Posted on: Friday, May 31, 2002

Letters to the Editor

Marshall Ige's crimes included tax violations

The May 29 editorial on Marshall Ige failed to mention the other crimes he has committed and pleaded guilty to: tax evasion and failing to file his general excise tax returns.

The charge of second-degree theft was substantiated with the facts surrounding the money Ige had obtained from Hanh Lam. The facts surrounding the $30,000 Ige had obtained from the California couple was not of theft but tax evasion.

Ige's tax evasion and his failing to file his general excise tax returns are crimes against the people of Hawai'i. The media should recognize that tax evasion is a serious crime, similar to but more than theft because in theft cases, the victims may be just one or a few. The crimes of tax evasion and failing to file tax returns erode the voluntary compliance system of tax administration, and these crimes affect all the people of Hawai'i, especially those who are in need of support and assistance from the state of Hawai'i.

Stephen Hironaka
Criminal tax investigator
State Department of Taxation

Catholic faith is not the church hierarchy

I am very sympathetic to the parishioners of Maui's Maria Lanakila Church who are expressing love and support for "Father Joe" Bukowski. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and they are right to consider him innocent until more is known. 

I recently spent two weeks in Boston, where the press includes detailed coverage of the ways in which the Boston archdiocese, under two different cardinals, has failed to protect its children. Both former Cardinal Medeiros and the present Cardinal Law moved a pedophile priest, John Geoghan, from one parish to another, for 30 years, without ever reporting his activities to the police or removing him from the priesthood.

Similar activities were concealed in the Minnesota diocese. The motive was always to protect the priest, protect the good name of the church, but without protecting the children.

In Newton, a suburb of Boston, a Catholic lay group has formed to insist that the authoritarian hierarchy of the church pay attention to the laity, making clear that they are faithful Catholics, love their faith and want to reform the practices of the hierarchy. A member of the group, a professor at Harvard Business School, has told them the only way to make the church take notice is to withhold money from the church until it changes. Civil suits from hundreds, maybe thousands, of minors who were molested or raped by priests all over the country, with only a cover-up from the hierarchy, may well bankrupt the church.

"The faith" is not the hierarchy. A church is not its buildings. Jesus said, "But whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew 18:6). 

Sally Raisbeck
Wailuku

Shark-feeding operation could endanger surfers

I have been scuba-diving in Hawaiian waters since 1959. I live in Honolulu, and my dive partners and I dive the South Shore in winter (Maunalua Bay) and the North Shore in summer (from Hale'iwa to Waimea Bay). We had heard there was a shark-feeding operation off Hale'iwa where tourists are taken five miles out from shore and allowed to observe, from a cage lowered into the water, tiger sharks being fed.

Because we dive in those waters, we were, of course, apprehensive. We were concerned that tigers would associate boats with food. Last Sunday, we observed the shark-viewing boat at the ramp at Hale'iwa with the shark cage on deck. We also observed that the boat with its white flag went about two miles offshore, not five miles — not that five miles is a problem for a shark.

I do not think this is a good practice for an area that is touted as having the world's best surfing to encourage tiger sharks, which are known to be surface feeders.

Andy Butler

Cost to landowners on Kaua'i overstated

Your May 29 coverage of critical habitat proposals for Hawai'i wildly overstates the potential cost to Kaua'i landowners.

The Fish and Wildlife Service's draft economic analysis estimates the cost to landowners, other than the Navy, at $113,200 to $513,000 over 10 years, a small fraction of the $950,000 to $2.5 million you reported. Other potential costs mentioned — such as development restrictions that the state or county may or may not impose (critical habitat does not require such restrictions; it affects only federal agency decisions) — are highly speculative and were not included in the report's bottom line.

Even if the numbers you reported were accurate, the potential costs of critical habitat designation are insignificant when compared to its potential benefits. Native forests such as those proposed for designation promote groundwater recharge, maintain surface water quality, prevent siltation of nearshore reefs and other marine resources, combat global warming, provide recreational opportunities, attract ecotourism and so on.

In addition, protecting recovery habitat helps bring Hawai'i's unique native species back from the brink of extinction, preserving our precious natural heritage.

A recent study sponsored by the University of Hawai'i's Secretariat of Conservation Biology estimated the value of such "ecosystem services" provided by the forests of the Ko'olau Mountains on O'ahu alone at $7 billion to over $14 billion.

Protecting critical habitat makes good sense, both environmentally and economically.

David Lane Henkin
Earthjustice

Hawaiians should not support Linda Lingle

Two Republican senators, Phil Gramm of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona, head up a group opposed to the Native Hawaiian Recognition Bill. Their opposition will hold up the bill in the Senate. Sens. Dan Inouye and Dan Akaka eagerly support it. So do Reps. Neil Abercrombie and Patsy Mink.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle says she is too busy with her campaign to try to smooth the bill's passage. She also said, "I don't have any specific program up in Washington to get the bill adopted." Note that on her recent trip to New York, she received thousands of dollars from Mainland Republicans for her campaign for governor.

