Koa Ridge approval is blow to the people

I saw a big headline on your front page, "Koa Ridge approved" (Star-Advertiser, June 8).

The front page should have had a black border, and we should all bow our heads.

The state Land Use Commission and Anthony Ching and his henchmen over at the Hawaii Community Development Authority ignore testimony that they don’t like, yet give credence to blatantly incorrect or biased testimony and never take the needs or concerns of the common people, the citizenry of the state, into account.

The development of Koa Ridge, and its partner down the road, Ho‘opili, will be an unmitigated disaster for everyone in West and Central Oahu. Irreplaceable agricultural land will be lost forever and traffic, already unbelievable, will become exponentially worse. Remember, we are talking about nearly 18,000 homes, which equals about 40,000-plus more cars on the road.

There are better ways to accommodate growth than this. This is yet another instance of the state shamelessly pandering to special interests to the absolute detriment of the people.

Jack Arnest
Kaimuki

Pot advocate’s case sends wrong message

In your June 6 edition were two articles on the same page ("Pot defendant denied bail once again" and "Suspects in Maui boy’s murder released").

I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I make no judgments on the guilt or innocence of either party. However, am I the only one who feels the legal system is amiss in these two cases?

How can we keep a marijuana advocate and alleged distributorin jail without bond for almost two years, and then, shortly after their arrest, release alleged murderers on their own recognizance?

It appears we want to discourage the marijuana industry more than we want to stop child abuse.

One day, maybe not in my lifetime, marijuana will be legal. The killing of innocent children needs to be discouraged, and stopped now.Let’s send the right message.

Candas Lee Rego
Kailua

Solar tax credits not just for the wealthy

Richard Borreca and Paul Brewbaker miss some key points when they argue against solar energy tax credits ("Isle economist lambasts ‘clean energy’ tax policy," Star-Advertiser, On Politics, June 5).

For starters, a solar system has a tremendous public benefit and is clearly not "only to help rich folks who can afford to put solar on their roof."

When I looked into solar for my home, I was also given the option to lease a system or buy the solar power at a reduced price below what Hawaiian Electric Co. is charging.Neither option required any money up front; solar panels are clearly not just for the rich.

With the money I save each month, I am more inclined to take my family out to dinner or purchase other items for my home. This is the celebrated "multiplier effect," which was explained recently by Thomas Loudat and Jeff Mikulina of Blue Planet Foundation ("Often-overlooked benefit of solar is how it benefits Hawaii’s economy," Star-Adver- tiser, Island Voices, April 24).

The social benefit goes beyond just economics to help us finally wean our state off imported oil.

John Cheever
Kalani Valley

Of course rail will need to be subsidized

The letter titled "Rail will need subsidy forever" speaks the truth (Star-Advertiser, Letters, June 6).

No matter what anyone would have you believe, it will need to be subsidized, just like TheBus, the roads and everything else that provides a service to the public.

Why is that so surprising? You have infrastructure for the benefit of the people, and it must be paid for. My only complaint is that rail will provide no seating to speak of, which will mean limited ridership.

We live on such a small island that there is really no alternative. You have no place on which to build another freeway, unless you double-deck what we already have. You can’t expect to build a tunnel, realistically. You can’t continue to add more buses to the roads for very long, so let’s get on with it.

Build the elevated rail, but, please, redesign the cars so they will allow people to sit.

Gordon Wolfe
Waikiki

Cutting bus service is short-sighted policy

Your editorial got it right when it said "a larger discussion is needed on how the bus service is structured and financed" ("Evaluate service, costs of TheBus," Star-Advertis- er, Our View, June 5).

In these economically challenging times, with rising gasoline prices straining families’ budgets, the city must provide more bus service, not less. Cutting service is penny wise and pound foolish, as potential bus customers who are forced into their cars will add wear and tear to our roadways and increase traffic delays, with the associated loss of productivity and diminished quality of life.

We should view rising fuel costs as an opportunity to encourage more people to use public transportation, not as a justification to make TheBus less convenient and, thus, a less attractive transportation alternative.

The driver for the current cutbacks is the City Council’s insistence that fares cover between 27 percent and 33 percent of operations costs. This farebox recovery ratio fails to take into account the societal costs imposed when people do not use TheBus.

In addition, for those residents who cannot travel by car, eliminating bus service means that government fails to fulfill its core mission to provide for the general welfare.

David Henkin
Kaneohe

Stimulus spending obviously has failed

Economist Paul Krugman continues to argue for stimulus spending.

When you borrow 40 cents of every federal dollar spent, you’re already doing stimulus spending on a massive scale.

The Bush tax cuts, which have led to a massive federal debt, are a form of stimulus. Look at the results — we still have high unemployment and low growth. Stimulus doesn’t work.

