Rail will ruin Oahu aesthetics

Kudos to Ben Cayetano, Walter Heen, Randall Roth and Cliff Slater for filing a lawsuit to halt proposed rail mass transit and alerting citizens to follies in the city’s plan.

While the four describe many reasons citizens should rethink the issue, my biggest personal objection is the impact on the aesthetics of this uniquely beautiful place. The way our city looks is critical to the way we live, how the world sees us, and if our economy thrives or fails, yet politicians trivialize any mention of aesthetics. I beg everyone to think what this "aircraft carrier in the sky" would do to light and views on our streets.

The 3rd Avenue El, the last elevated train on the island of Manhattan, was taken down in 1955 and 3rd Avenue went from a slum to valuable real estate. Fifty-six years later, why are we creating on Oahu another version of the blight than darkened 3rd Avenue for the first half of the 20th century?

Sue Tetmeyer
Honolulu

Lawsuit will raise rail costs

Cliff Slater is at it again, trying to kill rail ("How the city misled the public," Star-Advertiser, Aug. 21).

He’s fought rail for the past 20 years and his opposition has just caused more traffic congestion. This time, he’s gotten former Gov. Ben Cayetano and others to join with him to file a lawsuit to stop the rail project. In the end, like H-3, this will only cost the taxpayers unnecessary delay and higher costs.

Ryan Rego
Mililani

Rail critics just obstructionists

With jobs so hard to come by, it’s troubling that a group led by Cliff Slater has filed a lawsuit to stop the rail project. This comes as the rail project has gotten some federal funding and is on track to start construction soon.

Rail will produce jobs and will bring traffic relief, especially to the west side.

This anti-rail group has no solutions regarding jobs and traffic and are only being obstructionist.

Daniel Fujikawa
Pearl City

Gay couples just want equality

Christopher Brust fulminates over census results that show more gay-couple households in Hawaii than 10 years ago ("Gay couples still a small minority," Star-Advertiser, Letters, Aug. 20).

He assumes these data prove there is a movement afoot to undermine the "normal" meaning of marriage, a tedious argument we’ve heard for more than two decades since Hawaii was first to repudiate the idea of marriage rights for gay couples.

In the same edition, a minister, Saleem Ahmed, praises Hawaii for its diversity and tolerance ("Symposium gathers faithful to explore many faces of God," Star-Advertiser, Aug. 20). There’s a glaring paradox here between what Ahmed perceives and what Brust rails against.

As for something called an "agenda" that Brust suspects is underfoot, the only one we know of is simple: equal rights (not merely tolerance) for all, including the right to marry or not, and for that we don’t need or seek Brust’s approval.

John Weston and Michael Adams
Honolulu

B&Bs unfairly stigmatized

Tourism does not cause homelessness. Tourists are not criminals. You can’t pick your neighbors.

These are pretty hard facts of life.

Ursula Rutherford’s observations are well intended ("Vacation rentals impose on neighbors," Star-Advertiser, Letters, Aug. 21). The basic needs and rights of homeowners and neighbors need to be recognized in city ordinances on short-stay rentals in our communities.

All over Oahu B&B homes co-exist with long-term residences with zero negative impact. Vacation rental homes and apartments are everywhere most often with very few or no disturbances or complaints.

Local taxes and good jobs go a long way in making this equation work. Quiet, clean, well-managed, well-maintained residences are almost always welcomed in our neighborhoods.

Will Page
Kailua

People will still need health care

I appreciate Jacob Sullum’s rigorous and objective argument regarding mandated health insurance ("Slipping on the commerce clause," Star-Advertiser, Aug. 17).

At the same time, I wonder where such objectivity takes us as a nation. If, in fact, the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare, then what? The American people will still face the huge questions Sullum cites from the Obama administration: "health care … is expensive, everyone needs it at some point …and federal law requires hospitals to treat people regardless of their ability to pay, which shifts the cost to others."

"We the people" will still have to come together and face the ethical and economic reality that millions of our fellow Americans still will not have access to adequate and affordable health care, including the most vulnerable among us, children.

Legal posturing and ideological politics sound like Nero’s fiddling. Let’s find the will to agree on what we can do.

Dan Benedict
Waialua

AT&T network should be tested

Anyone who remembers the fear that swept Hawaii when tsunami alerts were issued here following the Fukushima earthquake should be alarmed at the kid-glove treatment given AT&T in your article about their claimed remedies ("AT&T upgrades local cell network," Star-Advertiser, Aug. 21).

Dan Youmans of AT&T couldn’t say if the fix would work: "It’s hard for us to predict what the next natural disaster is going to look like." Hawaii Island Civil Defense chief Quince Mento says, "We’ll just have to wait and see how it evolves."

Here’s an idea: Have Civil Defense direct every AT&T customer to make a call at 1 p.m. next Monday. That should tell us something. Lives depend on these systems; we ought to know before disaster strikes if they will work.

Walter Wright
Kaneohe

Money for study seems wasteful

Thirty-five years ago, while living in a small town in New Hampshire, we successfully developed and implemented a teacher evaluation program that pegged teacher salaries to performance.

There are close to 93,000 high schools, junior high schools and elementary schools in the U.S. This issue of teacher evaluation has been going on for decades now. And our state Department of Education thinks it makes sense to spend $3 million on another study?

Is it just possible that a suitable plan already exists, among the 93,000 other schools in our nation? Might the Board of Education and the Hawaii State Teachers Association choose a plan that has already proved successful in other schools? Should we have any faith and trust in teachers evaluating our own students’ progress when they can’t even come up with a way to evaluate their own effectiveness?

Roger Garrett
Honolulu