CUTTINGS

WEED WHACKING ON PALI HIGHWAY INEFFICIENT

The practice of weed whacking on the Pali Highway during times when work was being done at Makapu'u or Likelike Highway has gone on for years. Our complaints have been ignored.

Making it more idiotic is the wasted manpower using leaf blowers to corral the cuttings in toward the median strip. Attention, DOT! It takes a few minutes of passing vehicles to do the same. At no charge to the taxpayers.

Do the weed whacking at night. You may be only disturbing the Jackson chameleons.

David Thompson | Waimanalo

EMPOWER COUNTIES

TRANSIT BILL FLAWED IN DEVOTION TO RAIL

I don't understand how the governor can maintain a straight face while referring to House Bill 1309, which allows the counties to raise the state general excise tax, as a home-rule issue.

The excerpt in the bill stating that counties cannot use gained revenue to "build or repair public roads or highways, bicycle paths, or support public transportation systems already in existence" essentially limits any gained funds' use to non-existing mass transit. The governor was even quoted in the media as wanting to extend any mass-transit system to Kapolei, which would raise the price tag by $700,000 per mile over and above the cost of the system itself. She should let the counties mull over these decisions for themselves.

Mayor Hannemann is correct when he says the state should collect revenues from the GET increase for disbursement to the counties, as the state has an existing collection mechanism in place.

If the governor and Legislature truly intended home rule, they would have allowed the counties to determine models of transportation they'll implement rather than arbitrarily deciding to eliminate the possibility of expending gained revenue to expand existing means of transportation.

Whitney T. Anderson | Waimanalo

RESIGNATION

HIRAKI DISTINGUISHED HIMSELF IN THE HOUSE

I was saddened to read about Rep. Ken Hiraki's resignation from the Legislature. I have followed his 19-year career closely and have always taken inspiration from his hard work, dedication to fairness and even-handed decisions.

Ken was always among the most ethical and caring of our leaders — a local boy who gave unselfishly to his community for almost two decades. The people of our state (and especially his district) are losing an effective representative who will be difficult to replace.

We can only wish him well in his new career and hope he is able to enjoy more time with his wife and two lovely daughters. Mahalo, Rep. Hiraki, from all of us who were touched by your service to our state.

Susan Lai Young | Makiki

POLITICIANS

SEPARATION OF CHURCH, STATE MUST BE KEPT

God, in her infinite creation, loves Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists and all beings, no exceptions.

God, who created earth and the heavens, gave each of us a human birth and free will. He created the context for us to experience life and graced us with the consciousness to realize the divine nature and interrelationship of all beings.

Sometimes the need to validate one's own experience of "God" leads people to behave as if their way is the only way.

While exclusivity of belief is a right, overzealousness sometimes leads to the condemnation of other's beliefs and fosters separation, alienation and conflict between people. It has caused countless wars and is responsible for the deaths of millions of human lives.

Aware of this proclivity toward exclusivity, our forefathers, in their wisdom, created the principle of "separation of church and state" to protect democracy from the problems of dueling theistic belief systems.

City Hall and the state Capitol are places where people legislate man-made laws. Church is where people learn about and celebrate God's laws.

From Monday to Friday, let our elected officials be busy with the public's business. On Saturdays, Sundays or during their own time, in the privacy of their chosen place of worship, not in government buildings, let them pray for the guidance and direction necessary to fulfill their mandate as public servants to represent and serve all of the people, regardless of their chosen religion.

Testifying at government hearings is difficult enough as it is. Let's leave the specter of religious favoritism out of the equation.

Rick Bernstein | Honolulu

'SAFETY' CAMPAIGNS

MAKING MONEY IN THE NAME OF SAVING LIVES

A recent letter by Mele Welte called for the Click It or Ticket campaign to be replaced by Self-Responsibility for Safety. Welte then incongruently proceeded to list what should be required by law for safety. In a free society, self-responsibility means just that: people assessing risk and taking appropriate action as they see fit, not as Welte or anyone else paternalistically dictates.

Regarding Click It or Ticket: Follow the money. At $92 per ticket, it's a scam. But government isn't the only entity profiting under the "saving lives" guise. Another Click It or Ticket cheerleader is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a tool of the auto insurance industry, which knows that more driving rules enforced by more ticket writers mean more license violations and therefore more excuses to jack up people's premiums.

If "saving lives" is really so important, where does it end? About 40,000 Americans die in vehicle accidents every year but obesity claims 300,000 and adds more than $100 billion to healthcare costs. Isn't it time, then, for government to enforce caloric intake limits? A recent Honolulu Advertiser feature on pedestrian fatalities in Hawai'i showed that 233 had been killed from 1996 to 2003. Compare this with the 151 motorcyclists killed over the same time and ask why shouldn't pedestrians have to wear helmets and body armor. The answer is to be found in true self-responsibility.

Fred Hollenbeck | Kihei, Maui

HAWAIIANS

BEWARE STEWARDSHIP OF U.S. GOVERNMENT

I am reminded of Judge Royce C. Lambreth, United States district judge in the ongoing Cobell v. Norton case, which asks for an accounting of Indian money that may go back for more than a century that the secretary and/or Department of Interior has been notoriously inept in overseeing in a failure to their Indian beneficiaries.

