Posted on: Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Letters to the Editor

Light-rail system would be catastrophe

In your Nov. 16 issue, Gov. Lingle's rail system was seen as a "slam dunk." Yeah, a total "dunk" in the budget toilet, don't you think? What a catastrophe! Not only will nobody ride this rail, it's also another disappointing waste of Hawai'i's money.

Let's talk about who's going to ride the rail: nobody. Lingle didn't volunteer to ride it, and neither did any of the people who came up with this bright idea. There has been little commentary on people who would actually ride the rail. It's like the only ones who support this thing are the ones who will be driving.

Take, for example, a Kane'ohe resident praising the project. This support is of course irrelevant since the rail would not connect to the Windward side and he obviously assumed that others will be on the rail while he is driving. What if everybody decided everybody else would be riding the rail? We'd still have this traffic problem. Enough said — nobody's going to ride this rail.

And let's not get started on the $2.6 billion price tag.

All that trouble and wasted money on a rail that nobody's even going to ride. Instead of the rail project, the focus should be on the "Second City" of 'Ewa. Encouraging investments and businesses to build on that side would help many in the long run, especially commuters.

Light rail means more than just less traffic

Most people don't consider all of the intangible benefits that users of the light-rail system will encounter once the system is implemented islandwide:

• We won't have to drive as much. I don't know about you, but I hate driving. So do all of my friends, so they usually ask me to drive. We'll spend less money on car-related expenses. Save on gas and maintenance. Those who lease will save on mileage. People can sell their cars and save on insurance, registration, safety checks, etc. Thousands of dollars saved a year in all.
• Better use of our time. While riding from one destination to another, we can spend our time more productively by reading a book or the morning paper, sleeping, having a snack, or even chatting with buddies.
• A healthier lifestyle. Because we won't have our cars anymore, we will be forced to walk a little more. Instead of driving to the next block, we can walk. Add years to our lives.
• More independence for seniors and students. They won't have to rely on their loved ones to take them around anymore. No more waiting for a ride or the bus.
• And, of course, reduced traffic. People will now have a choice to drive or ride. No more monopolies for the car, gas and bus companies.

Education expenses can easily be trimmed

The Advertiser is right that teachers should have their pay increase. The governor is right to withhold funds. The BOE and superintendent should get the money from their present funds.

Delete all positions in the state education office except the superintendent, business and personnel. Delete three district offices on O'ahu. Delete all complex principals. Close small schools. Increase class size by one in K-3. Delete all resource positions in the elementary schools.

America invaded the wrong country

One has to shake his head in disbelief with the reasoning Leighton Loo uses regarding the war in Iraq.

As far as not finding WMD in over six months and counting, remember Secretary of State Colin Powell providing the United Nations with that audiovisual presentation? He showed satellite photos and intelligence of Saddam's drug labs and missile canisters. U.S. soldiers should have pinpointed their location the first week.

By invading Iraq without the coalition of the major European powers, Russia, France and Germany, he's alienated half of Europe. No one besides Britain sent in troops.

And the money, at $1 billion a week, $100 billion the first year alone, is footed almost exclusively by the U.S. taxpayer, at the exclusion of badly needed funds for America itself.

Bush says now that there was no connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein and no uranium procurement, as was stated in his State of the Union address.

The United States invaded the wrong country. Yes, Saddam was a tyrant, but so is Castro, Gadhafi and Kim of North Korea, and their people love them.

As far as "there's no turning back now," watch what happens if a Democrat is elected in 2004.

Kamehameha Schools isn't racist, needs help

Aloha, I am a student from Kamehameha Schools. I am very grateful that I am able to attend Kamehameha.

Some people say my school is a racist school. That is not true. We are students who follow a Hawaiian princess' will, which says to build a school and only let Hawaiian children attend the school.

Our school has two trials against two non-Hawaiian kids who have attended our school but now have to go to court. We need a lot of support so our school can win these trials. We have won the first trial.

Views mistaken on overthrow conclusion

Regarding Evelyn Cook's Island Voices commentary of how so few people know of the Islands' history: She concluded that President Clinton made a "serious blunder" on signing the apology bill and that a great deal of material supports the premise that the leaders of the overthrow were motivated more by a desire to end governmental corruption and misrule than by a lust for land, wealth and power.

