Posted on: Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Letters to the Editor

Performance contract ignores variables

Bravo to Sam Ko of Honolulu (Letters, Feb. 4) on his letter recognizing the absurdity of a one-year performance contract for principals based on standardized test scores.

Are principals responsible when children come to school hungry?

Are principals responsible when children do zero homework but are still allowed to play video games all night?

Are principals responsible when parents keep students home from school to clean house for them because they are too high on ice to clean it themselves?

Are principals responsible when some children have inconspicuous but impacting learning disorders? Or, they know all the answers but just freeze up at the sight of a standardized test?

Are principals responsible when the government does not release enough funds for education to allow for less than 30 students to one teacher?

And if these principals do get ousted, is there a stockpile of quality principals somewhere that the public doesn't know about?

Come on, Governor. Stop using principals and teachers as scapegoats. Start looking at the system as a whole.

Community against UH for a reason

At last, someone has actually put into print what so many of us knew and know, that there was more to the story on Kahuku football.

When this "hoopla" began, the first thing I thought was, why would a community with family values want to have their sons play for coach June Jones? Many of us have said for some time now that the best thing that could happen would be the departure of Jones.

How people can believe that he is such a god baffles me. His excuses for his team's behavior are inexcusable.

Thank you, Lee Cataluna, for putting it out in the open. Yes, many of us chat over the fence, talk among ourselves at the games, and even say that our sons wouldn't play for him. There are also many people who have talked themselves into believing that things will only get better. Sorry, people, but the longer someone like this is allowed to perpetuate this behavior, the more they believe they are owed.

And now they want us to pay more to attend UH games? I have seven of what they call "prime seats," and I am not sure that I even want to renew my season tickets. For the past several years, my distaste for the lack of accountability of this coach and some team members has grown. Why is it we have to make our own bowl game to ensure that we can be in a bowl game? All of these questions and actions need to be reviewed before we, the taxpayers, are sucked in again by officials at UH running amok.

There was a time when we worked it out

As proud 1959 graduates of Kailua High School, we know something about fighting in high schools. If kids fought in class, they went immediately to the principal's office and were paddled.

End of in-school fighting.

Heaven forbid if anyone kicked a police officer, as happened recently.

One year, tired of seeing our boyfriends get off the bus bloodied after the annual football games between Castle and Kailua, a number of us girls got together and made sandwiches for both teams after the game. End of fighting.

Since many of those kids ended up getting married and raising good families, I guess we just worked it out.

Hannemann wearing out his city welcome

Dear Mr. Mayor,

I voted for you, but, with all these various tax and service increases you are going to burden us with ... enjoy your moves for now, son. When your tenure is up, so are you.

Duke Bainum? Start getting warmed up for the rematch.

Or Councilman Charles Djou? You interested in the impending mayor spot? You've proven to be fair, intelligent and a solid thinker. Go for it, bruddah.

Hawaiians' views of annexation are diverse

Not all Hawaiians looked at annexation negatively. Some Hawaiians accepted these changes or customs. Hawaiians were divided into three groups: the Native Hawaiians, the bicultural Hawaiians and the "haole-fied" Hawaiians.

Many Native Hawaiians did not change for America. They kept their old way of life and wanted to restore the monarchy.

Bicultural Hawaiians were part-white and part-Hawaiian. They took the best of both worlds.

"Haole-fied" Hawaiians took on the American way of life to fit in with the community. They imitated the Americans and married into white families, diluting the Hawaiian gene pool.

Therefore, Hawaiians were quite diverse on their opinion about annexation. Some chose to embrace and accept the American culture while others rejected this new way of life. The bicultural community took both sides and got the most out of each.

Even though the Native Hawaiian groups' viewpoint was expressed the most, there was more than one view to the issue.

Speed limits should be set realistically

This is why speed cams will fail again: During the van cam debacle, lawmakers decided that by allowing for a certain threshold over the posted speed limit, they were encouraging disrespect for the law. So, tickets were issued for very small infractions, resulting in public outcry.

This narrow-minded view requires that speed limits be set realistically.

California law recognizes the existence of a prima facie speed limit — namely, the speed at which 80 percent of the drivers on a given roadway will travel, under normal conditions. If a comprehensive speed survey were done, without officers manning radar guns at the monitoring points, our new posted limits would be respected by the majority of drivers, and speed cams would be more tolerated.

