Letters to the Editor

BLNR playing games with coastal permits

What's up with the Board of Land and Natural Resources?

This controversial entity is currently holding hearings on converting an interim permit for concessions at Makua into a permanent one, rushing to achieve this before June 30 when it would have to grant a new permit. By doing this within 14 days, it can technically avoid granting a new commercial permit.

This is a direct affront to:

• House Bill 416, which would impose a moratorium on new commercial small-boat harbor permits until an ocean recreation management area is designated and rules are adapted for the Wai'anae Coast;

• Senate Bill 1301, which would require the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to consider user conflicts, address environmental concerns and balance commercial activities along the Wai'anae Coast in issuing permits for commercial ocean activities on the coast;

• Senate Bill 1262, which would place a moratorium on new permits and would appropriate money to conduct a baseline study of environmental impacts for the Wai'anae Coast.

Further, this is against the recommendations of the Wai'anae Neighborhood Board and DLNR Director Peter Young.

Map may not be of Kamehameha tomb

An article in the June 11 paper mentions the discovery of an 1819 map apparently showing the burial place of Kamehameha. Presumably this is the August 1819 map made by the French cartographer Louis Duperrey aboard the Uranie, commanded by Louis de Freycinet.

This map appears in the book "The Early Mapping of Hawai'i" by Gary Fitzpatrick, published in 1986. One discrepancy is that Duperrey's map refers to the bay as "Kayakakoua" instead of "Kairua." Fitzpatrick includes a long discussion of the confusion of place names and shows that the bay is indeed Kailua, not Kealakekua.

Duperrey's map shows two structures close to each other. One is labeled "Morai du feu Roi Tamahama," which roughly translates as "temple of the late King Kamehameha." This morai or marai is almost certainly Ahu'ena Heiau. Slightly to the west and north of the marai, and tilted at an angle to it, is something labeled "Tombeau de Tamahama" or "tomb of Kamehameha."

According to history, Kamehameha did die at Ahu'ena Heiau in May 1819. This map was made only a few months later, and perhaps there was some kind of memorial there.

Duperrey was in Hawai'i as a cartographer, not as a historian, and his primary task was charting various harbors and anchorages. It would not be surprising if he didn't get the descriptions of the landmarks exactly right, and so perhaps we should not take "tomb" too literally.

I spent eight wonderful years in Alaska and feel somewhat qualified to comment.

Jonathan Waterman's June 12 commentary ("What we would lose in Alaska") is a typical summation of anti-oil exploration propaganda for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It symbolizes the elitist attitude about "preserving the national treasure," that 99 percent or more of Americans will never get to see. It is enough that he has seen it; the rest must therefore worship.

His notion that any oil from ANWR is a drop in the bucket in comparison to our needs conveniently ignores the fact that we need a variety of energy sources, and oil from Alaska will simply reduce our dependence from foreign sources by the amount produced. He, like others, skips the fact that most "cleaner sources of energy" are also years away from becoming financially and technologically viable.

I remember well the environmental crowd's dire prediction about effects of oil exploration to the wildlife before drilling in Prudhoe Bay started. The pipeline neither killed nor altered migratory patterns of wildlife. Wind power generation, on the other hand, kills thousands of birds, including migratory species, every year.

By the way, most Alaskans (ANWR being in their backyard) are for the exploration.

Tell me again why we need $28M center?

In this day and age, with telephones, fax machines, computers, audio and visual conference calls, and new devices and concepts I don't even know about, enabling people to do business with others in the far corners of the world, it seems unlikely that the construction of a $28 million city building will solve our traffic problems.

However, if a new building inspires our traffic "experts" to come up with solutions before the big gridlock, then perhaps we need a new building for those charged with solving many other problems — housing, education, cost of living, crime and drugs, violence, political and government corruption, campaign spending and contributions, and the many other problems facing us today.

Capital punishment puts lie to argument

Thomas E. Stuart (Letters, June 14) writes about "traditional values" and "basic respect for human life from conception to natural death." Yet in our government (military and police) and judicial system (capital punishment, life-support removal), there are apparently acceptable reasons for the "right" to end human life that now exist in our society.

If these acceptable reasons do exist, it seems that a mother wishing to abort her fetus (after conferring in private with her doctor under very limited circumstances) or the medical community harvesting embryo components to save human life might also be acceptable reasons.

One may disagree, but to call those who think these are acceptable reasons a "pampered, precious, pretentious generation of garrulous gasbags" is "humbug" itself.

Since "contempt for ... human life" already exists in our government and judicial system, perhaps the wiser course would be to compare the various reasons our society has for ending human life in order to determine which are acceptable and why.