To see where a continued emphasis on stimulus will lead us, we need only look at the stagnant, tax-heavy Japanese economy with debt at 200 percent of gross domestic product.

What we need to do is remember that no organization can survive for very long unless it brings its expenditures in line with its revenues, and that includes the U.S. government.

As far as Europe goes, what got them in trouble was not austerity, but socialism. Austerity is simply what happens when you run out of other people’s money.

Lloyd Lim
Makiki

FROM THE FORUM

"We’re working on it, college tells instructors waiting for their pay," Star-Advertiser, June 4:

» Kapiolani Community College Chancellor Leon Richards hasn’t got a clue what is going on and he is in charge? Talk about the blind leading the blind when he asks teachers who have not been paid to call.

» I am a former KCC instructor who has dealt with this mess. It has been going on for over 10 years and the only reason the college is taking action now is because of the negative publicity.

» Either the money has been "misappropriated" or theft has occurred. Also, many of us have complained to our beloved chancellor since March, and in May he acted surprised when all of this began to surface again. It’s extremely disappointing how administrators just say things to protect their positions when we are the ones who are not getting paid for services rendered.

» Make the chancellor wait three months for his pay.

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"Akaka’s diction among Hill’s most complex," Star-Advertiser, June 5:

» No wonder I never could understand a single word he said. He could talk for an hour and never say anything.

» U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka’s speeches are all written for him.

» So now he’ll be remembered for something else besides his going-nowhere Akaka Bill.

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"Pot defendant denied bail once again," Star-Advertiser, June 6:

» Wow. We let murderers, rapists and worse go free but a guy with pot, lock him up for good. What is wrong with this country? The war on drugs is a joke and a huge waste of money.

» This smacks of political persecution.

» On Maui, two accused child murderers are released without bail, but Roger Christie sits in detention for more than two years. Whatever happened to the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial? Has it been suspended like the Fourth?

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"Fewer isle students are active smokers," Star-Advertiser, June 5:

» A bad health habit is reduced.

» Hopefully, this is not a case of students lying in these surveys.

» It’s the cost! $7 a pack times 10 in a carton = $70 a carton.

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"Isle facilities rank low in patient safety," Star-Advertiser, June 6:

» There is no good reason why we can’t all have an A on safety. Congrats to Straub and Kaiser.

» How quick they are to defend the indefensible. If these hospitals spent as much time ensuring patient health and safety as they do complaining about getting caught, perhaps the grades would be higher.

» My hospital is The Queen’s Medical Center. I have complete confidence in the medical care provided by Queen’s, and especially its emergency room. It needs to be noted that a lot of the vagrants downtown are handled by Queen’s, as one may see a police cruiser parked at the ER location, and that a lot of the scuffles that may happen there is due to the gracious service Queen’s provides. Their grade of B needs to be appreciated. They get an A in my book.

» Kuakini using the excuse that the majority of its patients are on Medicare is an admission that these patients are deliberately being given a lower standard of care based on their insurance coverage. Patient safety should not be dependent on type of insurance coverage.

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"Schoolchildren rate their teachers," Star-Advertiser, June 4:

» Finally, some accountability in the classroom.

» More waste of curriculum time, learning time, administering this type of state Department of Education business.

» Another layer of compliance being added to the bureaucracy of education. If anyone is serious about education rather than compliance, then we would hear a lot more about voluntary education rather than compulsory education. What a nightmare!

» What do you know — they are finally asking the "customer" about the "service" they are getting. Don’t sell the kids short.

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"Fewer to get old-home tax break," Star-Advertiser, June 7:

» Our home is old, too. Why can’t we get this $300 tax deal to help maintain our old home?

» It’s a horrible headline. It’s not an "old-home" tax break, it’s an historic home exemption from the property tax.

» This exemption should be abolished. Have everybody pay their fair share of property taxes and eliminate the extra staff to police homeowner compliance. This would generate additional revenue for the budget that could go toward improvements that everyone would benefit from, like improved roads, sewer, etc.

» I vote that Star-Advertiser reporter Rob Perez get a 10 percent commission on this new found tax revenue due to his stories on this poorly managed fiasco. It would encourage uncovering more.

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"Part of agent’s request to drop murder charge remains secret," Star-Advertiser, June 7:

» With all the stories about these Secret Service agents partying while performing their assignments, it is no longer easy to believe that this guy did this under duress or for self defense.

» Unbelievable. This guy better not be let off the hook. I will be outraged.

» He sure sounds guilty, but I bet every one of you who are commenting on his "guilt" and were on trial for anything like this would want a jury of your peers to hear all of the evidence — and not the readers of the Star-Advertiser forum.

» If agent Christopher Deedy was attempting to be above the law, and it is proven so, then he needs to be dealt with, as required by law, and for the sake of the family of the deceased, even though the deceased may have provoked the situation.