Chinatown waterfall has other problems

This is in response to the May 1 letter from John W. Lyles, "Chinatown waterfall should be preserved":

Yes, it is not difficult to replace a pump. However, there are other issues we face in maintaining the waterfall in the Chinatown Gateway Park next to the Hawaii Theatre. This water feature is a receptacle for trash and human waste, probably due to its isolated location away from public traffic.

In addition, it is leaking water into the pump room, plagued by electrical hazards and serves as a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Also, the tree roots have broken the concrete in the pond.

We strive to make every city property as safe and clean as it can be, but we must live within the city's financial means.

Your letter compared the Chinatown Gateway water feature with the one at Punahou Cliffs, a private, high-end condominium. The fountain there is not subject to public traffic and is spared the onslaught of trash, waste and scum. Like the other private fountains you mentioned, the one at Punahou Cliffs has on-site private maintenance staff and a modicum of security.

We wish the city were as fortunate to have that kind of attention at every fountain we own.

The Chinatown Gateway Park with its waterfall is a perfect candidate for a private business or a concerned citizen to put their concern into action through our Adopt-A-Park program.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Condom machine should be in school

It should be mandatory to have a condom machine in our school bathroom.

Our community wants to control the spread of diseases such as AIDS, but doesn't put into action its views. The incidence of sexually transmitted diseases has been growing within our community; more people will die from STDs.

The problem with teenage pregnancy has increased.

If we put a condom machine in our school bathroom, maybe it will help. Although it's not going to stop all cases of AIDS, STDs or teen pregnancy, it will help a few people, and a few can make a difference.

Mansho was right to question rail plans

Sen. Lorraine Inouye commented that she would not want to be in the same shoes as Rene Mansho 10 years from now if the proposed rail project is killed again. That statement is very scary.

Rene Mansho voted against the rail project in 1992 because the administration understated the cost of building the rail system by at least half a billion dollars. Specifically, the 25 substations were calculated to cost $4 million each to build. When Mansho went to the Mainland on a fact-finding mission, she was told the stations cost about $25 million each to build. Mansho repeatedly asked the administration to explain the half-billion-dollar discrepancy, but it refused to respond.

It became clear the costs of building the project were being fudged to fit the budget. This stonewalling meant the City Council had no way of knowing what the actual cost of the rail project was. Rene Mansho searched her soul and decided not to support a project that could possibly bankrupt Honolulu.

If Sen. Inouye's position is to be in favor of a rail project without knowing its true cost and try to figure out how to pay for it later, then I would not want to be in her shoes 10 years from now.

Elvis Presley should have Hawai'i plaque

A very pleasant Hawai'i lady diplomat in Washington, D.C., told us as we sat with her on a park bench just below the state building in September 2000 that she saw Elvis perform at the USS Arizona benefit concert in Hawai'i in 1961. We spoke with her for about an hour.

She bemoaned the fact there was not a fitting memorial to Elvis in Hawai'i, considering his love for the Hawaiian Islands and the amount of money raised by the benefit concert.

It would be nice to see an Elvis Memorial Plaque in light of the huge amount of interest in the great singer worldwide recently.

Elvis fans are contacting the international media about this subject en masse.

Evangelicals pursuing goals in wrong manner

Regarding David Shapiro's May 18 commentary on Hawai'i Evangelicals in the group Transformation Hawaii who want to break down the separation of church and state:

It troubles me that such leaders, including Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona, would brush aside more than 200 years of the American experience in democracy.

When Mr. Daniel Kaneshiro says, "You can't really separate church and state," he scares me, and I'm sure he scares a whole lot of other decent, good people whom he really would (I imagine) want to get on his side.

While I applaud the group's attempts to reduce crime and social ills through their religion, I shudder at its spokespersons' concept of what religiosity means, because if their logic proceeds to its conclusion, all of us "nonbelievers" — non-evangelical Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims — will be cut out of government, schools, business, media and the arts and the rest of society, or at the very least reduced to second-class citizenship. If this is their vision of "God's Island," as Lt. Gov. Aiona has written, then for the rest of us, God's Island will be Hell's Island, because I thought Hawai'i was a place where people of all colors, faiths and beliefs could live in peace and harmony, not a place where religious intolerance reigns.

