Multitrack schools serve useful function

Recent articles have highlighted the difficulty multitrack schools in Ewa Beach, Kapolei and Mililani will face in adding more school days under the state’s new law.

It is critical to note that multitrack schools are already meeting the legislation’s minimum instructional hours and are not looking for an exemption from that requirement. Multitrack students would spend as much time in the classroom as their peers in other public schools.

By focusing only on the number of days, students at these facilities could lose holiday breaks, have no common winter break as their siblings/peers in regular calendar schools, and/or have classes on Saturdays.

This would further disrupt family schedules while making it even more difficult to attract top-notch teachers, counselors, administrators and staff to these schools.

The schools have made the multi-track schedule operational while providing challenging studies in safe, nurturing environments.

Multitrack is an answer to an economic problem of not being able to build more/enough schools in areas of ever-increasing populations.

Multitrack schools will eventually be able to convert to traditional schedules when we are able to build new facilities.

Maui County includes more than just Maui

Thank you for your coverage of Maui County’s landmark plastic bag reduction ordinance, which took effect Jan. 11 ("2 islands institute plastic-bag bans Tuesday," Star-Advertiser, Jan. 9).

Please note, however, that your story gave the false impression that the County of Maui includes only the island of Maui.

In fact, Maui County includes the islands of Kahoolawe, Lanai, Maui and Molokai, and the ordinance will apply throughout the county.

I would appreciate you recognizing all of the islands of Maui County in future news stories.

HECO losing sight of its primary mission

Rain-laden winds gusted about 35 knots and our electricity is out again for the second time since dawn. Why?

Despite having the highest metropolitan power rates in the nation, Hawaiian Electric Co. seems to be doing little to assure service reliability.

When I phoned in the latest outage, dozens of other neighborhoods were also without power. Perhaps HECO’s focus on part-time power from wind and solar coupled with non-stop lobbying to get its profits fully protected by the state seem more important. Yet these are just the sort of peripheral efforts that interfere with HECO doing its actual job, namely providing reliable power to our homes and businesses.

Instead of granting rate hike after rate hike and eliminating profit-based performance incentives, the state Public Utilities Commission should be demanding better service standards from HECO, or encouraging ownership by someone who realizes that the chief goal of Oahu’s electricity monopoly needs to be the provision of reliable and affordable electricity.

Exploitation of Kailua is the American Dream

Just as Bruce Voss has "grown up and still lives in" Kailua, so have I ("Target: It’s another Holiday Mart," Star-Advertiser, Letters, Jan. 12). In my opinion, Kailua was destroyed years ago, even before places like Pier 1, California Pizza Kitchen, Walgreens and Whole Foods moved in.

Unnecessary stores are coaxed by a real estate company into moving here to make money, which they do. These stores satisfy the throngs of mainland transplants who come to Kailua because it was marketed to them by this same real estate company. This town is being exploited and that is upsetting many Kailua residents, including myself.

I’ve contemplated moving to a less-populated town in Hawaii, like Kailua used to be, but it’s probably no use because some corporation will end up exploiting it the same way, because that is the American Dream.