Posted on: Thursday, March 11, 2004

Letters to the Editor

Help keep Hubble telescope in orbit

If you are the least bit interested in the U.S. space program, there is something you can do to prolong the life of one of the most important contributions to astronomical knowledge since Galileo first peered through a telescope.

Go to: www.savethehubble.org. It will take no more than a minute to sign a petition to Congress asking that this valuable instrument be spared. You can also find out there what else you can do to keep this valuable instrument from simply being trashed in the next year or so.

All it will take to keep Hubble in orbit and effective will be one more shuttle mission (as compared to the two dozen or more planned to go to the far less productive space station).

The cost to keep Hubble in operation is minimal, and doing so will mean that this amazing instrument will continue to probe the secrets of the universe until 2010, or even longer.

Community hospitals must be fully financed

The Legislature needs to fully fund the Hawaii Health Systems Corp.'s $31.2 million request in order for the state's community hospital system to continue providing quality healthcare to our citizens throughout the state of Hawai'i.

The two HHSC facilities on O'ahu alone, Maluhia and Leahi Hospital, serve over 500 citizens. Most of our patients are frail, disabled and elderly. The impact of our services can be extrapolated to thousands of O'ahu residents whose family members are affected by debilitating illnesses and conditions.

HHSC has done everything possible to make itself as efficient as can be.

Any significant budget reduction will surely cripple the state's safety-net hospital system. The existing long-term situation will turn into a crisis. The lack of long-term-care beds and services will have a direct impact on the care provided by the major acute hospitals; without the community hospital option, long-term-care patients will be forced to occupy acute designated beds or remain at home.

The Legislature can prevent this crisis by fully funding HHSC! Can it afford not to?

Proposed bill would punish the victims

To Karl Rhoads, Downtown Neighborhood Board member (Letters, March 7), about HB 1828: Why is the only solution to any problem a penalty?

There are no public bathrooms in Chinatown except for a single toilet at the police station — which you say is adequate for an entire town!

Adding insult to injury does nothing to solve the problem of zero public bathrooms. I noticed you mentioned only the daylight hours because the only public bathroom in 'A'ala Park is closed at night. When was the last time YOU tried to use the toilet and didn't have to walk blocks and blocks over crowded and cramped streets with your entire left side paralyzed or in a wheelchair?

You have never experienced a "heavy day" while having a menstrual period, urgently trying to find the women's room. No compassion for the unfortunate person who needs to go — just tuck that tush tighter and try to make it to a sympathetic vender — after a purchase, of course.

The problem is there are no public bathrooms. Fix the problem and install Port-A-Potties at the public parking lots. Duh!

It is a plausible connection with the Third World when a municipality that cannot even provide services for the most basic human need because of governmental ineptitude decides to punish its own accidental victims. Bathrooms for public use, please!

Rail transit trumps buses for long run

Folks have been so busy "cussing and discussing" buses vs. starting up a fixed guideway system that they have overlooked the long-term costs. I lived in Philadelphia for a long time, and both the trolleys and the subway-elevated lasted and lasted and lasted.

On the other hand, it seems like every few years the city buys another batch of buses — the latest with the vivid colors. New Orleans has a trolley line with 1930s-vintage trolleys still operating, and that is over a 70-year span. So kindly consider the long-term operation rather than just the start-up costs.

Playing catch-up with a moving target

I admire Pat Hamamoto's desire to move Hawai'i's school system from the back of the pack to a higher place. But there is a huge flaw in her plan, and that is the assumption that this is a static playing field.

Here in Colorado, where I'm currently living (ex-Kailuan), all of the educational talk is of moving ahead rapidly, and it is that way all across the Mainland. What that means for Hawai'i is that the target is moving; what looks like the middle now, say reading by third grade, might in five years be the back of the pack and reading by second grade will be the norm.

You can put any measurement in that equation but it won't change the facts. To move up in the field you have to do something extra special — a quantum leap if you will. Now, when was the last time you saw a big old bureaucracy remake itself that quickly?

I'd rather entrust my precious cargo to a lot of small, fast-moving boats than one big ol' Titanic.

Parents deserve a say in school boards issue

I find it interesting that public school education consists of policies and politics within a centralized bureaucracy where most of us parents have little or no ability to be heard.

I urge the Hawai'i state Legislature to place a question on the 2004 ballot of whether or not to allow local school boards, and finally allow the parents and families most affected by the policies and politics to have their voices heard.

Currently, the three proposals to be discussed at the educational summit are a good start to unravel Hawai'i's educational enigma. However, the root of the problems that I have seen first-hand as a parent of public school children and as a school volunteer does not lie in these areas of attention.

The core of the problems lies more in that there is no check-and-balance system within Hawai'i's educational system. One statewide school district governed by one state board of education does not allow us parents any local authority to request help when needed, nor does it give us any insurance that school policies and procedures are being maintained without prejudice. Unless we parents know someone who knows someone or fit into the inner circle of individual school politics, our voice proves time and time again to be muted.

Rest assured that our voices have not been untroubled or uncommunicative, though. We continue to be reserved and peaceful in our continuing efforts, yet it is time for our voices to persevere and be heard over the stagnant standards of the Department of Education. Inaction has never brought success.

Again, I urge the Legislature to place the local school boards question on the 2004. Local school boards will be able to focus on local problems and successes of local schools.

Citizens should have right to carry weapons

I cannot see our police chief's opposition to citizens lawfully carrying guns for protection. Only police officers can carry weapons, while the rest of us are left to attempt a 911 call and wait for an hour? Many citizens are as qualified with weapons as any police officer, and I for one would like to read about some thug getting the surprise of his now-ended life. Our out-of-control crime would drop, making the Police Department statistics not look like such a ridiculous failure. But then, the police budget is determined by the number of 911 calls, isn't it?

