Letters to the Editor

Don't just target the cell-phone users

I am a cell-phone user, and I often use my phone while driving. Like so many other cell-phone users, I am on the road all day, and it would be very unproductive to have to stop every time I had to make or receive a call.

But that being said, I am for banning the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. The cost of headsets and hands-free devices is low these days, a lot cheaper than the $100 fine they are planning to impose on those caught.

So all who must use your phone, please use it wisely. Now they plan to fine us a hundred bucks for talking on the phone — what will the fine be for applying makeup to your eyes with a sharp eyeliner pencil while driving on the freeway at 50 mph: $1,000? Or driving while drinking a cup of scalding hot coffee, or shaving, or reading a map. And let's not leave out those who feel they need to catch up on the news or finish the last chapter in that book. Will these people be fined?

The law should be a distracted-driving law, not just for cell-phone users.

James Wataru

Head librarian should realize what her job is

My, my, it seems librarians and the DOE forget they are to "assist" and not "control" the general public.

Gov. Lingle is absolutely correct that this head librarian stepped way out of bounds by deciding on her own to botch up the library system. Let's catch this bugaboo before it gets calcified into the fiscal game plan.

As a physical medicine consultant to the Mayo Clinic and former teacher in the University of Minnesota School of Medicine used to caution her students, "Just because you have brains doesn't automatically mean you are intelligent. You need to use common sense in life as well." And she also observed that "Unless teachers have had other jobs, they don't usually understand how things are done in the business world."

Cut back to 40 library hours per week? OK, but schedule those hours over the weekends for all islands. Stagger librarian work hours during the weekdays and have them work one or two evenings a week.

Entertainers work the hours the public is there to enjoy them. Why should librarians be different? They'll like shopping and scheduling appointments on days when others are open for business.

Rhoda Zakariasen

War protesters aren't against the military

In reply to Malia Nash's March 9 letter: Those who are for peace are not against your daughter or the brave and dutiful members of the military.

I'm surprised you are finding fault with those who advocate peace when they are not the people who engendered your "terror waiting to see if my daughter would be deployed." Rather, they are doing their best to make sure your daughter stays safely at her current base of operations.

Do you really think it displays "kindness and compassion" to attack a country that hasn't attacked us?

Please consider the fact that while those who are in the military have chosen their profession, those mothers and daughters who will be killed and injured during an attack on their Iraqi homeland no more chose their position than did the people who reported to work at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Diantha M. Goo

War does solve things, but you have to win

Why do I keep hearing the slogan "war never solves anything"? Can someone explain how we got our independence? How the defeat of Nazism and communism, the ending of American slavery and the freedom of the Afghan people came to be? Did these things just happen?

Part of the fear is the belief that if the United States attacks Iraq, then the U.S. will be more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Well, if that is the case, then it must stand to reason that Iraq has ties with terrorism.

If we listen too much to the anti-war protesters, fear, which is already in seed form in most Americans' hearts, will grow into a forest. The fear and negativism that is primarily anti-American are highly contagious.

War does solve things. But you have to win. The U.S. Constitution would be virtually meaningless if not for the wars that America had fought and won in the past.

No, war does help. And Iraq will be no exception.

Rich Wilbur

School boards would need fiscal autonomy

Doesn't anyone get it? It's not about how many school boards we have, it's about the money, fiscal authority and responsibility.

The major difference between how public education is done in Hawai'i versus how it is done on the Mainland is not that we have only one Board of Education. The difference derives from how public education is funded. Mainland local school districts are primarily funded via a millage on local property tax, and the state provides supplemental, equity and categorical funding.

The local school board has fiscal authority, responsibility and accountability for the schools and to the taxpayers.

In our state, we have a profound disconnect between the taxpayer and the school because of the process of legislative appropriation of funding. Our state Board of Education is unique in the United States in that it has no fiscal authority — ergo, no real power to impact the day-to-day operation of the schools.

Any proposal that provides for local control of schools without giving the local body a significant degree of fiscal autonomy is pure cosmetic sham and will only serve to add another layer of bureaucracy to an already-overburdened system.

Jim Petersen
Mililani

Wai'anae folks need help with homeless

Regarding the March 10 articles on the homeless: As a resident and homeowner on the Wai'anae Coast, I have noticed the increase in the homeless population. Services out here have always been stretched to the max. We need all the help we can get in helping the homeless.

I am for the mayor's center; $6 million is not a lot.

As for the homeless, I don't mind sharing the beach. I want it safe for my family, but other than that, as long as they camp with a permit and obey the laws, it's their beach as well as mine.

Ronald A. Young
Wai'anae

Pension exclusion cap might be in order

Regarding Jerry Burris' "shifting burdens" column: Has there been any thought to tax people with large pensions?

I prepare taxes professionally, and sometimes it irritates me that people making far more than I will pay no tax at all to the state and in fact even get back credits from the state, while my poorer clients have to start paying taxes after a mere $2,540 in earnings.

It would seem some cap on the pension exclusion might be in order.

Bill Nigl

DFS, pay your bill

If DFS would pay its rent, the governor wouldn't have to cut the public school budget.

Mary Moore
Kailua