TRANSIT

COUNCIL MUST ACT FOR BENEFIT OF ENTIRE ISLAND

If the City Council is going to micromanage Honolulu's new transit project, we should just scrap it. Councilmembers have a strong desire to look out for their own districts, but the leaders we elect must be able to look at the big picture and act for the benefit of the entire island.

This project will provide the greatest benefit for Leeward residents. They will have to drive from 2 to 15 miles just to get to the start of the rail line.

Many work at Pearl Harbor, Hickam or in the airport industrial area. But because Salt Lake residents and their headstrong leader want to be able to walk to a station instead of having a far shorter drive than Leeward residents, we'll be stuck with a system that thousands of potential riders won't use.

Taxpayers paid millions for a comprehensive transit study. Trained professionals found the airport route most favorable.

It's common sense that a rapid transit system go to the airport. This common sense is backed up by the massive report we paid for.

Councilmembers, open that big "paperweight" you have stashed somewhere, read it and make an informed decision!

HOMELESSNESS

SAFETY NET WILL PROVIDE LONG-TERM BENEFITS

To answer a question that Peter Gulick asks in his Feb. 11 letter: Our reasonable obligations to the poor and the homeless are to provide the climate in which very few citizens go without basic needs (not necessarily wishes) such as housing and education.

Objectives should include stability for families so that kids have a better chance to be productive, competent and happy citizens. Without that chance, it's likely that many will become problem adults on whom taxpayer-funded resources will have to be spent.

We have a choice: Either we now will have to provide resources to pay for decent housing and education for the kids, even if the budget surplus is reduced; or we can blow the surplus (as tax rebates) and raise taxes later to pay for social agencies, police resources, institutional care and correctional facilities that will be needed when they become adults. Pay now or pay later.

Maybe there wouldn't be so many homeless if some of the money, which has been accumulated as a budget surplus, had been spent on a safety net as the housing market got out of control.

REALIGNMENT

MORE BENCHES NEEDED AT BUS STOPS ON O'AHU

According to the city's Public Transit Division, the recent bus-stop realignment was designed to take bus stops away from busy intersections for safety reasons and remove seldom-used stops.

What did they do with the benches? Now that those stops are discontinued, the existing stops do not have enough space to accommodate the extra people.

Please take the removed benches from the discontinued stops and install them at the next stops.

LEGISLATION

CLEAN ELECTIONS WILL SAVE TAXPAYER MONEY

I'm writing to urge our legislators to make sure the Comprehensive Public Funding bill becomes law this session.

I am encouraged that our legislators are listening to us and willing to reduce the power of special interests. As we've seen both locally and federally, lobbying money can have a negative impact on the citizens of the community because it favors big special-interest groups.

Clean elections have proved to be effective in states like Arizona, Maine and North Carolina.

I'm convinced that passing a Clean Elections bill will save taxpayer money by making sure pro-consumer and pro-environmental bills don't get killed by special-interest lobbyists. This kind of measure will help restore my faith in the political process.

It takes a special kind of candidate to support Clean Elections — one who will stand up on behalf of consumers and the public. and I am appreciative that so many are stepping up.

Passing Clean Elections will increase our chances of implementing long-needed programs such as curbside recycling and better land protections, because it will free the candidates to listen to the citizens.

TAXES

ANALYSIS OF PROP. 13'S EFFECT MISSED THE MARK

Jerry Burris' analysis of California's Proposition 13, "Echoes of California's Prop. 13 in Kaua'i tax case" (Feb. 18), misses the mark in a critical area: Proposition 13's impact on public services. Perhaps he received his information from those ideologically opposed to tax reform.

In California, governments at all levels, after adjusting for inflation and population growth, have more money than they did prior to Propositions 13's passage in 1978. As for education, on an inflation-adjusted basis we spend 30 percent more per pupil than we did prior to Proposition 13, and we have the nation's highest-paid teachers.

California is still a high tax state — we rank sixth in per capita taxation — but by making taxes predictable, Proposition 13 provides to all homeowners the security of knowing their future tax liability, which allows them to budget accordingly.

PRESIDENCY

'WE' VOTED FOR ANYONE BUT GEORGE W. BUSH

In his Feb. 20 letter, "Bush on path to put us at war with world," John Nagasawa asks two very important questions.

First, "Is anyone else afraid of the man we elected as our president?" Well, I am not sure which election he is referring to, 2000 or 2004, but in either, "we" did not elect George W. Bush. It was "they" who elected him, twice. In fact, "we" voted for anyone other than George W. Bush for reasons that are now becoming apparent to "they."

Mr. Nagasawa also asks, "Is there no way to control this man's arrogance?" There is a way. It is called impeachment, and it should have been done years ago.

"We" told you so.