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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Letters to the Editor

Serious drug problem is plaguing Wahiawa

The police and the Wahiawa community should eradicate the problem with drug addicts around California Avenue, Ohai Street and Avocado Street. When I'm driving on these streets, I feel unsafe.

Tourists will also feel unsafe. When they see these kinds of people fighting, running around, yelling at each other and sitting in one corner, they won't want to visit Wahiawa.

When I was working at Jack in the Box, I saw them every day, drug addicts always hanging out in our dining room, using the bathroom and hanging out in front of the store. When I cleaned the bathroom, it smelled like drugs. We lost customers because drug addicts were everywhere. Moreover, our customers complained that addicts were trying to sell drugs to them.

These people should be placed in a rehabilitation center.

Windy Teodoro
Wahiawa


Working together for a better education

It seems as if any time the topic of education in Hawai'i comes up, it's always negative. Teacher shortages, teacher salaries, teacher qualifications, schools in disrepair, inadequate books and equipment, truancy, test scores. The list goes on and on.

And while issues like these take the spotlight, no one hears about the really wonderful things that other people and organizations are doing to help nurture Hawai'i's students. Through my own experience, I have found that the success of a single individual is ultimately the result of a strong, underlying foundation.

This past January, I became the first in my family to graduate from a four-year university — an achievement made possible through a generous long-term investment from Bank of Hawai'i. In 1997, the bank took me, along with 99 other high school freshmen from across the state, under its wing, giving us each the opportunity to be crafted and molded into solid, innovative and richly educated individuals.

Throughout high school, the people at Bank of Hawai'i — along with our parents and teachers — had worked together and with other organizations to help us to get into the college of our choice. Once accepted by our respective schools, the bank continued to generously provide us with educational support — not just financially, but also through preparatory workshops designed to sustain us for life after college. Being able to actually experience the backing and support of such an elite and upstanding team fills me with gratitude.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. I hope that my fellow 2nd Century Scholars and I can serve as positive examples of what happens when everyone works together.

Marisa Seril
Bank of Hawai'i 2nd Century scholar


Cost of living must be factored into pay

In the May 10 letter "Teachers should accept what's given," the writer points out that "they will be the third-highest-paid starting teachers in the nation." Let's not forget that the Hawai'i cost of living is the very highest in the United States. That is why we now are having a brain drain of teachers, professors, scientists and other highly skilled workers.

Jerome G. Manis
Honolulu


Ethnocentric views aren't appreciated

Mr. James Day's April 27 letter asserting that only "pure Hawaiians" have any valid standing in restoration of "claims," which include rights to culture, art, language, spirituality and all forms of Hawaiian ethnocultural identity, saddens me.

Why is it always a non-Hawaiian, as in the past, dictating how Hawaiians should view and acknowledge one another?

Just because Mr. Day feels he isn't Irish because he is not "race pure" doesn't give him the right to force his ethnocentric view on another people. Apparently he knows nothing about Hawaiians, the history of what happened to them and the fact that 90 percent of the Hawaiian population was decimated. As usual, a non-Hawaiian is forcing the racist "blood quantum" divider to segregate people of Hawaiian ancestry.

It is a fact that Pacific Islanders, like people of Hawaiian ancestry, are accepting of people of part-Pacific Islander-mixed race-multiethnic ancestry as being of their ethnocultural group. Today, people of Hawaiian ancestry continue to endure having their ethnocultural identity stripped from them as dominant Asian and Caucasian groups continue to deny people of Hawaiian ancestry their right to be Hawaiian while at the same time stealing their ethnocultural identity passed down to them by their kupuna as hapa, which is the cultural term that defines and describes people of part-Hawaiian ancestry.

Nalani Markell
Honolulu


Homeless problem now has a face on it

I would like to thank The Honolulu Advertiser from the bottom of my heart for documenting the homeless problem in Honolulu.

Through this true and honest documentation, a face has been put on homelessness, that being your "average hard-working family" that is just trying to make ends meet.

Maybe now the ball has begun to roll to get some proper programs set up in order to assist Honolulu's own residents.

K. Cannon
Honolulu


Galuteria commentary was much to howl over

After such a lackluster session, it's always a pleasure to read a humorous column to help us feel better about the lack of progress. I'm referring, of course, to Brickwood Galuteria's May 9 Island Voices commentary "Legislature accomplished much this year."

