Letters to the Editor
Nurses, consumers didn't win in strikes
In his Jan. 9 front-page article, Advertiser writer Frank Cho says consumers and their employers will have to foot the bill for the millions of dollars of additional labor costs resulting from recent contract settlements won by nurses and their unions.
The article further explains that the hospitals are in no financial shape to absorb those additional costs. How else can they make up the difference other than passing those additional costs on to consumers?
To minimize the increased costs, hospitals will likely decrease services and delay purchases of new state-of-the-art life-saving equipment. Health insurance costs will certainly increase, impacting every business in the state. Those additional costs will be passed on to consumers and employees.
The nurses gave up five weeks of salary to win this settlement. Who knows if the pay increases will offset those losses, and if they do, how many years will it take to do so?
The union leadership continued to get paid during the strike and will reap the benefits of increased dues based upon the higher labor rates. So who are the real winners? Kind of makes you think, huh?
Anthony Paresa
'Freedom from oil' comes at big price
The Jan. 4 editorial "Freedom from oil" correctly describes hydrogen as an "energy system." Hydrogen is not an energy source; like electricity, it must be generated by an energy-consuming industrial facility.
It takes three-tenths of a kilowatt hour of electric energy to produce one dollar of Hawai'i gross state product. Thus, increasing the cost of energy will have the same adverse impact on our state's economy as raising the 4 percent state excise tax.
At $30 a barrel, the fuel oil cost imbedded in everybody's electric bill is 5 cents per kilowatt hour. The cost of coal delivered to the power plant on O'ahu is about 2 cents per kilowatt hour. Almost 20 percent of the electric energy delivered to customers on O'ahu comes from coal and almost 4 percent from municipal waste.
Because the O'ahu electric load peaks about an hour after sunset on quiet, light-wind days, wind turbines or solar-electric systems cannot replace conventional electric generators. On O'ahu, wind and solar can only reduce oil consumption and must be evaluated on that basis.
Most people are opposed to the installation of transmission lines along our mountain ridges. Modern wind turbines are twice as tall as 138-kilovolt transmission towers, are much more obtrusive, are noisy and kill birds.
Geothermal and ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) power plants are ideal energy sources as far as the island's electrical load is concerned, and they can replace conventional power plants. However, OTEC plants are very large and very expensive.
Economical geothermal energy sources may only be available on the Big Island or possibly on Maui. Transmitting that energy from the Big Island to O'ahu by hydrogen barges or submarine power cable would probably be very expensive.
Alan Lloyd
Professional engineer, Kailua
Appointment delays reflect needed checks
Recent criticisms of Gov. Lingle's delays in filling staff positions in our bloated state bureaucracy echoes that of the first George Bush administration delays.
Governing has come a long way from the 1935 days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's 250 appointees to G.W. Bush's 500 nominees. Increasing disclosure requirements, screening and background checks, as responsive to public demands, negate the unfounded clamor from the proverbial fools who would rush in versus the appreciative prudently wise.
John K. Kingsley
Wahiawa
Draconian solutions aren't the answer
Ken Burtness' suggestions on drinking and driving, in his Jan. 10 letter, sound as if they're straight out of the Singapore constitution.
If we follow his logic, we may as well eliminate all traffic fatalities by banning the use of cars and building a superb public transportation system. In fact, we could eliminate all kinds of tragedies, like banning hiking to prevent lost hikers and outlawing swimming to prevent drowning.
Public policy is about finding effective solutions that adequately address the issues and raise the quality of living for all of us.
Throwing prohibitive solutions at a problem doesn't work and goes against the American tradition.
Bryan Mick
Kailua
Air pollution plagues us here in paradise
How many of us hear about pollution in paradise? Not very many.
Believe it or not, through the years, pollution here can and will affect nose, throat and lungs, and can even create cancers. Most of the invisible pollution is car exhaust coming from the tailpipes of running cars in busy Honolulu and heavy traffic on freeways.
The fine micro-dust particles are invisible; however, when they settle and are inhaled, they will cause damage. If you live in the city, near freeways or roads with heavy traffic, be aware. Good window filters are helpful to protect you from outside air (the so-called fresh, healthy air).
Leo Wieffering
There are better ways to deal with hate group
I am completely disgusted by the appearance of the Mainland hate group apparently owned and operated by a single family by the name of Phelps.
I did some research into this revolting group. I found that the Westboro Baptist Church (www.godhatesfags.com, if you can imagine) has crisscrossed the country engaging in these disgusting displays, causing many counter-demonstrations that drum up only more publicity.
One group in Ferndale, Wash., came up with an idea that we might emulate here in Hawai'i to defuse the situation. Apparently Phelps' hate mongerers showed up to picket their high school graduation because the prom king was homosexual. Church groups there created a fund-raiser for AIDS education, having people pledge money for each second that Phelps and his group picketed.
They raised almost $2 a second, a total of almost $8,000 for a good cause, and totally thwarted Phelps' intent to do harm to the community. May I suggest that this would be an excellent project for right-minded citizens of Hawai'i?