On July 12, Judge Lambreth opined: "While it is undeniable that Interior has failed as a trustee ... the plaintiffs have invited the court to declare that Interior has repudiated the Indian trust, appoint a receiver to liquidate the trust assets, and finally relieve the Indians of the heavy yoke of government stewardship. The court may eventually do all these things, but not yet. Giving up on rehabilitating Interior would signal more than the downfall of a single administrative agency. It would constitute an announcement that negligence and incompetence in government are beyond judicial remedy ... "

It is a fact that the Akaka bill names the secretary and/or Department of Interior to be the lead U.S. governmental agency to substantially oversee everything that will affect Hawaiians and their "trust" lands if and when the bill, if it should pass, becomes law.

It is in this light that I submit the following proposed amendment to the Akaka bill: "That the proposed trustee — the U.S. government through its Department of Interior and its secretary — may exhibit a continuing inability or refusal to discharge its fiduciary duties and that any information, accounting, etc., regarding trust assets and income — from the trustee to the beneficiaries — may be unreliable."

Clarence Ching | Waimea, Hawai'i

OVERRIDE WASN'T A RAID ON THE STATE'S HURRICANE FUND

Linda Smith, the governor's policy chief, and Drew Kosora, a regular pundit, on July 15 expressed concern over the override on Senate Bill 960, the Disaster Emergency Preparedness Act. They both misleadingly refer to it as a raid of the hurricane fund. This is unfair to the public interest and raises questions as to the thoroughness of Smith's policy-evaluation process on this critical issue.

They need not worry because the Legislature has done the right thing. The public will be dramatically safer because of the override, especially because public shelter shortages and weaknesses like flying glass, as well as residence safe rooms and much else, will now be officially addressed.

The disaster preparedness needs are a documented legal, necessary and appropriate public safety special fund (Hawai'i Hurricane Relief Fund) investment. Amazingly, Ms. Smith (and Kosora) seem not to have familiarized themselves with the actual Hurricane Relief Fund statute language pertaining to mitigation as a mandate.

The HHRF is inactive and no longer has policyholders. So, other than preparedness and mitigation, it is useless to the public safety and the hundreds of thousands of people who paid into it. Without public safety investment eman- ating from the fund, many of us may never see a nickel's continuing value from the fund in our lifetimes, and be at heightened harm's risk to boot. I and others have written to Ms. Smith many times pleading that she recognize this fact when guiding the administration, that this must be a nonpartisan, nonpolitical issue.

We do applaud Ms. Smith for recognizing that preparedness and mitigation projects are worthwhile. Sadly, she may have advised the administration to ignore preparedness investments in four years of administration budget plans with the now nearly $50 million transfer of interest from the HHRF fund to the General Fund. And the interest raid is going on daily with the administration's (and Legislature's) approval.

Gerald Peters | Honolulu

EFFICIENCY, SAVINGS

STATE MUST LOOK AT PRIVATIZATION

Potholes, broken police radios, freeway ramp discrepancies — these are some examples of how state and local governments misuse taxpayer money, as documented in Mike Leidemann's "The worst-laid plans" article (June 26).

As the article points out, millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on stadiums with blocked views, pothole fillers that could not patch roads, police radios that could not communicate, and fire boats that couldn't put out fires. Leidemann also alluded to, but did not quantify, how much more money is lost due to costly and inefficient labor practices.

As former Gov. Cayetano discovered, even a simple task like changing a light bulb in a state office costs taxpayers dearly. Have we created a bureaucracy that exists for bureaucracy's sake?

The way I see it, inefficient government departments are costing taxpayers much more than fire boats that can't put out fires, or baseball stadiums where fans can't see the games. Slow service, poor organization and high costs are making privatization of government services an increasingly attractive option.

During hard economic times, the Legislature was forced to consider the real possibility of layoffs unless it could make itself more efficient. The result was the enactment of Act 230 in 1998, which looks at ways to implement public-private competition to create a performance-based system based on outcomes, not inputs. In 2001, legislators passed Act 90, which allows state and counties to privatize government jobs when the private company can provide equivalent or better services for a lower price.

However, since the enactment of those measures, the economy has improved, and according to Auditor Marion Higa, only minimal effort has been made to let the private sector take over part of the government's workload. Why are accountability, efficiency and savings only considered during hard economic times?

Although privatization is sometimes labeled as a conservative issue, it has recently become more bipartisan because privatization is an effective way to cut costs, improve services and free funds for other public needs. Privatization offers flexibility, quality, speed, expertise and innovation. Private-sector employees working under deadline will get the work done promptly, rather than sitting around and milking the public payroll. Private firms will look for innovative ways to get jobs done efficiently so that they can beat their competition and keep their jobs. For us, competition would mean shorter lines and better service — even when public employees keep their jobs.

Overall, privatization should not be an issue left dusty on the shelf until the day we are again pinching pennies. We need to search for ways to cut our costs right now. Let's show that we have the political will to make the government more efficient through privatization. We owe it to taxpayers to provide efficient services and to save money where we can.

Rep. Colleen Meyer | R-47th (Ha'iku, Kahalu'u, La'ie)