BART relies on diverse funding

Dexter Wong writes, “BART receives sales tax money from member counties (like Honolulu’s rail) so it has a source of funding” (“BART, Caltrain are different,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, June 10).

Unlike BART, Honolulu’s rail receives funding from only one county. And that source of funding is supposed to end by 2022. Not one public transportation system is self-sustaining without taxpayer subsidies, including our bus system and BART.

Where are the funds that will pay maintenance and labor costs once the rail is up and running? Increases in property taxes?  Increases in the general excise tax?

People are struggling to pay increasing electric, water, sewer, gas and food bills, increases in auto weight costs and registration fees and the recent increase in our property tax rate. We just cannot afford rail.

Better to use rail funds to repave our potholed and crumbly roads. That also will provide many jobs for years to come.

Peter Chisteckof
Mililani Mauka

Native birds at refuge stabilized

I am reluctantly responding to the letter from Drs. Leonard A. Freed and Rebecca L. Cann regarding the status of native forest birds (“Native birds in serious decline,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, May 13).

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supports and depends upon robust scientific discussion and assessment to manage our National Wildlife Refuges here in the Pacific and elsewhere throughout the United States. Although Freed continues to throw stones at the service and the work of his scientific colleagues, he fails to mention that the preponderance of the scientific evidence shows that endangered Hawaiian forest bird populations at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge are stable or increasing due to the work conducted there over the last two decades.

His is the minority opinion and we suggest “‘a‘ohe pau ka ‘ike i ka hālau ho‘okahi” (roughly, all knowledge does not stem from a single source). The science we use to formulate and conduct management at the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge can be found in the recently released

15-year Comprehensive Conservation Plan at http://www.fws.gov/hakalauforest/planning.html.

Barry W. Stieglitz
Project leader, Hawaiian and Pacific Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Means test for Social Security

In responding to Tom Fragas’ Medicare solution (“Medicare reform best to do now,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, June 11), I offer the more reasonable and objective fix.

First, Medicare is very important to millions of seniors for their very existence. Voucher-care would cause millions of people to forego medical care when they need it most because of exorbitant costs and undervalued vouchers.

Second, Republican governors across the mainland are challenging the current health care bill. If successful, this would give insurance companies the right to again deny anyone insurance because of pre-existing conditions or other reasons, as they have done previously.

The solution is simple. First, tax everyone on total income for Social Security and Medicare, with no limits.

Second, Medicare and Social Security should be means-tested. Someone earning more than $250,000 a year should not have Social Security or Medicare. They should get a letter thanking them for their help in maintaining our nation’s health system.

Joseph Alexander
Waipahu

B&Bs plentiful but not all legal

I am writing in response to Wayne Huber of Oregon, who complained that he was “baffled by the difficulty in finding any legal place to stay outside of the Waikiki and greater Honolulu area.”

He should look around. There are thousands of legal hotel rooms and hundreds of legal B&Bs (bed and breakfast) and vacation rentals outside of Waikiki/

Honolulu. He refers specifically to Lanikai, which lies in the Koolaupoko district that sports about 330 legal B&B and vacation rental rooms.

Oahu’s residential-zoned neighborhoods are inundated with illegal vacations rentals that thumb their noses at the city’s meager enforcement. As a result, they have lost their sense of community and privacy — with a constant stream of overnight strangers coming, going and partying.

Sorry for your frustration, Mr. Huber, but imagine ours.

Larry Bartley
Executive director, Save O’ahu’s Neighborhoods

What could Hee be hiding?

I was very disappointed to learn about Sen. Clayton Hee’s Ethics Commission financial disclosure filing.

It is definitely a breach of the public trust that he failed to report the salary of his wife, Lynne Waters, who holds a very powerful public relations position at the University of Hawaii.

Making matters even worse is the fact that Hee is chairman of the Senate’s Judiciary and Labor Committee and has a significant hand in crafting the penalties and jail terms for lawbreakers. I find it very doubtful that this was just an oversight on his part, given that he is a veteran politician who prides himself on being outspoken and powerful.

I challenge our local media to dig a little deeper to uncover what else Hee is hiding.

Candice Perry
Honolulu