For our society to deny use of embryonic components because they are "human life" while condoning, say, capital punishment seems to be a contradictory paradox, weakening the concept of "human life is just that, human life" as a prohibition.

Legacy Lands Act would protect our natural beauty

"For the benefit of present and future generations, the State and its political subdivisions shall conserve and protect Hawai'i's natural beauty and all natural resources, including land, water, air, minerals and energy sources, and shall promote the development and utilization of these resources in a manner consistent with their conservation and in furtherance of the self-sufficiency of the State. All public natural resources are held in trust by the State for the benefit of the people." Article XI, Hawai'i State Constitution — 1978.

This last session, the Hawai'i Legislature passed probably the most important act in recent memory: House Bill 1308, the Legacy Lands Act. Finally, through an increase in the state conveyance tax, a mechanism has been offered to fund the mandate set forth in our state Constitution to conserve and protect the natural benefits of our environment.

For years, Hawai'i's Department of Lands and Natural Resources and Natural Area Reserves have been underfunded. Yet the Hawai'i Tourism Authority is allotted $60 million each legislative session to promote Hawai'i's natural beauty. Meanwhile, our state parks, beaches, coral reef systems, streams, mountain watersheds and the conservation of our unique endemic species and ecosystems struggle for funding to enforce rules and fund restoration projects, trail systems and camping areas.

With the Legacy Lands Act, an estimated $3.6 million would be set aside to purchase special lands for conservation; $9 million would fund preservation and protection in our natural area reserves.

Not only would our natural systems benefit, but the state's Affordable Housing Fund would receive increased funding from this act. As an example, for every $5 million deposited into the fund, 300 units of affordable housing could be built and renovated by leveraging federal monies, increasing the Affordable Housing Fund spending power, a win-win for everyone in Hawai'i.

The Hawai'i Sierra Club, together with significant testimony by members of our Maui Group, played a very important role in this unified effort. However, we still have one last hurdle, and that is to persuade Gov. Linda Lingle to pass the Legacy Lands Act into law. Please call the governor and respectfully ask her to sign this act into law.

Substitute teacher claim wrong

I am responding to Paul Alston's May 31 Island Voices commentary regarding substitute teachers. Mr. Alston is one of the attorneys representing substitute teachers in a class-action lawsuit filed against the Department of Education more than 2 1/2 years ago.

In the lawsuit, substitute teachers claim they are entitled to be paid a daily rate equivalent to the pay of a fully qualified licensed teacher with a master's degree. Mr. Alston now contends that the recently passed legislation — Act 70 — which sets a new three-tier pay scale for substitute teachers, resulted in a cut in substitute pay by the Legislature at the urging of DOE.

This is untrue.

In 1996, the Legislature determined that the daily rate for substitute teacher pay was to be calculated based on the salary negotiated between the HSTA and DOE for an entry-level teacher who had a bachelor's degree but no particular teacher training. At the same time in 1996, the DOE and HSTA were negotiating a new salary schedule with an emphasis on recognizing and rewarding levels of education and training.

Under the new negotiated salary schedule, the minimum requirement for new teachers was a bachelor's degree. The ultimate goal of the negotiations was to have all teachers fully trained and licensed, which requires completing a state-approved teacher education program and passing a national teachers examination. Thus, the salaries of teachers with higher education and training advanced more quickly.

The educational background and training of substitute teachers runs the gamut from no college degree at all to fully licensed, with advanced decrees. However, currently all substitute teachers are paid a single rate of $112.52 per day. Act 70 sets three rates for substitutes effective July 1, and increases substitute teacher pay: $140 per day for substitutes who are fully qualified teachers; $130 per day for substitutes with a bachelor's degree; and $119.80 per day for substitutes without a bachelor's degree.

Act 70 not only provides substitutes with a significant rate increase, but their pay is no longer tied to the salary schedule of a collective bargaining unit to which they are not members.

Mr. Alston asserts that the DOE lobbied hard for lower rates. This is not true. The DOE worked hard to get Act 70 passed, but the three rates of pay were not suggested by the DOE. During this legislative session. the only one who suggested particular rates was Mr. Alston. In a letter to the joint Senate and House conference committee, Mr. Alston proposed rates of $155, $145 and $140 for the three classes of substitutes. The Legislature chose to reject Mr. Alston's proposal.

As to the lawsuit, Mr. Alston continues to claim that substitutes are entitled to back pay back to 1996. The state disputes the claim, and the matter will ultimately be resolved in court.

However, the court has already ruled that the substitute teachers' claim for back wages based on an alleged violation of a statute is impermissible. The court has also denied the substitute teachers' request for injunctive relief and prejudgment interest. And, the court has determined that if there is a viable claim, it is limited to the period from November 2000 forward.