I am writing in support of funding Wahiawa General Hospital.

As a founding member of the Wahiawa Homeless Alliance, participating in the Point in Time Count for Mililani, Wahiawa and the North Shore, I know our homeless families in this area have at least doubled since 2013.

Wahiawa General loses money when it provides medical services to a large number of homeless. No hospital can turn away any ER admittance. Wahiawa General is the go-to hospital for these 350-plus unhoused individuals and families. Wahiawa General has had to bear these costs as the only standing rural hospital of Central Oahu.

As more homeless individuals move inland, the costs will continue to rise for Wahiawa General. Homeless individuals are a state and community issue. Please help Wahiawa General bear this societal cost.

The Rev. John Miller

Wahiawa

—

Sessions’ ignorance is amazing in itself

So, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is “amazed” that a judge “on an island in the Pacific” could stop President Donald Trump’s travel ban (“Isle senators fire back at Sessions’ diss on isle judge,” Star-Advertiser, April 21).

What’s even more amazing is that someone who in the past found the Ku Klux Klan to be “OK” — until he found out that some of their members smoked marijuana — could become attorney general.

He is worse than most stoners with his ignorance of geography and history. When will this dangerous clown show end?

Terry Revere

Kailua

—

Don’t let rail fail; extend tax surcharge

The chairwomen of the money committees in the Legislature should quit posturing over an extension of the general excise tax surcharge for the rail project.

Extend the surcharge as Mayor Kirk Caldwell recommends. It’s not a tax increase, as the tax is already in place. It’s also not support from the state, as only Oahu residents and visitors pay it. The state, in fact, profits from the “skim” it takes.

Caldwell and the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation are doing their best to remedy poor decisions made by their predecessors. The city needs the GET surcharge extended by April 30 to meet the federal requirement for an updated financial plan.

State Rep. Sylvia Luke and state Sen. Jill Tokuda need to act favorably to ensure an adequate local funding share. If they do not, and the feds terminate the funding agreement, rail will fail for a third time. Is that the legacy Luke and Tokuda want?

Paul J. Schwind

Makiki

—

DOT neglects needs at Lanai’s airport

Your editorial about the state Department of Transportation is right on the mark (“DOT disregards its duty to public,” Star-Advertiser, Our View, April 21).

The Lanai Airport, a state facility, has had an abandoned coffee/snack shop in its main lobby for many, many years — despite efforts from the community to make it functional once again.

Now just an eyesore closet storing cleaning equipment, DOT has consistently ignored our community’s offer to make this a welcoming — and often necessary, given the frequency of delayed flights — working component. Community efforts at communication with DOT have continually gone unanswered.

Not exactly a very taxpayer-friendly bureaucracy.

Robin Kaye

Lanai City

—

Stadium vision is for people, not buildings

“They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot. With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot” (Joni Mitchell,“Big Yellow Taxi”, 1970).

That’s what is planned for the 98-acre Aloha Stadium parcel. However, neighbors and friends saw wide-open spaces at a come-share-your-vision meeting at the stadium.

The dream embraced fields for kids to play soccer and flag football, tennis and basketball courts, skate parks for teens, gate ball for kupuna and walking/biking paths. An open concert shell for singing, dancing and making Hawaiiana crafts would gather kamaaina and tourists to share aloha. Canopies of trees would shade us from the sun during picnics. There would be farmers markets and swap meets.

Instead, planners and politicians have images of jam-packed concrete buildings dancing in their heads (“Stadium is a ‘liability’ and ‘potential danger’,” Star-Advertiser, April 6).

It will be as Mitchell sang prophetically: “ Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got, till it’s gone. They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.”

Rebecca Kang

Aliamanu

—

Keep electric bikes off lanes, sidewalks

When is a bike a moped? According to Section 286-2 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, a moped is a device that a person can ride that has no more than two horsepower. This definition would include an electric-powered bike.

License and registration is required for moped use. Lights front and rear, brake lights and turn signals are also required.

There seems to be a sudden influx of various incarnations of electric-powered bikes; no doubt the addition of dedicated bike lanes will attract more sales of them. Even a popular pizza chain is flooding the streets with them, and unfortunately, the sidewalks as well.

So let’s keep perspective. These are not bikes that employ human-powered mobility. They are quiet mopeds that are mostly illegal and are going to be everywhere soon.

Nicholas Blank

Palolo