What Galuteria doesn't do is differentiate between rhetoric and real progress. Most of his so-called accomplishments are just an escalation of that political rhetoric.

For example, he says the Democrats "began to address rebuilding our public school system for the 21st century." Let's get us out of the 19th century first.

Another howler: He says "criticism of pay raises for union workers is ill-advised." He justifies the raises by saying that our governor and some of her appointees received raises, compared to the tens of thousands of civil servants who received comfortable raises under the new contract. Gov. Linda Lingle is one of lowest paid governors in the Union.

Another joke is intimating that the Republicans are yielding to lobbying efforts by the oil industry to withdraw Hawai'i's gas cap. The majority of economists will tell you that the gas cap law will not work.

In essence, Galuteria hints that the Democrats wouldn't yield to many Republican proposals. Now that is funny considering that there are 76 members of the Legislature, of whom 61 are Democrats. This certainly doesn't take much courage or effort to ignore everything proposed by Republicans.

Rep. Mark Moses
R-40th (Makakilo, Kapolei, Royal Kunia)



It's critical for Healthy Start to receive complete funding

The only state child abuse and neglect prevention program, Healthy Start, faces the loss of $5.2 million per year.

Healthy Start services are provided by private providers through state contracts. A potential $3.2 million proposed by the Department of Human Services for Enhanced Healthy Start would not fund prevention services but is earmarked for families already involved with Child Protective Services.

As the debate has reached the media, providers feel compelled to explain the issues.

Hawai'i pioneered the Healthy Start model, now adopted across the country and internationally. Whereas most government services address child abuse and neglect after it has occurred, Healthy Start works with expectant parents and parents with young children who are identified as "at risk" for child abuse and neglect. In spite of the presence of risk factors, 98 percent of families enrolled in the program for 12 months or longer did not have a confirmed report of child abuse or neglect.

Department of Health leaders are questioning the effectiveness of Healthy Start based on a study done by Johns Hopkins eight years ago. Since then, improvements have been made to address the findings, but no further study has been done to document the results of changes. A study conducted by Kapi'olani Medical Center for the same period found that there were 30 children hospitalized for child abuse among 1,469 families not receiving Healthy Start services, but there were only four such cases among 1,774 families served by Healthy Start — a hospitalization rate seven times as great for families not receiving Healthy Start services.

We believe there is justification for retooling and improving Healthy Start. However, we believe that the Department of Health needs to speak with providers, and proceed in a thoughtful manner, rather than beginning by decreasing funds that will result in fewer services and fewer families served.

Families are under more stress than ever and are increasingly impacted by substance abuse. The costs of providing Healthy Start services statewide is small compared to the costs related to treatment, the impact on society or the tragedy of harm to even one child.

Ruthann Quitiquit
Healthy Start Providers Network


Ocean is a friend — protect it

We were delighted to read in The Advertiser that the green sea turtle had been returned to Hanauma Bay May 2 without its hooks. Several of the regular early morning swimmers whom I swim with saw that turtle in distress and hailed the lifeguards to help rescue it.

A crowd gathered to watch the release of a 90-pound green sea turtle at the water's edge at Hanauma Bay May 2.

Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

We owe big kudos to Clarence Moses, the lifeguard who hauled the large and struggling turtle to shore. We have noticed an increase in green sea and hawksbill turtles and spotted eagle rays snagged with hooks or entangled in fishing lines. It was heartening to know this one was helped.

Recently, I was thrilled to swim along with the outrigger canoes and kayaks escorting the Hokule'a to Kailua Beach shore. I got chills listening to the conch shells being blown between the canoe and land, listening to the chants and seeing the lovely hula dancers. It was wonderful knowing young students, encouraged by their teachers and parents, are studying the environment and how to preserve it.

As I snorkeled out to see the Hokule'a, however, I noticed a greatly diminished fish population over the coral reefs compared to several years ago. And as we walked along the beach, we saw a kayak with at least six long nets rolled up on it.

It is difficult to balance the desire of man to fish with the preservation of marine life to sustain a healthy environment. Mahalo to all those who are involved in debating and resolving these complicated issues.

And thanks to Kailua for the beautiful May Day Festival. Keep up the productive studying, young students.

Suzanne Hammer
Former nature instructor, Kailua