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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, April 11, 2003

Letters to the Editor

Governments should sell property first

When a business or a family gets into financial difficulty, the typical reaction is to cut spending. Then, if income still fails to meet expenses and there is property owned, the obvious solution is to sell or mortgage said property. Such happens all the time.

Not our governments. The state and city/county governments are all hurting. Each of them owns underutilized or even unproductive property in vast amounts. But do they put it on the market? No. They want to raise your taxes. They bought the property with your (or your parents') money. Now they are broke and they want to raise your taxes to keep it.

Reason Foundation Policy Study No. 303, March 2003, "Tapping Public Assets: Frequently Asked Questions about Selling or Leasing Infrastructure Assets" has just been released. You or your legislator can get it at www.rppi.org.

Remember, an increase in taxes is the same as a cut in pay. Tell them to sell something before they punish you further.

Richard O. Rowland
President
Grassroot Institute of Hawai'i


Time may be right for airline merger

A while back, Aloha and Hawaiian airlines were talking about merging. At the time, the motivation was probably for profits, but it failed.

Now the situation has changed. Hawaiian is bankrupt and Aloha is suffering. Now the motivation for merging is one of need, for survival, for salvation.

On this basis, perhaps, the merger can be successful. Let's talk.

W.W. Robinson


Military should get kama'aina benefits

I support your April 5 editorial calling for residents to perk up our local economy. While tourism is the lifeblood of the economy, military and other federal expenditures are a close second.

It should interest people to know that federal expenditures in Hawai'i exceed $9 billion annually and have crept close to those reported by tourism.

Military personnel and their families frequent our shopping malls, entertainment centers, visitor attractions and other businesses. They form a sizable market for retailers and service providers, and it is a mistake to ignore this group of resident customers.

We encourage all businesses to include the military as kama'aina when extending kama'aina rates and specials to Hawai'i residents who possess a state driver's license or ID card.

The problem appears to be that most military members are residents of other states and possess driver's licenses from their home states. However, this should not deter businesses from extending kama'aina benefits to the military. They constitute a significant portion of our community and should be included as kama'aina. Simply ask that they show their military ID cards.

The military is a vital part of Hawai'i and a major contributor to our economy, public schools, churches and charities. Let's not have an out-of-state driver's license keep them from supporting our staggering economy.

Charlie Ota


Much ado about nothing

First plastic sheeting and duct tape for chemical attacks. Now we see people with surgical masks to protect them from SARS. Are people that ignorant?

Quick, climb under your desk. There's a nuclear bomb coming! I can get you a great price on a bridge ...

Jonathan T. Moore
'Aiea


Quarantine: Find out why people are upset

Regarding Anne Harpham's April 6 "After Deadline" column, "Balanced debate offered on quarantine law": I appreciate balanced reporting. However, I take issue with the notion that the only reason people write is that they have been "through" quarantine. If those for it were as passionate and many, we would hear from them as well.

The simple fact that the majority who advocate for it are government officials or are silent says quite a bit.

"As Editorial Page Editor Jerry Burris notes," writes Harpham, "that is because people who have had to put their pets through quarantine are far more likely to write, and most of those people — understandably — dislike the requirement."

Are Harpham and Burris saying that the majority of those who have been through quarantine oppose it because their experience was bad? Why are we not looking at the question of "experience" at the Halawa Station? It is not simply "separation issues." If it were, kennels would go out of business. They do not. Why doesn't the state do a "satisfaction survey" and find out why so many are not happy with their experience?

I am alarmed that Harpham and Burris acknowledge "hundreds" of letters from those opposed and insinuate the possibility of being against quarantine "because they have had to put pets through ... " and are not looking at why so many are upset. Could it be they have had a bad experience? Could it be that they have recently discovered that they did not need to participate in a mandatory quarantine in order to do their part in keeping Hawai'i rabies-free? Are they upset that they were misled and not given enough facts to make an informed decision?

I know I am.

Susan E. Tartaglia
Hale'iwa


Women's commission funding cut wrong

It is unbelievable that Hawai'i's first female governor can eliminate the state funding for a commission whose very mission is to promote equality for women and girls.

Hawai'i ranks 49th for women in managerial and professional occupations, and 29th for women in poverty. And women still make only 76 cents to each dollar a man makes. That means it takes a woman 16 months to earn the same amount a man earns in 12 months.

These are family issues. What happened to 'ohana?

Marian Tsuji


High-tech industry must be supported

Act 221 has provided a much-needed jump-start to our local technology industry.

