Residents oppose tower orientation

On March 19, the city Department of Planning and Permitting is scheduled to make an important decision about whether to allow the 350-foot tower planned at 2121 Kuhio in Waikiki to be built with a wide, Diamond Head-Ewa orientation with only ocean-facing units, or to require a narrower mauka-makai design.

The planned tower is being called the "Tombstone" due to its design, since it blocks ocean views along an entire block behind it for both new and existing developments and opens the door for more walls in Waikiki.

The Waikiki Neighborhood Board, Hawaii’s Thousand Friends, the Waikiki Residents Association and others have presented testimony and letters against the orientation, pointing out that it ignores the Waikiki Special District Guidelines, which state that the long axis of all new high-rise structures should be designed in a mauka-makai orientation.

Will the DPP listen to the community?

Mark Harpenau
Waikiki

Chamber writer unfairly featured

I was very disappointed with the choice of authors for the competing views on the Affordable Care Act ("Will the new health care law deliver needed reforms?" Star-Advertiser, March 11).

The executive for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote in on the negative side.The U.S. Chamber of commerce is one of the largest big business lobbying organizations in the country.

According to The , close to half of the Chamber’s donations come from just 45 big-ticket donors. These organizations can give unlimited amounts, and look to the Chamber to fight political and public opinion battles over issues that affect big business.

An opinion by an executive in such a biased organization should not be given the same weight as the professor of public health, who offered the more positive opinion.

In the future, it would be great to see someone of similar credentials weighing in instead.

Janet Howe
Ewa Beach

Some positions need to be filled

An item in the state House budget draft that removes money for vacant state positions open for more than a year has us alarmed ("House budget draft," Star-Advertiser, March 9).

Liliha Library is busy, circulating 16,592 items in January. Yet two of the three positions on the circulation desk are filled by substitutes. These staff members need to master about 60 details, so it takes a while to train.

The problem is that the applicants the state allows us to consider for vacancies are not the people we have trained.

One person working here has more than two years at this library and is still a substitute.

Can’t something be done to correct this oversight?

Sylvia Mitchell
Branch manager, Liliha Public Library

Stop contracting Army grunt work

I have an alternate take on the article, "Schofield contract workers get reprieve" (Star-Advertiser, March 13).

I enlisted in the Army in 1963 and did grunt work at KP duty, shoveling coal into the barracks furnace, latrine clean-up, guard duty, grounds maintenance, and other functions via duty rosters managed by the NCO corps.

Now, it’s all contracted out — at untold billions of taxpayer dollars.

I suspect that many GIs today do a lot of sitting on their hands, participating in sporadic training exercises held on post and on costly deployments, and tooling around town (I see great numbers of them in uniform, shopping, lunching, etc.).

Those hands could be put to economical use by revisiting the past and balancing essential chores against the core mission of professional killing.

Military leaders would do a national service by saving money the old-fashioned way, but I doubt that they have the vision.

Robert H. Stiver
Pearl City