The companies that manufacture signs saying, “GOVERNMENT PROPERTY — KEEP OUT,” and that ugly orange fencing must make a pile of dough out of the city of Honolulu.
Once again, Mother Waldron Park is unusable by people like myself who live nearby (“More homeless from Mother Waldron now in shelters,” Star-Advertiser, May 31).
We were very fond of the Monday morning farmer’s market. Now, due to homeless people who are camped out along Pohukaina Street, no more Mother Waldron Park — not to mention the piles of unusable junk strewn along Cooke Street.
Honolulu used to be a very proud and beautiful city but now it is taking on the appearance of a wrecking yard and a hobo village.
Daci L. Armstrong
Kakaako
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City online database difficult to fathom
There is an abandoned vehicle in our neighborhood that has been there for seven months. I first reported it to the city in October 2017. I reported it again in March 2018. It is still there.
I went to the city’s data website at data.Honolulu.gov. There is data there regarding abandoned vehicles. I was hoping to find the status of the vehicle in our neighborhood. I got frustrated just trying to use the site.
The data it provides seems useless. The spreadsheet consist of 202,033 rows. There seems to be no way to scroll through the list. It displays 14 rows at a time and you need to click to advance to the next 14 rows. The status of all the vehicles listed in the data is shown as complete. There appears to be no vehicles with a pending status.
What good is such a database to the public? The city should remove those abandoned vehicles that have been taken care of more than a year ago. It should include those vehicles reported with action still pending.
Phil Alencastre
St. Louis Heights
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Eliminate free bulky-item pickup
Sharon Rowe is spot-on as to the reasons we have to eliminate free bulky item pickup on Oahu (“Bulky-item pickup encourages dumping,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, May 29).
It soils our sidewalks, streets and yards, creates visual blight and pits homeowners against those who illegally drive around looking for properties to dump their junk.
Free bulk pickup provides no societal benefit, only short-term financial gain for those who dump. Most of all, this practice, and subsidizing it by taxpayers, only encourages people to continue to assume their wasteful, throwaway lifestyle has no cost when, in fact, it has massive impacts and costs for our island, neighborhoods and environment.
Those who choose to throw away a little or a lot should pay the true cost for all that they choose to dispose.
If costs of disposal are too high for your budget, maybe it is time to revisit how much you consume and throw away.
Jeff Merz
Waikiki
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Medical aid in dying is compassionate
In reference to the letter writer who wants us to lobby for repeal of the new death-with-dignity law: I agree that we must relinquish violence (“Lobby for repeal of medical aid in dying,” Star-Advertiser, May 13).
However, choosing to end one’s terminally ill suffering is not unwanted violence.
My mother suffered a massive stroke a few years ago, leaving her paralyzed from the nose down at the age of 96. She had expressed many times in the past that she would not want to go on living if such a thing happened to her.
She also communicated clearly to me that she wished to die at the time. I was unable to help her because of the cruel law that made her suffer for more than a week before she passed.
People who advocate a repeal of this merciful law are heartlessly cruel to want to take this option away from terminally ill adults.
I pray that this writer is never faced with a similar situation that does not allow an option out of terminal suffering.
Harry Ozols
Punchbowl
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Trump praises self on Memorial Day
This past Memorial Day, at Arlington Cemetery, in what is normally a solemn ceremony of remembrance, the president first inappropriately wished everyone a “Happy Memorial Day!”
He then took advantage of the moment, as he often does, to toot his own horn by telling us, in a rather macabre twist, how happy he thought those buried there would be to see what a marvelous job he was doing.
I would like to remind him that the Romans had words to describe this habit. The Latin phrase, “Laus propria sordet,” translated politely becomes, “Self-praise is no recommendation” or, more accurately, “Self-praise has a really foul smell.”
Indeed, every time he does it, I tend to gag a little.
Michael M. Stroup
Waimanalo