It is obvious that in one year of research for her book, she could not come up with a thorough conclusion of the events that led to the overthrow. For example:

• The constitutional changes that occurred since the beginning of the constitutional monarchy. The few changes made in the constitution became a disadvantage not only to Hawaiians, but also to other non-haole residents of the Islands.
• The petitions that came from the kanaka expressing their concern over allowing non-ali'i into ali'i-like positions and the changes in their own government.
• The attitude of foreigners and what they thought about Hawaiians running their own government.
• Rep. James Blount was sent by President Grover Cleveland to investigate the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom and found that the procedures taken by the provisional government were wrong, yet it refused to put Lili'uokalani back on the throne and later threatened that if she were to be restored, it would dethrone her again.
• Various papers of that time throughout the United States had editorial comments and opinions of what other Americans felt about the Hawaiian Islands being annexed, such as Californians favoring independence and opposed to annexation.

My list goes on, but I think this proves my point.

Traffic progress is due to citizen uprising

Set the record straight! I applaud Campbell Estates for the progress to alleviate traffic in Kapolei. Now, who started this movement?

It was not the Makakilo Community Association, Councilman Nestor Garcia or the Makakilo/Kapolei Neighborhood Board. The people who can take credit are the 350 people who voted to demand action. The people who organized meetings, sign waving and the petition drive.

Makakilo still has a long way to go. Join the Friends of Makakilo; they need you.

Coral reefs around Johnston breathtaking

I enjoyed Jan TenBruggencate's fine article on Johnston Atoll, where I spent a lonely year as a Marine during World War II. At that time, Johnston had not a flower nor a tree, and the nearest woman was 800 miles away. We were entertained during the day by the comical antics of gooney birds, and serenaded at night by "moaning birds" (wedgetailed shearwaters), which moaned like women in agony while nesting in the sand.

A personal consolation — the breathtaking coral reefs surrounding Johnston, where I first learned to skin-dive. These experiences led to my working as a marine naturalist and writing a dozen or so books about the sea. ("Our World Underwater," "Science Beneath the Sea," "Islands" and "Life in a Tidepool" are a few of my titles that are still available in the used-book market.)

Crime resolution rate on O'ahu is appalling

I was appalled to read about the abysmal record of the police in solving major crimes on O'ahu.

If 91 percent of major crimes go unsolved, that means we are having a "success rate" of 9 percent. I don't know what school Chief Lee Donohue went to, but at my school, 9 percent was a miserable failing grade. If a student had a 9 percent grade average, he would not be passed on to the next grade. In fact, he would probably be put in a special-education program.

In the 1990s in New York City, an increased police presence led to a sharp decrease in crime in the city. Yet here, walking down Hotel Street at any time on any given day, you can see drug deals going down, literally in front of the police station.

I think it's admirable that the citizens of several neighborhoods have taken to the streets to advocate against ice. However, citizens alone cannot solve the problem. We need a visible police force with a better grade average than 9 percent.

We had best take care because once word gets out about this abominable record, tourists are going to be afraid to come here. And then what?

Happy days are here ...

Mahalo for making Opus a part of my Sunday morning comics. Yippie!

How Intermediate Court came to be

Your Nov. 23 editorial on the Hawai'i Supreme Court contains an error of historical fact regarding the attribution of criticism leading to the establishment of the Intermediate Court of Appeals.

Herman Lum's tenure as chief justice began after the Intermediate Court of Appeals was created. An intermediate appellate court to assist the Supreme Court in the appellate process was conceived and proposed by Chief Justice William Richardson in December 1976. It was met with strong and immediate opposition from the legal community, although the Hawai'i Bar Association came to endorse the concept just prior to its ratification vote (as a constitutional amendment) in the 1978 general election.

What is historically factual is that the role of the Intermediate Court of Appeals in the appellate process changed in 1983-84, during Lum's tenure, and more extensive use of unpublished memorandum opinions by both the Supreme Court and the Intermediate Court of Appeals began at this time.

The editorial also alludes to the state of Hawai'i's rather atypical framework concerning the two appellate courts' jurisdiction, which was opposed by then-Chief Justice Richardson but enacted during the 1979 legislative session (codified within Chapter 641 of the Hawai'i Revised Statutes). Only a very small minority of American states using intermediate appellate courts calls for appeals to be initially filed with the top-tiered court, with assignment of appeals by this court to the intermediate court.

More states, as well as the federal appellate system, provide for the bulk of appeals (except for those where initial jurisdiction lies with the Supreme Court) to be filed at the intermediate level and for a limited number of appeals to work their way up to the Supreme Court.

Although in 1979 the Legislature limited the number of Intermediate Court of Appeals judges to three and considered this too small a number to permit the Intermediate Court of Appeals to function as the "workhorse" of the appellate system (which is consistent with the enacted appellate jurisdiction framework), the Intermediate Court of Appeals did in fact process the majority of appeals (in terms of the number of published opinions by the Intermediate Court of Appeals compared to those by the Hawai'i Supreme Court) from 1980-83.

Now that the number of working Intermediate Court of Appeals judges will soon be six, perhaps the appellate jurisdiction statute should be revisited.