Posted on: Tuesday, July 8, 2003

Letters to the Editor

Paper's sponsorship of expo was sexist

It is embarrassing that The Honolulu Advertiser, one of Hawai'i's leading news outlets, was a title sponsor for the "Big Boys Toys Expo."

More importantly, it is unbelievable that the same newspaper, with front-page articles on female golf phenom Michelle Wie, would sponsor an event that reinforces gender stereotypes.

Girls and women such as Wie are constantly breaking down the social barriers our society places before every female born in the United States. The Advertiser — indeed, all sponsors of the "Big Boys Toys Expo" — is using its quest for profits to erode the foundation of equality.

Thank you for reminding me that, though Hawai'i may have elected a female governor, we still have a long way to go.

Please reconsider hospital money veto

As a practicing emergency physician at Kahuku Hospital, I must register my concern regarding Gov. Linda Lingle's veto of legislatively approved money for the hospital. While I applaud her recent change of heart on this funding, this cut could yet have devastating repercussions for the North Shore community, depending as it has for decades on the health services provided there.

I understand that the state treasury holds a "rainy day fund" of $50 million, aside from the hurricane relief fund. The $400,000 being cut that is earmarked for Kahuku Hospital represents a tiny fraction of that rainy day fund, but it is the very lifeblood for the continued operation of the hospital.

Hospital management is doing a good job, especially considering increasingly onerous economic burdens in healthcare over the past several years that have caused the closures of hundreds of rural hospitals across the nation.

Without Kahuku Hospital's life-saving emergency room, local residents would have to travel an additional 45 minutes to the nearest hospital for basic emergency and after-hours urgent care. As a side note, without the hospital's 24/7 emergency services, the city and county EMS would be swamped with time-consuming transports to other hospitals.

Lingle's veto must be undone. This de facto disenfranchisement of the North Shore community would be a very unfortunate development. Because as it stands, today is a "rainy day" for Kahuku.

Community praised for event's success

We want to offer this letter of thanks to the thousands of community members who helped make the Humane Society's PetWalk 2003 such a wonderful success.

More than 2,300 animal lovers walked around Magic Island and Ala Moana Park on June 22, and thousands more supported them with donations. More people attended and more money was raised at this PetWalk (almost $75,000) than ever before, and that clearly is a statement about the caring people of Hawai'i and their commitment to make sure that O'ahu's homeless, lost and abused animals are cared for and sheltered.

On behalf of all the animals who cannot give voice to their thanks, mahalo to you all.

HECO spin doctors misleading the public

If Hawaiian Electric Co. is trying to prove to the community it has changed — "significantly changed," as stated by Chuck Freedman — it hasn't demonstrated that to the community in its three recent meetings on an underground route through Palolo.

The three meetings have brought out fewer than 100 people (and some of us have attended all three meetings, so we're counted three times each). The community was outnumbered at the first and third meetings by HECO employees and their consultants (Communications Pacific, 3 Point Consulting, Where Talk Works and TLH Management Services).

The "new" HECO's dialogue with the community has consisted of the community writing its questions on Post-It notes, which are then reviewed by HECO and answered by HECO's public relations spin doctors. The answers by the public relations folks are misleading and oftentimes wrong. This misinformation goes unchallenged, however, because people are told that they must not speak up from the floor. There is no interchange of information, which is usually the most educational part of any community meeting, so the community is just stuck with HECO's spin.

HECO's new strategy can best be described as WMD — Weapons of Mass Deception. Don't give accurate information, just use spinmeisters to answer the technical and sophisticated questions from the community.

We want HECO to trade in its WMD for the greatest weapon of all — the truth.

Senator's support for new board clear

The errors in Bob Hampton's letter ("Senator is mistaken on her views of HTA," June 27) regarding my recent Island Voices essay prompt me to respond.

First, Hampton erroneously states that I am in support of the "old" Hawai'i Tourism Authority board. My essay clearly indicates I am referring to the current HTA board members, each of whom I name, and not the "old board."

Second, the HTA board members, both former and current, will no doubt disagree with his contention that they lack the visitor industry expertise required by the enabling legislation.

Third, the same legislation Hampton cites sets forth a broad mandate for the HTA, to wit, "create a vision and develop a long-range plan for tourism in Hawai'i, including product development, infrastructure and diversification issues" and "develop ... and implement state policies and directions for tourism and related activities, taking into account the economic, social and physical impacts of tourism on the state."

Instead of fulfilling that far-reaching mandate, the old HTA had been run by tourism-industry insiders who used $61 million in tax revenues solely for marketing and promotion, solely to the selling of Hawai'i for immediate gain — rather than looking out for the long-term future of the industry and the people of Hawai'i.

