Letters to the Editor

Musicians were noble, but pay cuts are not

I was saddened to see a recent letter writer commend Honolulu Symphony musicians for taking pay cuts and in the same breath say, "Bus drivers: take note." Certainly, the musicians did a noble thing. But we miss the point when we use their sacrifice as an example for others to follow.

Pay cuts will only dilute a very valuable community resource. Who knows the damage the cuts will cause, especially when skilled players opt for better-paying jobs in other cities?

We should never have let the care of this institution lapse this way. Honolulu can do better than to pay its Juilliard and Oberlin grads $24,000 a year.

Despite the headline buzz, many cities do have thriving orchestras that aren't instituting cuts. Let's use those cities as examples to follow. Support the symphony so we can begin to pay the musicians what they're worth.

Hawai'i is addressing readiness for college

Your front-page article of Oct. 21 "Fewer scholars ready for college" cites statistics from around the country that document the achievement gap between many high school graduation requirements and the entry-level expectations of both two-year and four-year colleges.

Addressing this issue here in Hawai'i is one of the four major focal points of our state's P-20 Initiative. Now completing its first year of operation, this initiative is led jointly by Department of Education Superintendent Pat Hamamoto, Good Beginnings Alliance Executive Director Liz Chun and University of Hawai'i President Evan Dobelle. They are working with more than two dozen leaders from the business community, state government, labor, private and public education and educational support agencies to develop a strategic plan to improve student achievement across the lifelong learning spectrum.

They are being assisted in this process by Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of the book "Making the Grade: Reinventing America's Schools."

Dr. Wagner will be making a public presentation at UH-Manoa on Wednesday evening, Nov. 12, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested: 956-7651 or pigawa@hawaii.edu.

Banning roosters should be no-brainer

Instead of our City Council members doing the obviously right thing, they cave in to a very small group of rooster owners who showed up to oppose a bill banning roosters from non-agricultural residential areas on O'ahu.

Why didn't citizens show up to support the proposed ban? Because it's a no-brainer to everyone on O'ahu that continuous, night-after-night, day-after-day crowing of roosters is incredibly annoying to anyone with functioning ears, and pro-ban citizens shouldn't need to show up.

Of course, the few rooster supporters who did show up (most of them living outside the area affected by the ban) lament a bill that would allow the vast majority of Honolulu residents to sleep until a reasonable time every morning, telling the council how much they "loved" their "sons" and "daughters." Hello?

Instead of the ban, they want to implement a "rooster education" plan. Maybe we could also allow pigs and cattle to live in residential areas, as long as they promise to keep themselves clean and not smell too bad. There must be some small group out there that loves their pigs, too.

PBEC's move is great loss for Hawai'i

It was with great sorrow that I read that the Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC) will be moving its headquarters to Hong Kong.

It was not long ago that Robert Lees, the newly appointed secretary general for PBEC, moved the PBEC offices to Hawai'i, for he firmly believed that Hawai'i was the appropriate place to bring Asian, Pacific, U.S. and South American leaders together.

He worked very closely with government officials and many local business leaders to bring the PBEC conference to Hawai'i and was successful. He had a commitment to having the PBEC conference in Hawai'i every other year — but as in most organizations, politics became involved. Bob continued to actively promote Hawai'i as the place to do business.

PBEC's departure is a great loss for Hawai'i businesses.

It's time we take care of our keiki

After reading a commentary about how we are not taking care of our children, I felt it my duty to express my opinion. Having two children, ages 6 and 10, I find it heartbreaking that we have to spend hundreds of dollars a year for childcare. It's sad enough that we cannot afford to send our children to private schools because the cost of living is so high.

During the summer months, we have a state-funded summer fun program that runs for about five weeks. What are we working parents to do with our children the other four weeks they are out of school?

I agree 100 percent that Hawai'i does not take care of its children. Cutting library hours — what a shame. It seems all anyone is worried about is making more money to buy more things. Get real, people; that's not what life is about. Let's start taking care of our children.

What nurse shortage? No one's recruiting

I am a licensed practical nurse who has recently relocated from California. I am writing about this nursing shortage. What shortage?

Every day since I have been here, and even before when I have been here on vacation, I have gone online to view any possible employment opportunities with acute-care facilities, skilled-nursing facilities and private offices. I am astonished to see the demand; however, I am even more astonished to see the lack of active involvement by departments such as human resources and recruitment.

In Los Angeles County, when I worked as a licensed nurse, I had job offers with high pay scales thrown at me. I'm lucky here to even get an interview in the same week I fax out a resume.

Kaiser, for instance, has a half-dozen openings; I have yet to hear a response, and it has been well over five months since I met with the recruitment officer and her assistant. It makes me sick and quite frankly very frustrated as well.

Beach parking is not the biggest concern

We don't need additional free public beach parking in Ko Olina. It's my understanding that the tax credit provided for Ko Olina was to encourage new business development in an area surrounded by a garbage dump, a power-generating facility and the largest homeless population in the state.

Let's work together on mitigating those issues and making the homeless productive people before we ask the creative entrepreneurs at Ko Olina to provide free access to what arguably could be considered the cleanest, most scenic and best-kept free beaches in the state.