Social worker title should be exclusive

If you can take a person's temperature and administer aspirin, does that mean you are a nurse? Or because you took one course in biology, can you call yourself a doctor? Of course not. But why is it that the state Department of Human Resources Development believes that anyone with a bachelor's degree can be called a "social worker"?

The National Association of Social Workers Hawai'i Chapter has raised the concern that state departments hire individuals for social work positions who lack the education and training in the profession of social work. In response to departmental personnel needs, DHRD has filled vacant social work positions by lowering minimum qualifications for these positions to include anyone with a "related" degree.

Recently, DHRD attempted to do away with the social work series and replace it with a human service professional series. Following several meetings with interested parties, DHRD agreed to a social worker/human service professional series.

The problem is in the implementation of the series that allows employees to call themselves either a social worker or a human services professional, regardless of their education. While NASW acknowledges the need for a dual title, NASW is advocating that only those who possess a bachelor of social work degree, a master of social work degree or doctorate in social work be allowed to use the social worker title. All others would be able to use the human services professional title.

We never had a chance to use bus smart-cards

My wife and I are occasional users of TheBus who have been awaiting with great anticipation the implementation of smart- cards. And now we learn that the program has been scrapped, with one of the reasons being "low participation." Low participation? When were we ever invited to participate?

I assure you that we would be a lot more apt to use the bus if we didn't have to scrounge around for exact change every time. If we can't have smart-cards, how about at least letting us buy books of prepaid tickets in advance?

Let's keep the 'news' out of the newspaper

Wow! Steve Vaspra has a great idea in his May 22 letter to the editor regarding the reporting of religious-based news. Let's everybody follow his suggestion: Catholic news only in a Catholic paper; Protestant news only in a Protestant paper; Buddhist news only in a Buddhist paper, and so on.

Hey, maybe we can take that to the next level. Hawaiian issues only in a Hawaiian paper; Japanese news only in a Japanese paper. How about Republican news only in a Republican paper? Or European news only in a European paper?

Mr. Vaspra is right. What other people do in the world, what is interesting to others and how we can better learn about each other shouldn't be blatantly reported in our major newspapers, forcing us to read about it.

UH-Manoa needs men's soccer team

I'm writing in response to the May 4 letter " 'Traditional gender roles' unfair." There should be a men's soccer team at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. This unfair situation often affects teenagers who are developing soccer skills in high school.

I've been playing soccer for almost my whole life, and I'm proud that I played for my school for about three years and I put a lot of effort into it for our school. People think that Kalihi doesn't know anything about soccer, but we proved to them that we do have something by doing a great job in our soccer season this year.

My coach at Farrington High School asked where I was going to college after I finished high school. I told him that I might have to go to college on the Mainland because there aren't any colleges that have soccer as a sport here.

Mandate government workers take a bus

Hey, here's a thought: Pass a law that mandates that all city, county and state workers ride TheBus to work. Ridership goes up, traffic congestion goes down. No need for a rail system then.

It's not hard to imagine the new routes, extensive coverage and the increased number of buses if the bus riders themselves create the transit plan.

Small stores of Kalihi center will be missed

The shops of the Kalihi Shopping Center will definitely be missed. My husband's family shopped there when Foodland was open. Even though Foodland is gone, we still go there to take our dogs to the vet. My husband usually goes there to buy supplies from the fishing store.

No doubt the takeover will mean the fishing supply store, the vet and the other small shops may be forced to close their doors permanently. And people will be out of work.

I have noticed that because of high rents and poor parking arrangements, these smaller establishments are closing.

As far as local fishing stores go, we have very few left that cater to the small-time fisherman. My husband and I will fish from shore when the halalu or 'oama are in season.

If the vet retires, then we will have to go farther afield from home (we're only five minutes away) to a new vet.

It will be difficult for the ladies at the tailor shop, the pet store, the sundry store, the small eatery and the bakery to find a new home.

My husband and I will mourn these small local establishments.

We must not deprive keiki of arts, music

Beginning in third grade, I received music education in public school. These were deeply formative experiences. My daughter had an excellent music educator from kindergarten through fifth grade. Now my 5-year-old granddaughter faces the bleak prospect of no regular classes in music and art as delivered by trained music and art educators.

The system is paralyzed by institutional inertia. Unless the citizens of Hawai'i create an outcry heard by their local public school administrators on up to the superintendent, nothing will change.

Nature abhors a vacuum. The more we abdicate leadership in the arts to the less qualified, the more our culture (and country) spins off course. The arts will always survive. But without an informed and enthused younger generation, the arts will become rough and crude, harking back to the worst of the ancients. The arts will not have the integrated softness of our present sensibilities, the luminous message still possible for our time, and the appropriate signposts.

It's not infanticide, of course. But what better way to deaden a culture than to deprive its youth of music and art education precisely when our youth are developmentally ready to receive such training? Such has been the pattern in the public elementary schools for a generation in Hawai'i and many other states.

In effect, we as a society are committing cultural suicide.

Give us the power to cite parking offenders

At Star Market, I parked in a handicapped spot and did my shopping. A small white car parked in the handicapped stall next to me. A young woman got out and took water bottles from her car. When she returned, I asked if she knew she was in a handicap stall. She said yes, she would move when something else opened up. She wanted to be near the Pure Water machine.

Every day I see that people will park in these stalls when it's convenient for them. They know by the time police get there they'll be long gone. So give us the power to ticket these cars. People will think twice about parking in these stalls when they know that they will get a ticket.

Capitol pond cleanup

I am very excited about the new project to clean up the Ala Wai Canal. If it works there, why don't we install some of these super plants in the Capitol pond? Nothing else seems to have done the job.

Plan well for major transit hub

Two major articles in the May 22 Advertiser, on "Kalaeloa in limbo" and the conversion of Campbell Estate to a for-profit company, indicate their impact on the future of the "second city" of Kapolei. Neither article mentions the future fixed-rail system that will appear on the 'Ewa Plain by the next decade, along with the need for a major transit hub in Kapolei.

Kapolei's current transit hub will close as the new Kapolei interchange for H-1 is developed. Campbell Estate apparently plans to move the hub to three acres west of the (planned) judiciary complex in the southwest corner of the urban area. This is in the general location of the northwest portion of Kalaeloa, across from parcels of land owned by the Navy and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

I have submitted two concept plans: one to the O'ahu Metropolitan Planning Organization that makes Kapolei the western hub of a 37-mile rail system that includes other hubs in Wahiawa/Mililani, UH-Manoa, and the diamondhead end of Waikiki; and the other to the Hawai'i Community Development Authority to allocate a significant amount of acreage in the northwest portion of Kalaeloa for the Kapolei transit center — an area that will not impact potential plans for housing the air wing of a Pearl Harbor-based carrier strike group.

Three acres will not suffice for a major rail-centered transit center. Space should be available for the bus feeder system (Campbell's portion?); a very large and secure parking lot for park-and-ride commuters; enough retail space to lure private developers and businesses into the project; and other conveniences for commuters such as satellite state and city offices and a post office open into the early evening hours.

Similar hubs are envisioned for other sites serviced by the rail system, particularly for one across from the new UH-West O'ahu campus on the North-South Road.

"Transit-oriented development" and "smart growth" are terms that seem to be foreign to many planners and developers here, resulting in strip malls and infrastructure-poor housing developments. OMPO, HCDA, James Campbell Co., the Navy and DHHL need to coordinate their future actions concerning both Kapolei and Kalaeloa. Not only will residents and commuters find a "gathering place" that eases their current commuting burden, but the landowners will reap major profits from considerably increased land values.

There is still time to do it right; the question is, will we?