Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story!
I believe Henk Rogers is dead wrong about there being no negativity against aerospace in Hawaii (“Isles challenged to create lunar base,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 5).
That Hawaii is unable to build a very simple rail transit system should prove this point emphatically.
The cost of such an undertaking would make our little $8.5 billion-plus rail project look like peanuts. “B-HAG” (big, hairy, audacious goal), indeed.
And he goes on to say that “the money will come.” Our gross national debt is $19 trillion and counting.
As far as the “great deal of engineering capacity,” where was it when rail was envisioned? Rail was likely a B-HAG idea at one time and look at it now.
This is just another cloud- cuckoo-land idea and it should be dropped.
James Robinson
Aiea
Obama can be proud of Paris Agreement
President Barack Obama just secured an international agreement to limit future global warming to 2 degrees.
Although it is not ideal, it is achievable. It represents the most any president has succeeded obtaining in history. Along with the historic Paris Agreement, it hopefully will keep the Earth habitable and halt global warming, which is, as more than 95 percent of climate scientists and the Union of Concerned Scientists conclude, in most part the result of human activity.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump and the Republican leadership still believe global warming is a hoax and promise to reject the Paris accords and defund United Nations global warming efforts.
That alone — for the sake of the entire world — is reason enough to reject Trump and restore sanity in Congress.
Francis M. Nakamoto
Moanalua Valley
Stores should stop providing carry bags
I lived in Washington and then Oregon from 1969 to 2006.
In 1971, Oregon passed the first bottle bill. In 1983, the first curbside recycling began.
On Oct 15, 2011, Portland banned plastic bags, which targeted supermarkets and stores with $2 million in annual gross sales plus stores and pharmacies with at least 10,000 square feet of space.
When we moved to Hawaii in 2006, the convenience of the plastic-bag wave overcame me. I saved every single bag and recycled them by re-using in various ways including, but not limited to, cat poop and sink scrap disposals.
Today I carry cloth bags in my car. But do I remember to take them into the store with me? No, because the stores continue to hand out plastic bags.
If I have to take in cloth bags to haul my items, I can do it. After all, paper bags fall apart in the rain.
Josi K. Hahn
Kaneohe
Luxury condos are environmental threat
Those who care about the planet should stop focusing on 2.5 millimeters of plastic and turn their attention to the real ecological disasters on Oahu: luxury condos.
Two examples are a 234-unit high-density hotel and condominium with 276 parking spaces and zero affordable units and a 751-unit building with 100 affordable units. Our City Council promises us more of these kinds of luxury buildings while kamaaina crowd in with their relatives, unable to afford single-family homes.
Some plastic bags will blow into the ocean. The sewage from 985-plus units will flow into the ocean. The contaminated ballast water from the oil tankers that transport oil for electrical power and vehicles is flushed into the ocean. Some plastic bags float in the air. So does exhaust from automobiles in traffic gridlock.
A City Council that permits these kinds of projects is not serving the needs of the residents of Oahu.
Diantha Goo
Manoa
A lottery would be best way to fund rail
Why is rail’s escalating price tag a constant headline?
Obviously it won’t cost anywhere near $8 billion or be completed by 2024. Let’s just call it what it is: a $10 billion-plus project taking more than 10 years to build.
The simple solution is a lottery.
I know the argument: A lottery is a tax on the poor.
But that money is already going to Las Vegas.
And quite frankly, the rail will serve the lower-income demographic heavily, so the tax is appropriate.
Opposed? Simply don’t buy a lottery ticket.
The other argument against a lottery is that it invites organized crime. Don’t be fooled. What the politicians, consultants and construction companies are doing is the real organized crime. What’s lacking is accountability.
The salary of the executive director of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation should be linked directly to meeting cost and time targets; the same with construction contracts.
I know, that’s not the way it works. Well, maybe that’s the problem; that’s the way it should work.
Steve Dang
Kaimuki
FROM THE FORUM
“Federal funds will help state conduct study on new ferries” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 3:
>> Here we go again. Study what exactly? Many of the people who managed and were employed with the Hawaii Superferry are still in Hawaii, living and working here. Others on the West Coast. With a bit of savvy, looking around your local waterfront, you could easily get all the information you need to learn all that you want about an inter-island ferry system. What a tragedy that people employed at Hawaii’s Harbors Division are incapable of gathering the reams of data and mountains of information that is readily available, from the right people, if they simply go and ask for it.
>> The feds and state government can have as many studies they want, but when the whiners block the port in Kauai and our spineless governor (just like with the TMT fiasco) tells the ferry to sail back to Oahu, the money might as well have been flushed down the toilet.
———
“Hawaii’s children have the worst dental health in the nation, a new survey finds” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 4:
>> I blame parent neglect. They are too lazy to control their kids’ tooth brushing and flossing and allow them sugary beverages day in and out.
>> Fluoridated water would be a safe and cost-effective solution. Hoping to improve health and save tax dollars by waiting for poor parents to change behavior is not a real solution.
>> To really get the protective benefit of fluoride, you need to brush your teeth with a fluoridated toothpaste.
———
“Rail board stakes out dual tracks” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 4:
>> We should stay with Plan A and complete rail all the way to Ala Moana as planned and mandated by the Federal Transit Administration. The easiest solution to find the necessary funding is to extend the small, half-percent general excise tax surcharge that we are already paying and is barely felt.
>> I think my clients, who were homeless just a few years ago, would totally disagree with you, as they try to scrape up the money to pay their GET.
>> With all the willful fraud, mismanagement, on and on, if Plan A is selected, either the final cost will be about $10 billion or the final product will be half of what was planned. Either way, taxpayers can expect higher property taxes to cover rail’s crushing monthly operating and maintenance costs, estimated to be $20-50 million per month.
———
“Isles challenged to create lunar base” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 5:
>> With all the challenges facing planet Earth, this is a waste of time, talent and resources. Aerospace technology and innovation focused on Earth climate issues is what is needed.
>> This kind of project should be done by experts, not state-funded, inexperienced small businesses who are just trying to garner more state and federal funds to keep their heads above water. By experts I mean NASA, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and superior technical centers like Caltech and MIT. What are the credentials of people at Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems and what have they accomplished?
———
“Solar workforce in isles declines 42 percent” Star-Advertiser,Oct. 6:
>> Imagine all the electricity production from PV that is now being wasted because grid-supply has been disallowed.
>> And in the meantime, Hawaiian Electric Co. is building its own solar farms.
>> The business model for HECO is to be a total monopoly of generating electricity, whether from fossil fuel or photovoltaic energy, allowing it to continue to make obscene profits at Oahu residents’ expense.
———
“Rental units to get meters for utilities” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 6:
>> Watch the electricity bills plummet once the electricity hogs realize they have to pay for their own use.
>> Long overdue.
72