Festival was marred by blasting speakers

Once again, a nicely planned cultural event, with great potential for both educating and entertaining its visitors, has been reduced to a horrendous assault on the ears, rendering any enjoyment or learning to nil, as many visitors rush through the hall, eying the exit doors.

The recent Honolulu Festival Japanese exhibition at the Convention Center could have been a delightful experience but for a small group of "technicians" who, armed with headphones and attitude, cranked up the amps to decibels that literally had the floors throbbing. Bad enough that the acoustics in the main hall are horrendous; the naturally loud taiko drums certainly needed no amp enhancement.

Obviously trying to provide a "level playing field" for all performers, many of whom had traveled from Japan to perform here, the technicians turned up the speakers to taiko levels for every performance, from children's modern dance to hula halau and senior citizens singing normally sweet traditional Japanese songs. Any merciful break in the din was quickly filled in by emcees shrieking out messages and comments to the audience.

This was a well-planned exhibition, with many wonderful demos, craft tables well arranged and a good-sized area with chairs for viewing the entertainment. But once again, the sound technicians assumed that the music must dominate the entire hall, making any other sort of interaction impossible. If cultural festivals are reduced to exercises in sheer auditory volume, they should be advertised as "concerts," thus sparing any of us looking for a pleasant experience the trip to see them.

Democrats unlikely to give up chair veto rule

Hawai'i's Democrat leaders seem divided over whether they will continue to loyally support their old-time special-interest supporters and the status quo, or reform themselves. One trick the status-quo defenders use in the Legislature is granting veto powers to committee chairs — all of whom are Democrats. This insider group of Democrats can kill or water down legislation that passes through their own committees.

The recent public brouhaha over Sen. Cal Kawamoto's efforts to kill off campaign financing reforms and hamstring the state Campaign Spending Commission reveal the extraordinary power wielded by committee chairs. These powerful chairs can even veto bills that have passed out of other committees and passed both houses, during what is called conference committees.

As of now, all the other committee members can never outvote their chairs, no matter how overwhelming are their numbers. So much for one-person, one-vote.

Hawai'i is the only state that allows such veto power to be tightly held in the hands of conference chairs. Hawai'i's Democrats have repeatedly ignored public calls to end the un-democratic "chair veto rule" for their all-powerful conference committees. On Feb. 10, rules were re-issued that again give chairs iron-clad powers to out-vote committee members. Chairs can still kill or weaken major legislation passed by both House and Senate majorities.

Given the tenacity that ruling Democrats show against any effort to reduce their power, one can wonder if the citizen groups trying to persuade legislators to vote for a repeal of the chair veto will make any headway (www.newhawaii.org). Will the resolution being introduced by longtime good-government advocate Sen. Les Ihara, to amend Senate rule 23(3), even be heard? Can you imagine what pillars might fall if the fate of bills were to be decided by a majority of committee members from both chambers, and not by a few powerful committee chairs? Staggering!

Give 114-page bill a careful read

Regarding the governor's proposal to dismantle the Department of Education around seven locally elected school boards, much attention has been around the rallying cry "Let the people decide."

May I offer a more thoughtful challenge: "Let the people read the bill, then decide." On the Internet, examine House Bill 2332 for yourself, accessible through www.Capitol.hawaii.gov/site1/docs/docs.asp?press1=docs.

The bill is 114 pages long. I ask those who support the idea of "seven locally elected school boards" to read the bill and decide for themselves if the proposed amendment is as simple as the "sound bite." In addition to the seven boards, there is an Education Standards and Accountability Commission (in effect, a state school board) that will have seven members appointed by the House speaker and Senate president who are approved by the governor, providing the executive with a hand in governance that it did not have before. And all members serve without compensation, although they may be reimbursed for expenses (like travelling from Moloka'i or Lana'i to Maui for a district meeting).

The administration claims that these changes will not add an additional layer of bureaucracy or divert resources from the classroom. This is comparable to expecting to open branch administrative offices with volunteer managers who oversee operations but without providing support curriculum development, research, business management or clerical personnel and without physical facilities, equipment and storage. This claim is either disingenuous or naively setting up a system doomed to fail.

Too bad a draft was not circulated during the CARE meetings that were held at the end of last year. In fact, from the original ideas that were originally "floated" by the administration, such as the appointed state board, the presentation by the group at the meeting at Washington Middle School on Nov. 20 that I attended backed away from specifics and details and focused on "concepts." There was very little detail about what the final proposal would be as opposed to what we see in the 114 pages of House Bill 2332.

I recall a member of the audience asking if the CARE group would have a second round of meetings to discuss its specific proposal and receiving a non-committal response. If there was consensus from speakers and audience members, it was that there needs to be a more efficient way to deliver resources directly to the classroom teacher to help individual student achievement.

Don't let the rallying cry "Let the people decide" distract you from the reform that the Legislature has done in the past in partnership with the Hawai'i Business Roundtable and other community groups (School/Community-Based Management, charter schools), as well as the reform efforts currently under way this session (weighted student formula funding, more autonomy for principals, allowing 16-year-olds to run for the Board of Education). These reform efforts that empower principals and communities within and around a school will deliver results much sooner than the proposed constitutional amendment that will take years to revamp education-related law and has little credible and comparable studies behind it that show a correlation to advancing student achievement.

Amendments to the Hawai'i state Constitution deserve more study, clarity, thought and discussion before being placed on the ballot. Changes to the system that teaches our children how to study deserve more study.

The education of our children and the support for teachers and staff at our schools is too precious to be stampeded toward a solution wrapped around a sound bite.

House Bill 2332: read it first instead of reacting to what you are led to believe is in there.