RULING AGAINST ARMY DISAPPOINTING

As a senior Native Hawaiian Nänäkuli homesteader, army retiree, who trained in Hawaii for duty in Vietnam, I am disappointed with Judge Mollway's ruling against the Army Mäkua plan (Nov. 23).

A detailed environmental impact study recently released may be seen at http://www.garrison.hawaii.army.mil/makuaeis/..

This land, federally owned, once a cattle ranch, was used to prepare our WWII soldiers for combat in the Pacific, and wars in Korea and Vietnam — a time when it was bombarded with shells from battleships, aircraft, heavy artillery, rocket launchers, etc. Its use was justified.

The Army now is told before resuming live fire training they must make underground surveys to locate cultural sites that could be damaged by the training (what!). There's over 4,000 acres in the valley.

Mollway also wants more cultural access allowed in the valley. Is she aware cultural refers to ethnic Hawaiians? Yet it's been tour groups advertised for and led by a Caucasian into the valley.

Further, to locate underground sites and to make safe access to questionable above-ground sites is estimated to be in the tens of millions of taxpayer money — it's foolish.

And there has not been any evidence that fish, limu, etc. are being contaminated by weapons used in the valley.

BILL PUNINI PRESCOTT | Nänäkuli

FURLOUGHS

POLITICIANS INCAPABLE OF STOPPING BLEEDING

After much public uproar, Gov. Lingle and the HSTA have conceded that allowing furlough days to displace teaching days was a bad idea and not in the best interests of our kids. This is great except for one thing: raiding the rainy day fund.

Yes, we want our kids to have the best opportunity for a quality education. But using our kids' education as an excuse to raid funds obscures one of the underlying problems with our system: Our politicians don't know how to say no to increased spending.

Whenever there is a problem, instead of looking to cut costs, the solution lies in squeezing more from the taxpayers of this state.

Raiding the rainy day fund amounts to nothing more than a tax increase for everyone. After that, what's next? Our hurricane fund? And after that, another tax increase?

Our politicians had distanced themselves from the public union negotiations and had said they would not call a special session. Now that the governor has agreed to use the rainy day fund, all of a sudden they have sprung to life. The sharks are circling and they smell blood.

People, remember what your legislators did come election day.

ORSON MOON | Aiea

RAIL TRANSIT

PROJECT OUT OF TOUCH WITH TECHNOLOGY

After we've been told that the city transit project was based on careful analysis of rail alternatives, I really appreciated Sean Hao's article (Nov. 23), which explained just how out of date (11 years ago) that analysis is. Just last week (Nov. 18) the project director even admitted in an article in the Weekly that the city's rail system is essentially the same heavy rail proposed in the 1980s and 1990s.

The city's transit team and a majority of the City Council are out of touch with current developments in rail transit. In the past 15 years, light rail technology has undergone dramatic improvement, with many American cities (Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Phoenix, Denver, to name a few) now installing light rail for their transportation needs.

The city's technology dictates that the system can only run elevated, which means when the money runs out, or the burial/historic impact/view corridor issues prove impossible to solve, the system stops. There is no way to continue the system, such as to Waikíkí or UH-Mänoa, unless we are willing to pay $270 million/mile and put up with an overhead freeway running through our neighborhoods.

SCOTT R. WILSON | Honolulu

UNEMPLOYMENT

BENEFITS EXTENSION, BETTER HELP NEEDED

I think that they should extend the unemployment benefits for at least two more weeks. I also think that they should have some kind of call center where people can be directed to someone that is available. Maybe they should get more workers because there are only two or three people working. I think that the unemployment office would be less crowded. My boyfriend collects unemployment and we can hardly get through sometimes when we have a problem, so we have to go down to the office and it's always crowded and busy. We spend at least over an hour there.

STAISHA MOORE | Waipahu