Posted on: Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Letters to the Editor

Issue too important; referendum needed

It is hard to see how public hearings on the Akaka bill would resolve concerns about land access and ownership, tax base impacts, civil and criminal jurisdiction and management of natural resources as the legislation is currently written.

The bill isn't specific on these matters, leaving major issues to be negotiated later by Hawaiian representatives, the state and federal governments and, presumably, the federal courts, based on legal precedents created by U.S. relations with American Indian tribal governments.

The outcome of the negotiations among these parties could range from a benign recognition of Native Hawaiian rights to an unbearable set of compromises driven by litigation and distant federal bureaucrats. If the latter happens, what recourse would Hawai'i's citizens have? None is provided for in the bill, and to simply trust the judgment and the good will of the negotiating parties is not good enough on something this important.

At a minimum, a statewide referendum should be required on the language of the Akaka bill before any final agreement is reached on the land and legal authorities of the new Hawaiian entity.

Let's be clear on this: Graffiti is a crime

J. Davis' letter of May 2 defining graffiti as an "expression, along with many other art forms, (that) just needs a positive place to be expressed" is quite interesting. No one, I'm sure, disagrees with that analogy.

The problem with this art form of graffiti is that it is being done on private walls, buildings, signs and bridges, and it's against the law. Also, providing a graffiti jam session annually for these artists to display their talents, as Mr. Davis suggests, would not decrease illegal graffiti because they would not wait a year to display their talents.

Ever wonder why countries like Canada and Singapore have almost zero graffiti? Hawai'i could be among those countries if we had in place a concentrated effort and program that we could call "Severe Consequences and Reward." Under the consequences portion of the program:

• Any graffiti artist(s) found guilty of defacing public or private property will be held 100 percent accountable and responsible to remove the graffiti at his or her expense.

• A mandatory fine of $500 for the first offense.

• A mandatory fine of $1,000 for the second offense.

• For underage graffiti artists, parents/guardians are held responsible for the fines and graffiti removal.

• Closure of the city/state sports facility until the graffiti has been removed by the artist (if caught) or private contractor, hired by the facility. (Peer pressure from non-usage of the facility may deter graffiti artists.)

Under the reward portion of the program:

• A $1,000 certificate to the person(s) responsible for providing necessary information leading to the apprehension of the graffiti artist(s). Taxpayers spend millions annually for graffiti removal anyway.

Food for thought.

A little bus, a little rail makes for genius idea

Letter writer Mariea A. Vaughan ("Give express buses exclusive highway," May 2) has a better idea than even she might imagine.

Guided busways are used in Australia and Europe. (No, Hawai'i is not Australia or Europe; but we do use automobiles, buses, roads, etc., just like other folks around the world.)

A guided busway has operating features of grade-separated rail systems using lower-cost, more flexible bus-transit technologies.

On busways, buses run along off-road fixed concrete tracks. Small wheels fitted near the front guide the bus by running along high curbs on either side of the track.

A guided busway offers more flexibility than a railway that can only take a passenger from one train station to another train station. Once at a train station, the passenger would need to get on a bus to arrive at his final destination.

A guided busway allows the passenger to use just one mode of transport to get to his destination. Because buses can join and leave a guideway at many points, buses from the entire system can make use of a guided busway and then continue their journey on normal roads to get to their final destinations.

Film industry credits rejection saddening

It was a sad moment to learn that our state representatives refused 15 to 20 percent tax credits on some revenues that would never come if those incentives were not in place anyway. Saying no to 80 percent of millions of Hollywood dollars!

If our state representatives think it is more profitable paying unemployment to the film industry employees, well, let's start a new program called No Representative Left Behind and let's give them a calculator to study basic calculus.

Even malihinis agree: Keep Hawai'i Hawai'i

I've lived here more than 40 years, but I am not a kama'aina. Wade Kilohana Shirkey's April 29 column, "Local-style ways losing ground to 'Mainlandization,' " was to the point.

Mauka, makai, diamondhead and 'ewa make a lot of sense if you think of an island as a cone (no better way to give directions). North, south, east and west just don't cut it. It only takes a malihini a short time to adapt.

Let's start a movement to stop "Mainlandization" in the same manner we have established for the use of Hawaiian names for streets. Have the City Council pass an ordinance prohibiting the use of the cardinal names on all directional traffic signs. Have the Legislature adopt a similar law; keep Hawai'i Hawai'i.

