City workers already are doing their part

City & County of Honolulu offices do recycle and have been recycling for the 10 years I've worked at the Municipal Building.

Every floor and department has separate bins for white paper, color paper and newspaper/magazines. Cardboard boxes are also separated, stacked and hauled away. Each employee on my floor had an opportunity to place a recycle box next to his computer. Those boxes sure get a good workout. In addition, most departments have employee-funded coffee/soda clubs. A mountain of soda cans is recycled each year.

City employees are doing their part, but more needs to be done at the various properties used by the general public.

What pay cut are you talking about?

Thank you for your article concerning Evan Dobelle's recent job search. As I read it, I was not sure what surprised me more — your disingenuous and moralistically irresponsible use of the term "fired" in connection with the former University of Hawai'i president, or your apparent belief that his interest in working at a nonprofit while being subsidized by UH would be considered a pay cut.

Let's see, $1.8 million severance plus a possible salary of $120,000 compared to about $450,000 as president of UH. Wouldn't that mean that the regents have successfully managed to subsidize Dr. Dobelle to help New England's post-secondary education system (as if they need it!) for the next five years at a net "salary" of about what he was being paid to support post-secondary education in Hawai'i?

I'm not sure what the article was meant to be about, but the tragic truth is that someone cast out of Hawai'i as not good enough is being quickly snapped up by others to help their already strong hand.

By the way, where did those other "high-priced" friends of Dobelle go? Stanford? Princeton? Harvard? Is it useful to ask why Hawai'i doesn't keep accomplished people like that? Losing them helps ... who?

I look forward to reading more about the travails of Dr. Dobelle, on the regents' nickel.

Students have turned over bench yet again

Again for the umpteenth time the mean-spirited teenagers who walk by on the way home from school have turned over the bus stop cement bench fronting Martin and North School streets. The elderly and handicapped use this bench and bus stop, and it is disheartening to see them standing in the rain and sun to catch the bus.

Isn't there something the city can do to make a permanent shelter or just anchor the bench to the ground? If those children can lift open the pages of their school books and read, just like they turn over the bus stop bench, might they just become educated enough to stop this nonsense? I don't think so.

Landowners would get windfall in Bill 53

In this increasingly rancorous debate over leasehold conversion, one point appears to be getting lost: Landowners inherit property they didn't pay for.

How is that? The developer, not the landowner, paid for putting up the buildings and all the improvements. The developer then passed that cost on to the buyers in their purchase prices. The land (fee) owners paid nothing. The apartment owners pay for other improvements through association fees. In addition to their mortgage and insurance, the apartment owners also pay property taxes, even though they don't own the "fee" under their apartment. Again, the landowner paid nothing. So what happens when the lease expires? In most cases, from million-dollar beachfront condos to Makiki high-rises, the landowner gets everything, the land, the buildings, the improvements. The lessees are evicted.

Lawmakers long ago decided it was time to change this antiquated system. The courts have upheld the changes, concluding the right of home-ownership overrides this out-of-date leasehold system that exists nowhere else in the United States. Yet the condo owners, including those who purchased after Chapter 38 was passed more than a decade ago, are facing the stark reality of handing over their property to landowners. So the next time you hear someone accuse leaseholders of "stealing," consider the windfall Bill 53 represents to the landowners.

Graffiti is vandalism; don't call it 'artwork'

I just read Monday morning's article on the Pearl City police effort to crack down on graffiti, and what bothered me the most was not the extent of the problem but how your writer (Rod Ohira) almost legitimized graffiti and its perpetrators.

Mr. Ohira used the words art, artists or artwork no fewer than 12 times in his article. He even referred to those who do large, extensive damage to our public places as "master artists." Calling these criminals "artists" and the damage they do "art" or "artwork" makes it seem like a form of free expression and not the vandalism it actually is.

The media need to stop referring to these criminals as "artists" and their total disregard for public (and oftentimes private) property as "art" because doing so encourages this behavior and perpetuates the endless cycle of damage they cause.

Acute-care units are few and far between

I wish to point out an inaccuracy in Timothy Hurley's article on Maui's healthcare. Maui has only one "true" acute-care unit (not two), and the Big Island has three (not five).

The ones in Hana, Kohala and Pahala (all managed by the Hawai'i Health Systems) are sleepy, low-level "emergency rooms" attached to long-term-care (read "nursing home") facilities. They take care of minor problems, but anything serious (i.e., those requiring hospitalization, like heart attacks and surgical cases) is transferred to the "real" hospitals in Wailuku, Kona, Waimea and Hilo. These are "urgent-care" facilities, not true "acute-care" ones.

However, I applaud the private sector for attempting to create more hospitals. There is a need for alternatives with the rapidly growing populations on Maui and the Big Island in keeping with the aging population, terrain and distances involved in seeking appropriate care.

More voters were welcome; let's do more

The increased participation of voters in the general election compared with the primary was a welcome sight for those who have pushed for greater turnout all these years. I hope that momentum will continue into the next election of 2006 and get that percentage of registered voters actually voting closer to 100 percent. We need everybody eligible to take part in this privilege to live in the United States.

Don't forget that the primary election in Hawai'i requires that there will be no crossover; that is, you cannot vote for one party's candidate for one office and cross over to vote for another party's candidate for a different office. It has to be a slate of the same party, such as all Democrats, Republicans, Independents, etc.

Looking forward to your actions in 2006.