Prepaid funeral plans should not be changed

The recent articles by Andrew Gomes (Dec. 26 and Jan. 29) and the letter to the editor by Sarah Robinson (Feb. 8) on the push to change Hawai'i state law on prepaid funeral plans suggest the effort is to protect the consumer. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The effort by some groups to change the state law to 100 percent trusting of prepaid funeral plans would eliminate the funeral homes' ability to offer these plans. The argument from these groups is that if no service has been received, then there should be a 100 percent refund.

For the same reason insurance companies are not required by law to refund 100 percent to consumers who default on their payments or cancel a life, disability or medical insurance policy, the funeral companies cannot operate a pre-need business and remain solvent if they are required to.

The Federal Trade Commission regulates the pricing for funeral homes. Salespeople and funeral directors are required to give a price list to every consumer they discuss prices with. It is perfectly legal to offer discounts on these prepaid funeral plans for the benefit of the consumer.

Prepaid funeral plans offer discounts, allow no-interest monthly payments, are a guarantee against future inflation, offer free credit-life insurance for those who qualify, and take most of the burden off the surviving family. These plans have saved thousands of families hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars each over the years. If the law is changed to 100 percent trusting, then these plans with all of the benefits will not be offered.

These consumer activist groups that are pushing for change under the guise of consumer protection will hurt thousands of consumers while trying to help a few who default on their payments. These groups have their own agenda. For example, the AARP pushes insurance all the time.

The answer is not to throw the baby out with the bath water by changing the trusting law, but to improve the state oversight of the industry and to have stiffer penalties for violations of the current law. Also, funeral companies should be required to have full disclosure of their cancellation and default policy.

Nobody said that prepaid funeral plans are for everybody, but they sure have helped plenty of people.

Will we balk again on transit?

Here we go again, folks — yet another chance for rail transit, finally! Will they build it or will they balk, again?

Those of us who are serious about an alternative to automobile traffic on O'ahu will remember with consternation the long-dead Honolulu Rail Transit Project. Why is it that the government and residents of Honolulu seem to think they can avoid rail transportation forever? Has this city and its residents learned nothing from the rest of the world? When will they realize that this is not the sleepy little Honolulu town of the past? It is now the bustling, dynamic, congested new Honolulu.

Those who claim that rail transit will not alleviate traffic congestion are utterly and completely missing the point. Think "alternative"! In reality, traffic on O'ahu will continue to get worse forever, unless of course a moratorium on the number of cars allowed on the island were imposed, which is just simply not going to happen.

So what will rail transit offer to us? Simple: an alternative to sitting in automobile traffic.

In 1993, a vital rail transit project was completely designed, ready to build, and included state-of-the-art rail technology — but was killed in the City Council. Here is the important part, folks, so please pay attention: The rail system was to have been constructed down the center medians of existing roadways. It was to have started from Waiawa, then proceed through areas such as Dillingham, downtown, Kapi'olani, the University of Hawai'i, Waikiki and more. One could have traveled from Waiawa Station to downtown Honolulu in only minutes, not hours. No beautiful views would have been destroyed because, quite frankly, in those congested overdeveloped areas, there are no beautiful views to be seen.

Furthermore, the Honolulu light-rail system of 1993 would have been among the best in the country. It would have rivaled even the best in many foreign countries such as Singapore, which is a small, congested island that has very similar traffic problems as we have on O'ahu. Now Singapore has an absolutely wonderful and efficient rail system used by millions of commuters every day.

The 1993 rail system was to have cost approximately $1.4 billion. The federal government was to give Honolulu $755 million to help us pay for it. The taxpayers were to pick up the rest of the price with a general excise tax hike of only a 0.5 percentage point. It would have been worth every penny. Now we are faced with raising the general excise tax a full one point to pay for a $2.6 billion rail system. See what happened there, folks? Prices double when you miss a good opportunity.

Are we moving faster on the roadways? Is traffic getting better or worse for us? Let us at least think of the children of this island. They are facing near-total gridlock in 25 years, even if they have a double- or triple-decker freeway.

I would urge the city government to hire Morrison Knudsen Inc., which was the lead engineering firm in the joint venture of 1993 called the O'ahu Transit Group, or at least try to purchase the original plans for that system. This one, simple move could save millions in engineering and design costs. Any new technology available since 1993 and any new utilities in the alignment of the rail system could then be incorporated into those existing plans.