Posted on: Tuesday, July 1, 2003

Letters to the Editor

Credit the AARP for unannounced-visits law

Gov. Lingle recently signed into law an important and life-saving piece of legislation. Allowing unannounced inspections throughout licensed adult residential care homes will effectively ensure improved quality and safety of those most vulnerable — elderly clients.

After years of delay and avoidance by both the Legislature and past administrations, this legislation could not have made it to this governor's desk without the diligence and passionate advocacy of the AARP. Day and night, loudly and quietly, the state director, Greg Marchildon, and his team worked incredibly hard to cross the huge barriers that this common-sense proposal faced, grave challenges set forth by both a few powerful legislators and well-organized industry representatives. It should be made clear that without AARP, unannounced inspections would never have been passed this year, and many more aging adults would remain in danger of ongoing abuse, neglect and death.

I congratulate Gov. Lingle in signing this bill. I commend the Legislature for acknowledging the pressing need for this legislation. I thank AARP, Greg Marchildon and his team for representing me and the thousands of senior citizens in the state of Hawai'i so effectively.

Jones' record at UH doesn't justify salary

There's a new disease running rampant at the UH-Manoa campus, and it isn't "football fever." It is "jonesitis," a new form of apathy and irresponsibility. The school's president seems to be terminally afflicted with it, and it has spread to the regents.

June Jones' sole claim to fame seems to be that his agent was able to negotiate the highest salary ever paid to a public employee in our financially strapped Hawai'i Nei, where our governor earns $96,000. They based this pay on the 31-20 win-loss record of his students over the past four years? If a UH professor had a comparable 39 percent fail rate among his or her students, he or she would be fired. Yet, the regents more than doubled Jones' pay? It's sick.

The average UH professor is paid less than $65,000 a year; the average public school teacher, less than $45,000. The UH volleyball coach, whose players won a national title, earns around $100,000. And Jones is being given $800,000 a year for five years. They gave the raise to the wrong coach.

And UH President Evan Dobelle, who is also grossly overpaid at $442,000 a year, says that Jones will now have to "pick up the tab" at Dobelle's favorite bar. How cute! Now we learn that the regents didn't even include a behavior clause, for a man who is less than an ideal role model. What were they thinking?

Under Jones and Dobelle, we've dropped the team's unique identity as Rainbows, in favor of copying Kamehameha Schools and others as Warriors. We've changed the logo, and now we're overpaying the coach by about three-quarters of a million bucks a year. And they wonder why so many of us don't go to the football games?

Get serious, guys.

'Local' airlines need lesson from Mainland

Where have our "local" airlines gone? Are customers and loyal airline employees being used, abused, confused and refused because of the Enron and Wall Street attitude? Where is the management with the real flower leis and the real spirit of aloha?

Terror alerts, 9-11 and filing bankruptcy are not good excuses to hold airline and union employees hostage. How can you fly 500 to 1,000 miles on the Mainland for $49 to $139 round-trip, yet from Moloka'i to O'ahu or Maui, less than 100 miles, for $175 to $195 round-trip? Go figgah!

Soon our local people will not be able to afford to fly interisland and will have to go back to paddling canoe to get from island to island.

Let's get back the public relations attitude of those who promoted Hawai'i's airlines like George Helm, Andy Cummings and others who enticed hundreds of thousands of happy visitors.

Maybe there is a Southwest Hawaiian Airlines with true aloha, with a fare of $49.95 round-trip between the islands, lurking on the horizon.

UPW's no-smoking policy makes sense

Ten years ago, the Department of Education attempted to shove down our throats a smoking-ban policy, without mutual consent, in violation of existing law and the UPW Unit 1 and 10 contracts. In response UPW filed and prevailed in two legal challenges to the DOE policy.

Notwithstanding those victories, the UPW still negotiated a policy that remains in effect today, that makes more sense, is less intrusive, does not trample the rights of public employees and is not hypocritical. Smoking is allowed only in designated areas with the door closed and in the absence of a non-smoker.

The Legislature and the parents promoting a complete ban on smoking this year proposed a measure that would be subject to constitutional challenge and would, in effect, not prohibit smoking on non-campus areas like sidewalks and neighboring properties right in eyesight of children. What good would that do?

The UPW's actions are directed in part by its duty of fair representation, the state Constitution, Chapter 89, HRS, and its contracts. The rights and protections granted by these documents are not subject to cancellation by a letter from Margery Bronster, any advisory board, an Advertiser editorial, the Legislature or by a "hot political" issue generated by a single-issue constituency.

So as not to be misunderstood, the UPW agrees that smoking is a health concern to all, and especially to children in proven circumstances, and an unhealthy personal habit. But recognizing that fact only makes the resolution to this problem more difficult.

High UH salaries mean high pensions

The real question all these super-high University of Hawai'i salaries raise is: How do these salaries figure into the state pension system? If these employees are covered by the pension system, then the reported salaries are just the tip of the iceberg.

As part of the pension system, these high salaries would create super-high pre-retirement pay averages and thereby qualify the retiree to an extra-high lifetime pension.