Note the contrast between Hawai'i's congressional delegation, which earnestly supports the Native Hawaiian Recognition Bill, with Lingle's non-effort. It is a sign of the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans on this issue.

Hawaiians should vote Democratic in the upcoming election for the governor of Hawai'i.

How Tim Chang

Governments must operate within limits

I read with joy that the idiotic van cams are gone. I'm serving in the military but will definitely return to live on O'ahu. It gladdens me to know that common sense still prevails over greed and a faceless bureaucracy.

The danger is not from motorists driving 6 or even 16 miles over the speed limit. It is that we, as Americans and Hawai'i residents, would ever let our sacred constitutional rights be trampled by lawmakers chasing a fast buck. We must never disconnect humans from the law enforcement process. To do so, particularly for an offense as petty as speeding on a highway, is to open the door to a police state. First traffic tickets; then what? That is not the kind of Hawai'i I want to return to. Nor do tourists, coincidentally.

State and county governments must instead learn to operate within reasonable limits. Set fair taxes and laws, and you don't have to worry about getting tossed out of office in the next election.

Chris Finta
Sumter, S.C.

Pedestrian accident will never go away

I want to thank Robin Makapagal for writing her May 30 letter, "Jaywalkers create other victims, too." I myself was involved in a pedestrian accident a couple of weeks ago. An elementary school girl darted across the street, on her bike, in a crosswalk, against my green light.

Fortunately, she only sustained cuts and bruises, but it was enough to shake her up as well as myself. I will never forget that day for the rest of my life. I had a really hard time sleeping for about a week and can't even go near that intersection to this day. I think about her all the time and had hoped to visit her at home, but her family hasn't called or anything to let me know how she's doing.

The law says the pedestrian always has the right of way, but in a case like mine, and Robin's, and that driver on Punchbowl, who has the right of way? 

Jennifer Kim

Rubber slippers could bring down airplane?

On Saturday, I flew from Honolulu to Kahului. Fortunately, I was not selected for the intensive search before boarding. A Mainland woman standing in front of me was moved into the line to be checked. She was wearing shorts, a tube top and rubber zoris.

I cannot tell you how safe I felt boarding the aircraft after seeing the security person wave her wand several time over the lady's rubber slippers.

Scott Clarke

300-student band kept audience captivated

As a visitor to Lihu'e on May 16, I was fortunate to attend the spring concert presented by the Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School band. When the program opened with musical selections by the Jazz-Rock Ensemble, I absolutely could not believe these talented musicians were sixth, seventh and eighth graders.

The entire two-hour presentation, performed by 300 students, was not only remarkable, it was awesome.

Band directors David Yukimura and Meredith Snow are to be commended for their obvious abilities to bring forth the best from these talented kids.

My thanks to the school's administrative staff and band member parents for supporting this invaluable program. These young musicians are learning skills now that will serve them well for the rest of their lives.

Pamela Young

Sustainable development needed

I had hoped to avoid the overwrought discussion of Forbes magazine's most recent diatribe against the relatively more democratic nature of economics in Hawai'i. A "People's Republic," after all, implies power in the hands of the public, rather than the selfish special interests that magazine represents.

Sadly, however, some individuals wish to keep this non-issue in the spotlight, so I will present a couple of the major problems with the "government growth promotion" paradigm.

University of Wisconsin sociologist William Freudenburg has actually monitored the extended performance of localities — and by extension, the evaluators — in these "business climate" reports. Professor Freudenburg's research discovered that the states judged by the three top ratings services as having the worst overall business climate actually outperformed the best business climate states in income growth by about $600 to $1,100 per capita annual income five years following the ratings.

But the more general problem presented in the maximize-growth-now-and-pay-the-costs-later strategy is its failure to understand and appreciate the meaning and importance of sustainable development and smart growth. I realize, of course, that Hawai'i has few models of positive economic planning to work with, but we need to understand that unsustainable, stupid growth costs more in public revenue and quality of life than no growth at all.

Substantial economic policy research shows that government efforts to expand the economy by importing capital and labor from outside its borders (the standard operating procedure among mainstream development specialists) will normally result in net revenue loss to public finances with no reduction in unemployment among the original local population. This results from the population increases caused by in-migration, and the additional public services and infrastructure they require.

The cost is yet more acute when government acts to subsidize the cost of infrastructure for development, another of government's SOPs.

A sustainable development program, on the other hand, would seek to raise employment, incomes and profits for business by replacing goods and services produced overseas with local business generation. The small-business opportunities and economic independence this propagates will produce more living-wage jobs than the imported corporation model, while reducing government costs through population stabilization.

That is the difference between true community development and the mere growth of population and consumption.

Richard Weigel
Hawai'i Sustainable Lifestyle Network