While formal cost/benefit studies have not been completed, there is still ample evidence that the tax credits created under the act are indeed working. To backpedal on these credits now would destroy our hard-won credibility in the industry and sacrifice long-term investment for short-term gain.

As an economist by training and a technologist by trade, I cannot support this approach.

I urge our governor and Legislature to reconsider making up the current budget shortfall by selling out our investment in the technology industry. The tech industry provides a combination of high-value jobs and clean industry that we need to foster in the state.

If Hawai'i is truly "open for business," then this is exactly the kind of business we need to invest in.

Mike Curtis


Forget beautification, repave our streets

Can someone explain how a beautification project like Hunakai Street near Kahala Mall can proceed when we constantly hear "we don't have money for this, we don't have money for that"?

First, a perfectly paved street is dug up, then a lot more money is spent to "beautify" it, then a lot more money will be needed for upkeep.

First Kaimuki town, then the underpass on Wai'alae Avenue, and now this. If anyone important is reading this — we do have a lot of streets that just need repaving. That would help make things more beautiful.

Clark Himeda


Bush 'mandate' came via distorted truth

David Shapiro's columns are always a must read. I find him insightful, often wickedly humorous, and a brief reprieve from the media-ocracy too frequently floated on the psyche of the willing.

However, I have difficulty with Mr. Shapiro's assertion that Bush possesses a "mandate to rule." Yes, I agree, "the Supreme Court decision that handed Bush the election ... was within its constitutional rights to rule as it did" ("Bush won — so get over it," March 26). Legally Bush owns the mandate, and the rules of democracy hold.

In a democracy, too, the decisions of the court, though legally binding, are vulnerable to political influences and human fallibility. Enter the ambiguity of the gray zone. A democracy regularly requires of its citizens to hold the tension of opposing truths. Americans have been asked to support Bush's legal mandate to the presidency, while simultaneously considering that that mandate came to him via distorted truth and chilling political bias on the Supreme Court. Business as usual? Yes. Legal? Yes.

But, get over it? No. Because I can still remember George W. Bush looking into the eyes of the American people and saying, "All the ballots have been counted." And the willing believed him. When in fact, all the ballots were incapable of being counted, so flawed was the mechanism Floridians used to cast their votes.

I can hold the tension of recognizing Bush as the legally sanctioned president of these United States, while simultaneously I hold that this very dangerous man's legitimacy is in name only.

Martha W. Hulbert


Let's help ex-military with college admission

With all the flap over the U.S. Supreme Court debating preferences, points and quotas as criteria in determining eligibility for admission both to undergraduate and graduate schools, let's add another valuable measuring stick that presents no ethnic bias:

Add a minimum of 10 points for any candidate who presents an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard or Merchant Marine as part of the application process.

Let's help those who help the rest of us.

Anthony H. Biggs
Maunaloa, Moloka'i


Roadblocks to better schools

The Board of Education and HSTA persist in their efforts to maintain a BOE that would continue to head the highly centralized, highly bureaucratic public education system in Hawai'i.

For example, in response to proposals for restructuring the BOE, Karen Ginoza, HSTA president, proposes guidelines that would maintain the BOE in something close to its current form (Letters, April 3). And according to Shannon Ajifu, BOE member, the BOE should be maintained because regional school boards would take decision-making away from individual schools and add to the bureaucracy (Letters, April 7).

Predictably, the BOE and the HSTA are opposed to regional school boards — but perhaps not for educational reasons. Regional boards would require the BOE to give up most of its power, and the BOE is no exception to the general rule that any group does not voluntarily relinquish its power. For the HSTA, regional boards would require unionizing teachers separately in each region, and HSTA's statewide dominance would be threatened if teachers in any particular region are so dissatisfied with the HSTA leadership that they select another bargaining agent to represent them.

The concept of regional school boards has become more popular in Hawai'i because of the growing awareness that Hawai'i's public school system is not working, cannot be made to work, and is becoming less and less workable as time goes on. There is broad agreement that significant improvement in the quality of public education requires moving more decision-making to the individual school level.

It is true that there have been efforts by the Department of Education to do just that. For example, school/community-based management (SCBM) was implemented about 15 years ago. But today, although SCBM committees continue to meet, they are relatively ineffective because the BOE has not given individual schools enough power to make the kinds of improvements that are needed.

Contrary to the opinion of Ms. Ajifu, regional schools boards would not take decision-making away from individual schools. Rather, the thrust of regional boards is just the opposite — to move more decision-making down to the individual school level. Regarding the guidelines proposed by Ms. Ginoza (such as the election of board members and establishing clear lines of authority), they should be used — not in maintaining the BOE, but instead in establishing the regional boards that would replace it.

John Kawamoto