their vehicles along Hawai'i's highways. And, in the meantime, maybe someone in state or county government will realize that if O'ahu's countryside looks like a dump, that's the impression visitors take with them.
It's time to clean up these recurring messes. It's time to go beyond the halfhearted efforts of the past to assure that this lawbreaking ends.
Maybe photo reconnaissance of these sites is the answer, yah?
Mike Rethman
Kane'ohe
The grinch who stole Hawai'i's Christmas
Gee, Mitch, what did you get for Christmas, a lump of coal? Just because you don't believe in any religion, that doesn't make you the editor of The Advertiser or spokesperson for anybody, for that matter.
I don't believe in your statements. I celebrated Christmas like everyone else; The Advertiser chose to embrace it, too. There's nothing wrong with trying to appreciate peace and good will unless you try to ram it down someone's throat.
Nobody forced you to celebrate Christmas, nobody is saying you have to accept Christ into your life. So why are you complaining? Live your life, not mine or the other million-plus residents here in Hawai'i who chose individualism and not "MitchKahleism."
There's still hope for you, Mitch: Even Scrooge and the Grinch ended up smiling with a warm heart on Christmas Day.
Craig Watanabe
Even more absurd rules are in effect
Your Dec. 28 editorial on absurd stadium rules was right on, but your list of absurd policies was just a beginning. The Stadium Authority has taken a lot of the fun out of going to the stadium.
It shortened the tailgating, thus creating massive traffic jams.
If you have an invalid with you and need to use the elevator, only the invalid and one person can ride. The rest of your party must climb the steps, even though there's plenty of room in the elevator.
There's plenty more. The policies and many people are "user-unfriendly."
If I were running for governor and needed 20,000 votes, I'd say I'm firing the whole stadium management group and then go about changing the attitudes of workers — or they go, too.
Jim Slavish
Kailua
Questions remain in child-abuse case
Regarding Marsha Kitagawa's letter to the editor and your "Getting It Straight" correction of Dec. 29: It's possible that things are run differently in Hawai'i than on the Mainland, but criminal law tends to be dictated by the U.S. Supreme Court and, as such, is fairly standardized.
Where I come from, a "no contest" plea is entered to prevent the admissibility of a guilty plea in a later civil case. The facts in issue must still be proved in the civil suit when a guilty plea is not present. Who is going to sue Robert Coy?
Many defendants, whether for their own imagined dignity or just to be cantankerous, will enter a "no contest" plea. It is the role of the judge at that point to explain to the defendant that as far as the criminal proceedings are concerned, a "no contest" plea has exactly the same consequences as a "guilty" plea. The defendant must acknowledge his understanding of that fact. The prosecutor then reads off the charges against the defendant, which are itemized facts to substantiate each of the elements of the charges against him. The defendant must then acknowledge the truth of the facts as alleged by the prosecutor. If the defendant denies any of the elements, then it must go to trial.
To state that the judge may have found reasonable doubt as to the guilt of Robert Coy, as Kitagawa states in her letter, is impossible. The judge cannot find guilt unless the facts prove the issues "beyond a reasonable doubt" as to the defendant's criminal behavior.
Administering CPR in an attempt to save a 4-month-old child who has fallen from his crib and is not breathing is not a criminal act — period. The only assumption that can be made from this case is that the facts, as explained by Kitagawa, are not accurate. The prosecutor asked for a one-year jail sentence, which was denied by the judge. But if Coy is a danger to a 4-month-old child, he remains a danger to his other children.
There is, indeed, more to this case than meets the eye. Either we have prosecutorial abuse in pressing for a manslaughter charge against a poor father who was merely trying to resuscitate his baby under emergency conditions, or we have a father whose anger was a proximate cause of this child's death.
Either way, The Advertiser should not let this case go away. To protect the children, society must be certain that this man does not pose a risk. And to protect innocent defendants, society must be certain that the prosecutor's charges are well-founded.
Choosing middle roads when a dead child is in issue is not an option.
David Childs
Wai'anae
