EQUALITY

HAWAI'I IS BETTER OFF WITHOUT AKAKA BILL

My thanks to those who worked for the defeat of the Akaka bill.

The bill was a bad idea. It was opposed by the Justice Department and the Civil Rights Commission. It was racist and would have set up a bureaucracy that would forever have drained money from the taxpayers.

Ethnic Hawaiians are entitled to equality, nothing more, nothing less. Anything that fragments us into favored groups and unfavored groups is fundamentally flawed.

The bill is wrong in its very fundamentals and cannot be fixed by any tweaking. Hawai'i is better off without the Akaka bill.

RESIDENTS

RACE-BASED BILL WAS OPPOSED BY MAJORITY

Finally! I am so relieved to hear that the U.S. Senate failed to garner sufficient votes to bring the Akaka bill up for a full Senate vote, effectively killing it for the year.

This race-based entitlement bill is opposed by the majority of Hawai'i's residents and should be voted on by the populace of our state, where it would be defeated once and for all.

INJUSTICES

AKAKA BILL WAS NOT THE CORRECT VEHICLE

Sen. Mitch McConnell's comments capture the essence of the Akaka bill flaws. Sens. Inouye and Akaka cannot make us (Native Hawaiians) something we are not nor have ever been, and that is tribal. We are not Indian, although the suffrage has similarities.

The Akaka bill would give authority to the Department of the Interior. This vehicle places a ball and chain on all Americans of Hawaiian ancestry. Look at the order of things: Hawai'i was a nation first. We still have to care for all the people of Hawai'i, including Native Hawaiians. So, if that means giving back to Native Hawaiians for those injustices, then we should do that; we should take care of every person who lives in Hawai'i regardless of race.

Correcting Hawaiian injustices is not about special preferences; this is about what the United States illegally took from Native Hawaiians. This is about doing it in such a way that the people of Hawai'i will support rectifying those injustices. We all must live here in harmony. There is an avenue to correct this; we just have not found the right one yet.

VIOLATED OATH

WATADA'S WORD WILL ALWAYS BE QUESTIONED

You stood up in front of others, in front of the flag and swore an oath of allegiance to honor and defend your nation. You swore to obey the orders of your superiors. So tell me, what good is your word, anyway?

Let me tell you, we all go into battle scared, but we are trained. You as an officer are there to lead by example.

If you will not honor your word, your commitment to your nation, then I hope you get all that's coming to you. For the rest of your life, your word will always be questioned.

LT. WATADA

WE HAVE OBLIGATION TO CONFRONT WAR ISSUE

My support of our military is unwavering. Like many Americans, however, my feelings about our country's war in Iraq and the actions of our president are conflicted. I have similar feelings about 1st Lt. Ehren Watada's refusal to follow orders and deploy to Iraq.

I understand that under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, he will almost certainly be tried and imprisoned for his actions. I equally respect Lt. Watada's courage in accepting this consequence rather than doing what he believes to be illegal and unconscionable.

This type of moral clarity and courage is exemplified throughout the Watada family. For his part, Ehren voluntarily enlisted in the military out of patriotism. He honorably served a tour of duty in Korea and completed the three-year term of service to which he originally committed. However, rather than allowing him to resign his commission at the end of that term, the military indefinitely extended his service and ordered him to Iraq.

In the intervening time between when he enlisted and now, substantial evidence of our political leaders' lack of honesty, poor use and manipulation of intelligence and inadequate preparation for war has been disclosed.

All of us as American citizens have an obligation to actively participate in this debate and stand up for what we believe. Even if you disagree with his position, this is exactly what Lt. Watada has done.

EXPLOITATION

NOW WE NEED ACTION ON ABUSE OF ELDERLY

Rob Perez and The Honolulu Advertiser are to be congratulated for bringing the tragedy of financial exploitation of the elderly into clearer focus. Your coverage sets the stage for what I hope will be deep and deliberate discussions on a range of issues relating to the abuse of Hawai'i's elderly citizens.

Because financial abuse tends to be significantly underreported, it's important that we understand how common it is and how vulnerable our elders are to its advances. We need to be more aware of what we can do — as individuals, family members and members of a caring community — to protect our older citizens from being coerced into making inappropriate investments, from being taken in by con artists on the Internet and over the telephone, or being mistreated by those on whom they rely for care and protection.

Kudos to Rob Perez for calling our community to action.

KAKA'AKO

DEVELOPMENT BAN WOULD HURT AFFORDABLE HOUSING

The goal of affordable housing in Hawai'i is attainable and, as your June 8 editorial, "Army housing project offers key lessons," stresses, all avenues should be explored.

That is why House Bill 2555's banning all residential housing in Kaka'ako makai — on both public and private lands — is not a good approach.

With the re-emergence on July 1 of the Hawai'i Housing Finance and Development Corporation (HHFDC), new development and financing tools will be made available to private for-profit and nonprofit developers of affordable and workforce housing. However, no matter how innovatively or aggressively HHFDC deploys its tools, the lack of land in core urban areas on which workforce housing can be built close to places of employment will be a serious constraint.

I envision the re-emergence of the type of partnership between HHFDC and the Hawai'i Community Development Authority (HCDA) that occurred in the 1980s whereby 800 units of affordable rental housing were built in Kaka'ako.

Under that model, HCDA contributed the land and streamlined permitting, and HHFDC provided the financing tools in the form of tax-exempt revenue bonds and low-income housing tax credits for private, nonprofit developers.

The resulting affordable rental units are restricted to being kept affordable long term. With other private developer partners, HCDA developed 600 units of affordable ownership housing. This was the precursor to the Army Hawai'i Family Housing project model praised by your editorial.

To effectively re-engage that model, all avenues for developing affordable or workforce housing need to be explored — in Kaka'ako and elsewhere. And if in Kaka'ako, the HCDA board has decided that no development on the makai area will be pursued that involves the sale of state-owned lands.

Hawai'i has an affordable housing crisis. Affordable residential development in Kaka'ako will be only one part of solving that crisis. HB2555's ban of residential development impedes that solution.