April Ambard
Wai'anae residents need traffic solution
I've read the Jan. 10 article about the plans for the traffic solutions in 'Ewa Beach. I applaud the hard work of the area's representative, who is faithfully lobbying for this project.
As a resident of the Wai'anae Coast, I, too, need another way to commute to and from Wai'anae. It is getting worse every time. I, too, have been waiting a long time for traffic solutions, but to my dismay, I am still waiting.
Should anything happen to the bridge before entering Nanakuli, we're stuck. Needless to remember are the hostage situation in 2000 and more recently the runaway commercial truck and other traffic situations too many to mention.
C.B. Naone
Rep. Marumoto didn't get the message right
I just had to respond to Rep. Barbara Marumoto's Jan. 9 comment, " ... but I still fervently believe that Hawai'i needs another Democrat in its congressional delegation like it needs a hole in the head."
Barbara, the Republicans of Hawai'i are the ones with a hole in the head. You shot yourself in the head when Republican Party members could not organize among yourselves and select a good, viable and supportable candidate to run for the 2nd Congressional seat.
I am not saying that you or any Republican candidate could have beaten Ed Case, or even Matt Matsunaga. But there were 16 Republicans running for the seat. And poor Bob McDermott, the Republican nominee who ran against Patsy Mink in the November general election, was abandoned by his own party and left out in the cold during the recent special election.
Talk about party unity, or lack thereof, the Republicans sure showed Hawai'i what divisiveness can do. The 16 Republicans garnered a total of 12,349 votes. Anywhere from your high of 4,497 votes, Barbara, to 8 votes for the lowest Republican candidate. Haven't you got the message yet?
Steve Uyehara
Kalaheo, Kaua'i
Complete financial audits are in order
Regarding your Jan. 9 reporting on the recent Small Business Hawai'i meeting: While your story did bring out the $3.5 billion hidden in over 300 special funds, it failed to report the most astounding item that came out of both the legislative and City Council panels:
There has never been a complete financial audit of either the government of the City and County of Honolulu or of Hawai'i since statehood.
No wonder former Gov. Ben Cayetano didn't know how many state employees there were.
Ann Kobayashi, Rod Tam and Charles Djou are pushing for an audit of the city, and should be supported by all of us.
Mark Stitham
Kailua
Some islands AWOL?
A tour company here in Washington, D.C., is running radio ads for a tour of Hawai'i that it says will include "all four islands." Will someone in your office please run to the window for me and see which ones are missing?
Philip Thompson
Vienna, Va.
Gambling on Kaho'olawe a blast
I would like to endorse the Jan. 8 suggestion by reader Frank A. Gonzales that a gambling casino be established on Kaho'olawe.
As a former member of a Navy explosive ordnance disposal unit that devoted a fair amount of time servicing that island in the early 1960s — clearing work areas of unexploded ordnance for gunfire control liaison teams and target rehab personnel — I'd like to go Gonzales one better.
If approved, the casino operation should be designed from the ground up to attract high rollers with an element of risk not found on the grounds of any other casino in the world. If it is under sovereign Hawaiian control, so much the better.
Rigorous casino island immigration policy should be established requiring all customers approved for entry to undergo a rigorous regimen of unexploded ordnance recognition and identification in situ as soon as they arrive.
This should be coupled with a basic two- or three-day course in explosives safety and the use of plastic explosive fashioned into shaped charges to detonate in place any ordnance customers might find. Customers would be instructed in the finer points of shooting both electrically and non-electrically.
Naturally, the customer would have to be financially vetted as part of a visa application process prior to being permitted to visit the island to ensure he or she is sufficiently well-heeled to pay for this expensive training, housing, food, transportation, etc.
And, of course, there would have to be some rather iron-clad agreements executed as to the customer assuming all risk to ward off subsequent claims by members of a deceased customer's family should Lady Luck not smile on the enterprise du jour.
Once those prerequisites were met, customers would be allowed to pay for guided tours during the day to designated (target-rich) areas where they would work under tour guide supervision to locate, identify, record and detonate all the unexploded ordnance they can handle. Naturally, customers would be expected to pay for the trophy pictures taken of them in this work.
If by some chance they do not happen across any ordnance, they would still have the fun of setting up a live shot at the end of the day to expend the explosives they carry in with them by backpack. By night, they could retreat to the comparative safety of the gaming tables and take their more conventional chances there.
Designed and operated as envisioned, this could be a cash cow of mythic proportions. Why? Because, unless I miss my guess, unexploded ordnance — especially dropped munitions deposited by attack aircraft at a high angle entry path over several decades — will be coming to the surface for probably the next 500 years or so.
If nothing else, imagine the fun owners would have naming their new casino to attract jaded, wealthy customers the world over in search of a new thrill. The word-of-mouth publicity alone should (excuse the cliche) be dynamite.
Thomas E. Stuart
Kapa'au, Big Island
