Posted on: Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Letters to the Editor

Hawai'i should adopt California's Prop. 13

Just because some people choose to overpay for their condos or houses, the rest of us get stuck with higher taxes because they move the value average up. If someone chooses to pay 30 percent over market for a unit in my building, that doesn't mean that I would pay that. So why should my taxes go up because of what someone else does?

Californians went through this same thing back in the '70s. They solved the problem by approving Proposition 13, which rolled back assessment values to 1975 and capped the assessment increases on property you already own to 2 percent per year (plus any bonds or other issues that are subsequently voted in). When the property is sold, the assessment then steps up to the purchase price. Those who have the money to pay current prices for their property get hit with the higher tax rate — as it should be here.

Residents should lobby, write or call their legislators to get a bill similar to Proposition 13 on our next ballot. Assessments should be rolled back to, say, 2000. This latest real estate bubble is going to force more and more people out of their homes and this state. This madness needs to stop.

Show us how you'll spend our tax money

The mayor-elect is not the commander in chief of Honolulu. We elected him to lead by example and most importantly be a good steward of our hard-earned tax dollars.

My question to Mufi Hannemann is simply this: Do you truly care about Hawai'i and its future, or is it business as usual? You have a budget of 1.5 billion in our tax dollars; what do you plan to do?

Let's show our aloha for injured soldier

Spc. Robert Loria lost an arm in Iraq as a result of enemy action. He is due for discharge in 60 days. Instead of getting the $4,500 he was expecting as he was about to leave Fort Hood, Texas, for his home in New York, where he was to spend the final two months of his service, he was told that not only was he not getting the $4,500, but that he also owed $310 for equipment that was lost or damaged in the enemy action that cost him his arm.

After Spc. Loria's wife contacted her congressional representatives and Sen. Hillary Clinton, the media got hold of the story and the Army backed down and said "That's OK, we'll forgive the $2,408 (for 10 months of family separation pay that the Army erroneously paid Loria after he'd returned stateside, as a patient at Walter Reed)."

What a terrible way for the military to show its lack of appreciation for the sacrifice made by Spc. Loria. Maybe we in Hawai'i can do better. If we can show that we support our troops by putting a yellow sticker on our car, then how about going a little bit further and show that we really support the troops and drop a check in a letter and mail it to: Benefit Fund for Robert Loria, Bank of New York, 440 Route, 211 East Middletown, NY 10940.

Our aloha and appreciation to Robert and all the other Robert Lorias out there will go a long way to help our servicemen and women know that we really do care and appreciate their service and sacrifice.

Commuters should have more choices

On Monday night, I spent an hour and 10 minutes driving from my office in Kalihi to my home in Mililani after killing three hours in town to avoid the traffic caused by the afternoon fatality on the H-1 Freeway.

Our city was crippled and immobilized by one traffic accident on our main arterial freeway. The costs and inconveniences suffered by all illustrate one point succinctly: Commuters need other options than driving. A fixed guideway rail system would have allowed parents to pick up their stranded children earlier, let shoppers be merry and allow weary workers the option to get home.

I was stranded in town. A lot of us were. Once the H-1 went down, we all had no hope. Eastbound, westbound, our city was pa'a (stuck). What a quality of life.

HPD needs better way to investigate

I hate to seem heartless about the fatality on the H-1 'ewa-bound Monday, but isn't there any way to speed up the process that HPD must go through to investigate and clear the road?

We are not a small city anymore, and the drive going west was a complete catastrophe. There are so many people traveling on the only thoroughfare through the area. We cannot close the freeway this way. With today's technology, there must be a way to videotape and photograph the scene from all angles, take measurements, etc.

New Hawaiian Affairs Committee is racist

The creation of a new Committee on Hawaiian Affairs in the state House of Representatives by House Speaker Calvin Say leads one to wonder, can we afford race-based state laws and programs for Hawaiians?

The purpose of a separate committee to look after the interests of one particular race at the expense of all other races in our state is not justice for Hawaiians, it's injustice for all other races.

Why doesn't Rep. Say set up committees for Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, etc.? Creating new laws and providing more state money to support one race over another is not only against the law, it is racism.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rice v. Cayetano that Hawaiians are a race of people, not the political entity that they are now trying to become in order to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling. Rep. Say in his action of setting up a separate race-based committee is legislating division based on race.

Fast-tracking money for schools appreciated

On behalf of the Department of Education, I would like to publicly acknowledge Gov. Linda Lingle and her decision to fast-track the transfer of authority of $50 million in repair and maintenance funds from the Department of Accounting and General Services to the DOE.