Since our state pension system is funded with tax-collected dollars, the taxpayers will be paying these high salaries (in the form of high pensions) for many years after the incumbents stop serving the public good.

The governor is right: ridiculous!

Music industry should focus on why fans upset

The music industry might better focus its money on providing music listeners alternatives to illegal song swapping. Exorbitant CD prices mean that purchasing CDs is seldom an option.

The current commercial music-station environment, one that entails a tiny playlist and lots of commercials, prevents many from listening to such stations, unless they enjoy the incessant repetition of just a few songs. The contests they use to draw listeners in are an even bigger deterrent.

The best alternative was Internet radio, but greed by the industry has already decimated that listening format.

If 57 million Americans are illegally using file-sharing software, doesn't the industry get the message? As long as the industry prefers to alienate its fan base, I will be joining the CD-purchasing boycott while I encourage the industry to refocus on lowering CD prices and bringing quality back to the radio.

New anti-Hawaiian lawsuit ignores history

Now comes another suit against Hawaiians that once again denies the historical, as well as modern-day, factors that entitle Hawaiians to such remedies as the Hawaiian Homelands program, OHA, Kamehameha Schools and other Hawaiian-only programs.

I would also feel that this student's suit had merit if there were not enough good schools to go to, or if it were not true that Hawaiians continue to suffer from Third World-like socio-economic statistics, or if it were not true that the United States has admitted in law that the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom was "illegal" and that Hawaiians have been devastated by this gross injustice and violation of recognized laws, or if it were not so that some experts say that the Hawaiian race faces extinction.

Unfortunately, for Hawaiians, some still do not see these entitlements as justifiable attempts at rectifying a century of injustices.

Saloon Pilots filled our days, stomachs

If it were not for the Saloon Pilot, growing up in Hilo during the Depression would have been gloomier.

The Saloon Pilot was manna from heaven. It was cheap, convenient and comforting. Whether one went fishing, swimming, camping, whatever, no prudent Hiloan left home without it. It served as our Frisbee and biscotti long before we knew such things existed. If corn flakes weren't available, we could always crumble Saloon Pilots into a bowl. Eaten plain, dry, wet or with an assortment of goodies on them, Saloon Pilots taught us to relish all the hard tacks life threw our way.

Some of us loved Saloon Pilots so much that we thought we'd bookend our lives with those Crescent City crackers. Since we started life teething on a Saloon Pilot, we pictured ourselves leaving life sucking on a Saloon Pilot clenched lovingly between our gums.

The closing of the Hilo Macaroni Factory makes such a closure impossible and our departure less noteworthy.

There's another side to Sunny Garcia

Michael Tsai's Sunny Garcia story was very timely. Some of us in the North Shore/country wonder if the "aggressive" portrayal of Sunny is an editing creation, Sunny playing to the camera, or a pre-fab "Mark Burnett"-suggested script idea.

As a former interview specialist for the Triple Crown of Surfing, I always found Sunny to be accommodating, straightforward and a real gentleman any time I needed a sound bite. Sunny's love and respect for his wife, Raina, is something that is not exaggerated — he has always made a point of crediting her for his recent successes.

As far as wannabe tough-guy surfers go, they don't strike any fear in a region where your average Kahuku High football alumnus is 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds — and there are five or six of them on every block.

Arbitration veto could hurt state

With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Linda Lingle has set Hawai'i on a course of frightening consequences. By vetoing the binding arbitration bill, she is driving the state and HGEA's 25,000 public employees toward a showdown and a devastating statewide strike.

Most legislators, including several Republicans, understand just how critical binding arbitration is to Hawai'i's fortune and future. Not even the governor can dispute that an HGEA strike would affect:

• Education — Public schools and libraries would close. Without record processing, high school and university seniors would not graduate on time. Important university research projects would be set back.
• Public safety — Emergency 911 calls would go unanswered. Beaches would lack lifeguards. Food, produce and restaurants would not be inspected. Air and water purity would not be tested.
• Courts — Trials and hearings would be canceled. Drivers would not get their driving record abstracts for insurance purposes. Deputy sheriffs would not secure our courts.
• Construction — Without building permits, new construction jobs would not start. Ongoing jobs would stop without building, electrical and plumbing code inspections.
• Economy — Home buyers would not close their mortgages. Government vendors would not be paid for their services and products. Retail stores would lose customers from 25,000 striking workers and their family members.
• Tourism — Images of picket lines at every airport, harbor and government office building, plus the absence of public health and safety services, would scare off tourists and conventioneers.

Hawai'i's new economy cannot afford a public employee strike. Neither can the many who depend on government services and programs in their daily lives — people who need welfare or unemployment checks, seniors requiring care or assistance, troubled teens seeking guidance or training, and enterprising men and women trying to develop their own businesses.

HGEA members protect and enhance people's lives as much as the police officers, firefighters, registered professional nurses and correctional officers who already can settle their contracts through negotiations. We are all frontline defenders of Hawai'i's people.

In the aftermath of our statewide 1994 strike, the Legislature mandated arbitration for us to acknowledge HGEA's critical role in protecting and serving the public. Let us not return to 1994.