Perhaps it is Hampton who is "out of step."

Re-election obstacles

Russell Okata, the Hawai'i Government Employees Association executive director, is obviously pouring the foundation for a threatened strike by state workers if Gov. Linda Lingle's veto of binding arbitration is not overridden (Letters, July 1).

He reminds us of the 1994 strike that resulted in inconveniences for the general public. What is particularly disturbing is why he brings this up now. Removing binding arbitration from state workers came from a Democratic Legislature and was signed by a Democratic governor. So why does Okata just now think it is an important enough issue to go on strike over?

It really has nothing to do with the HGEA membership and more to do with creating controversy over Lingle's veto to place obstacles in her way for re-election in 2006.

If Okata believes that the state can afford another round of pay raises for its public workers, he should be the one to identify in the budget what services and programs he would have the state cut to afford the raises.

It is nothing but politics with the HGEA members, and the general public is the loser.

Be more conscious of dangerous drivers

There seems to be an increase in vehicle/pedestrian accidents recently. Drivers should not speed or go through red lights.

However, in reality, there will always be impatient, inattentive drivers. This is a fact that all pedestrians should heed.

How many times do you see pedestrians (you may be one of them) step off the curb without looking? Just because you're walking with the green light or walk signal in a crosswalk does not mean you're safe. I'm not saying the pedestrians are wrong — they need to be more conscious of the dangerous drivers out there.

Even being in the right, if you're sent to intensive care or the morgue, you'll be the loser.

Zero tolerance needed for HVCB chief's actions

I see that Hawai'i Visitors & Convention Bureau chief executive Tony Vericella has "apologized" for his "misuse" of money. Why is he still on the job?

I am sure that he is apologizing only because he was caught. This is not the type of "misjudgment" that should be tolerated at any level with taxpayers' money.

There should be an absolute zero tolerance for this kind of behavior. If not, officials will continue to take the chance of "misusing" money inappropriately if they know that the worst penalty they will have to endure is a little bit of public embarrassment when they are discovered.

Audit bill veto would best serve state

If the Legislature overrides Gov. Linda Lingle's veto of a bill giving broader powers to the state auditor, I believe it would increase bureaucracy and costs, diffuse responsibility and accountability, do nothing to increase the independence of audits and jeopardize the state's excellent bond rating.

Readers must understand that there are different kinds of audits. The two most important to the bill are financial and management audits.

Financial audits provide an independent assessment of the integrity of an accounting system and the financial statements produced by that system for a given period of time. Financial audits are conducted by independent, external CPAs.

Management audits are based on financial audits, but they focus on management and assess performance. These audits look for waste, fraud, incompetence or abuse in the management of an agency.

Legislative auditor Marion Higa is known for her hard-hitting management and related audits. Gov. Linda Lingle enthusiastically supports such audits, and proposed to Higa and legislative leaders earlier this year that money be provided to enable Higa to double the number of management audits that she does.

The audit bill addresses financial audits, which the governor must control to run the state as a business. Having a legislative auditor responsible for financial audits of executive branch departments, and requiring the executive branch departments to pay the legislative auditor to conduct those audits through yet another special fund would be cumbersome and wasteful.

There is a misperception that having the legislative auditor arrange the financial audits would somehow make them more independent. Not true.

The executive branch follows the comptroller general of the United States Government Auditing Standards in contracting with CPA firms. It is the process of complying with such standards that ensures independence, not whether it's the executive or legislative branch of government that does the contracting.

There also are practical concerns with the audit bill. The state's financial audits are reviewed by bond-rating agencies in evaluating the state as a credit risk, and by federal agencies in sizing up how well federal money is being used by the state.

The state's excellent bond ratings by the various rating agencies, and the approval of federal money for much needed state projects, are benefits we are receiving based on the audits as they are currently done. I firmly believe that the audit bill could jeopardize this.

There are some who disagree with me on this. They argue that the audit bill might not be cumbersome or wasteful, and would not necessarily adversely affect the state's finances. But why take the risk? That bit of common sense, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," applies here.

The state's financial audits have received the prestigious Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting by the Government Finance Officers of the United States and Canada for each of the past 13 years.

It makes sense for Higa to do more management audits. It makes no sense to turn over the entire financial audit function to the legislative branch of government.

When all the facts are considered, the veto makes as much sense this year as it did last year. This bill turns the state's financial audits into a political football, to be tossed back and forth between the legislative and executive branches with no one truly accountable if the ball gets fumbled.

The audit bill should not be confused with the need to hold government accountable for how it spends taxpayers' dollars. The governor continues to be committed to making this happen.