Hawai'i lauds its own in '100 most influential'

All Hawai'i can take pride in Time magazine's inclusion of Illinois U.S. senator and Hawai'i expatriate Barack Obama as one of "the world's 100 most influential people" (April 18 issue).

When "Hawai'i's third senator" exploded onto the national political scene after his now-legendary speech to the 2004 Democratic Party National Convention, few would have known Obama grew up in a multicultural working-class Hawai'i family. Obama attended Punahou, went on to New York's Columbia University and graduated from Harvard Law School. He was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review.

Obama and his Illinois-born wife moved to Chicago, where he practiced civil rights law, representing victims of housing and employment discrimination and working on voting-rights legislation for a small public-interest law firm. The rest is history: Obama's rapid rise in Illinois politics (seven years as a state senator) and his 2004 election to the U.S. Senate — only the third African American to serve in the Senate since reconstruction.

Barack Obama remains proud of his local heritage, and he is a highly visible role model for Hawai'i students who may have their own eyes on the stars. The message is, work hard, get your education, do good things for others and success will indeed follow.

Legacy Lands Act will do much to protect O'ahu

For those who missed it, a breakthrough in smart growth planning and open-space preservation occurred last week, with the Legislature's approval of an affordable housing bill that included the Legacy Lands Act — fulfilling a long-held promise to dedicate a portion of government revenues to a fund for purchase of privately held scenic, recreational and agricultural land that most agree should remain undeveloped.

But among those apparently snoozing while this important land-use planning tactic has been gaining steam are the members of the Honolulu City Council. Your Hilo reporter, Kevin Dayton, wrote on May 5 that the Big Island County Council voted to set aside 2 percent of property taxes for acquiring scenic and culturally important lands — joining Maui and Kaua'i counties, which have already adopted similar preservation policies.

While O'ahu stands last to adopt a publicly funded land bank, it must be the location with the most urgent need. Far from being merely good environmental policy, such funds are a crucial tool for prevention and for mitigation of urban sprawl — Honolulu's core planning defect.

Along with outright land purchases, municipalities across America have employed the less-expensive purchase of development rights from landowners to effectively plan and maintain public resources, including vital transportation and water access. With development anticipated to eliminate the last open space along the H-1 and H-2 freeways, a dedicated fund would improve cooperation between government and landowners and nonprofit land trusts to negotiate agreements to maintain satisfactory infrastructure levels of service and ultimately quality of life for all O'ahu residents.

Emergency-room care imperiled

The May 9 article in The Advertiser regarding physician shortages brings to the forefront a serious issue long smoldering in Hawai'i and elsewhere. The public at large seems to be unaware of the looming crisis in emergency coverage to care for the critically ill and injured who show up at the emergency rooms throughout the state.

There has been a great outcry to get our potholes fixed and to lower the price of gas, but the roads and gas are things we all use every day; if there is a problem with them, we notice it right away and we yell. Emergency care is something we just seem to expect to be there when we need it, and when that time comes, we expect it to be immediately available and of the highest quality.

As an emergency physician at Queen's Medical Center, I receive calls every day asking me to accept transfer patients from other hospitals. Some might be patients requiring specialty care only available at Queen's, Increasingly, however, these are patients who could be cared for in their own communities if there were physicians available at those community hospitals.

As the article pointed out, these could be patients transferred to the trauma service for specialty care, but all too often the outer hospital's orthopedist who might be available on Tuesday is not available on Saturday, and the patient with a relatively minor injury must fly to O'ahu or be sent from another hospital on O'ahu to Queen's for care.

Having attended meeting after meeting with physicians and administrators trying and failing to find solutions to this problem, I have found that the medical community alone cannot fix this. I also fear that until a true crisis arises, as was the case in Las Vegas and the closing of their trauma center, little is likely to happen here in Hawai'i.

Any solution to the multifaceted problem must include:

• Serious malpractice tort reform.

• Major changes in insurance company reimbursement to provide incentives for the care of emergency cases relative to elective cases.

• A demand from the public that hospitals provide care for the communities they purportedly serve and that there be public support for emergency medical care beyond the pre-hospital arena. There must be financing for these changes.

• worked in the Queen's ER until 4:30 this past Sunday morning. I was a small part of a dedicated group of professionals caring for scores of ill and injured patients who earlier that day had no idea they'd be in need of emergency care. I'd like to think that this care and that team would always be there, but I have real reasons for concern, as some very wide cracks in the system have appeared.

These cracks aren't as obvious as the potholes in our roads, but if we want them fixed and don't want them getting any bigger, we must demand some action.