We are hard at work developing the most expeditious way to deliver the repair and maintenance projects to the schools, even in advance of the transfer of other resources required to manage the projects. The DOE is ready, willing and able to accept both the resources and the responsibilities for school repair and maintenance because, without a doubt, a school's physical environment is critical to the creation of a safe, supportive learning environment.

Meanwhile, as mandated by Act 51, the Reinventing Education Act of 2004, we are now in negotiations with DAGS to develop a transition plan to bring more than 300 employees and other resources to the DOE by the next fiscal year, which begins in July 2005. It is a change of great magnitude, but all of the agencies, organizations and individuals involved, within and outside of government, are motivated by a single goal — improving the achievement and well-being of public school students throughout Hawai'i.

Wai'anae continues to get the short end of the stick

Unrelentingly, Wai'anae gets beaten up by the government. Just existing seems to draw fire.

When I first inquired about Fannie Mae in order to buy a condominium in Wai'anae seven years ago, I was told that I was not eligible. Wai'anae had been declared a "depressed area." I am a Hawaiian. I was in a good, stable financial state. I was considered an excellent risk. And I had never bought a home. So why was I not eligible? I was told the whole of Wai'anae was not eligible because the banks considered the area high risk.

Then, Wai'anae was awarded the prize for being selected the best "all-O'ahu dump" site, not once but twice, and recently extended for another five years.

Now, irony of ironies, according to The Advertiser of Dec. 16 ("Tax assessments jump"), the area from Nanakuli to Makua has the highest tax increase: for apartments: 46.5 percent.

First, we good fo' nuttin' but pay taxes. Second, we good for pilau stuff, the Champion All O'ahu Garbage Dump. Third, we good for the highest tax assessments because we grow so good, so fast and so much, nobody can catch up wit' us. No Fannie Mae for us. One dump for us (only). And now, the highest tax assessment.

For a coast that is exquisite to live on, a people who are warm though abused (the homeless are here although Wai'anae is not the original residence of many), and a community that is loaded with gifted artists and children (linguists, writers, musicians, surfers, lei makers, dancers and agricuturalists), I believe O'ahu (the City Council) wants Wai'anae not to exist.

The state could care less (despite our legislators).

And as for the federal government — who knows?

No annihilation without representation!

Lingle's office wrong on DOE

During the campaign for the Board of Education, I repeatedly stated that I could best serve on the board by ascertaining the facts about the board and the Department of Education and reporting those facts back to the people.

Lenny Klompus and Linda Smith of the governor's office have no right to object to Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto's requested report to her governing board on the status of the DOE's budget request (Letters, Dec. 15).

Klompus and Smith called the report "pure speculation," but it was factual. The headline for their letter used the word "premature," but the report was eight days after the DOE received the "Governor's Decision" — and no opportunity had been given to submit objections to the governor's office.

It is ironic that Klompus and Smith wrote, "The public deserves to know the facts." Here are the real facts:

• On Dec. 9, Superintendent Hamamoto reported to the Board of Education in a public meeting on the status of the BOE's budget request.

• On Dec. 1, the Office of Budget and Finance had sent a memo to the superintendent titled "Transmittal of the Governor's Decisions on FB 2005-07 Executive Budget Requests." In the first paragraph, Finance Director Georgina Kawamura stated: "Your department's budget requests for FB 2005-07 have been discussed with the governor. Attached are the governor's decisions on your department's requests."

• The spreadsheet that was attached bore the heading: FB 05-07 Budget Department Request and Governor's Decision — Operating Department of Education. That spreadsheet details the DOE's budget request and is deliberately labeled "Governor's Decision" above amounts approved for inclusion in the executive budget.

• Under "Governor's Decision," requests to fund $24.3 million in special-education needs — including 286 special-education teachers — were completely denied and not included in the executive budget.

• There was no mention in the Dec. 1 memo about submitting differing views to the governor prior to her submittal of the executive budget to the Legislature on Dec. 20. In fact, the DOE was given only one day, until Dec. 2, to submit more detailed records to Budget and Finance relating to "the approved operating budget" (the phrase "approved operating budget" was used five times in the the Dec. 1 memo).

Media, as usual, attended the Dec. 9 public meeting of the BOE. After they reported on the governor's decision to delete special-education funds and positions from the BOE-approved budget, the administration and its deputies claimed that the budget was "preliminary" and falsely characterized the DOE's public report to the BOE as a "leak."

The Board of Education conducts its business in public meetings and has every right to hear a status report on its own budget request. The only "unfortunate" aspect of this matter is the effort to control and cover up another failed attempt to politicize Hawai'i's public school system.