The other day I was at Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery on a family matter. I could not help but notice that the grave markers had religious icons from a variety of religions and sects, and some none at all. Men and women of all (and no) religions shed their blood and gave their lives to keep this country an open, religiously tolerant democracy. In pursuing laudable goals — that of reducing crime and social problems — let such groups not forsake what our soldiers fought for: freedom of religion and equal justice for all our people.

Child Support Enforcement Agency editorial misleading

Two weeks ago, The Advertiser published an editorial regarding an Office of Information Practices opinion on the confidentiality of child support enforcement orders in the files of the Child Support Enforcement Agency (CSEA).

We are compelled to counter the editorial because it wrongfully accused the CSEA and this office of finding a way to not release public records.

A reading of the opinion itself shows that the editorial was apparently based solely on an out-of-context comment that does not appear anywhere in the opinion. The editorial assumed that the law makes the enforcement orders held by CSEA public. To the contrary, our opinion concluded that a state statute requires CSEA to keep confidential all applications and records in its files concerning any individual or case, including the enforcement orders.

Importantly, this broad law requiring confidentiality of CSEA's files does not protect those same records where they exist elsewhere.

In this case, CSEA is required by another law to file the enforcement orders at the Bureau of Conveyances to effect a lien. At this point, the enforcement orders are public records accessible at the bureau if you know the name of the person the order concerns. Despite this fact, CSEA is still required by law to maintain the confidentiality of the enforcement orders in its files.

This conclusion may seem inconsistent, but it is reached from an objective and, we believe, correct legal application of two existing statutes with which CSEA must comply.

The editorial's criticism that the current law produces a "whimsical" result must be directed to the Legislature. CSEA should not be faulted for maintaining the confidentiality of its records as required by law.

Few nonprofits are being probed

The regulatory climate for nonprofit organizations is tightening as the American public has seen infrequent but well-publicized scandals involving Mainland charities.

Sunday Advertiser readers therefore can be forgiven if they interpreted the May 1 front-page headline, "State checks 200 nonprofits," as a crime spree in the bud.

The real story was told in a secondary headline, which said, "Most charities honest but a minority face allegations of abuse."

Here at the Hawai'i Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations, we were understandably shocked by the primary headline. The morning after it appeared, fearing the worst, we called the attorney general's office for a damage report.

Hugh Jones, supervising deputy attorney general, agreed that the lead headline left the impression there are 200 nonprofit organizations under investigation.

That is not the case, Jones said.

The AG's office is now looking into 10 or 15 cases, Jones said. In the last few years, his office has opened about 200 nonprofit-related matters, but he wouldn't characterize them all as investigations.

Have there been scandals involving nonprofits on the Mainland? Yes. Have both houses of the U.S. Congress initiated hearings on nonprofit reforms? Yes. However, in Hawai'i, charities, of which there are roughly 6,000, enjoy a remarkably untarnished record.

As The Advertiser story pointed out, the attorney general's office was granted expanded powers last year to explore and prosecute abuse in nonprofits. It can now remove individual board members and officers, for example.

Jones said the attorney general's office now examines every private foundation tax return for completeness, for evidence of transactions with ineligible people such as directors and officers, for excessive compensation of executives and to confirm that the organization has a charitable purpose.

"Stealing money is a simple no-brainer," said Jones. "The real story is in the more gray areas, such as educating volunteer board members so they understand their fiduciary responsibilities. Those are the tough areas."

The AG's office investigates reported cases of self-dealing i where a director, volunteer or staff member uses the organization for personal gain.

For example, last year it looked into nine loans by nonprofits to officers or directors, which are illegal under state law. After several months, it issued warnings to eight of the organizations.

"A substantial amount of our time now is devoted to nonprofit matters, and that didn't used to be the case," Jones told me. "We're taking our oversight role more seriously than we have in the past, but we don't have a problem here."

Reassured by Jones, we were happy to report to our growing Hawai'i Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations membership that the sky was not falling.

No sector of the Hawai'i economy is immune from conflicts of interest or individual criminal conduct. However, as a group, Hawai'i charitable organizations have an enviable record of serving the community well and with integrity and honesty.