The Public Utilities Commission’s recent ruling made clear that the electric utility can’t charge for expensive fossil fuel when cheaper clean energy is available.

Maui residents always ask why their electric bills are going up despite all those wind turbines. It’s partly because the utility chose to generate electricity from an old oil-powered plant that costs twice as much per kilowatt-hour than electricity from wind.

The commission ordered MECO (Maui Electric Co.) to refund its customers $8.1 million for failing to provide power most cost-efficiently. It took great courage for our civil servants to draw this line in the sand. I stand by their action.

We can’t afford to continue sending $5 billion for oil abroad annually when we have ample local, renewable energy solutions. All that is required is infrastructure — an intelligent grid that accommodates storage and manages supply and demand.

It is precisely these investments that the utility should earn a profit on.

Henk B. Rogers
Chairman, Blue Planet Foundation

Signature must mean something

City Council Chairman Ernie Martin explains his signature on documents cancelling ORI’s $1.2 million loan: “I was the only executive left who could have signed those documents” — all others having departed during the transition between administrations.

Does one not assume responsibility when signing a document, and does a signature not mean agreement with the content of the document?

If the Council chairman had had legal,ethical or moralconcerns with the loan cancellation, would he not have been in a position not to sign?

Shrugging off responsibility now, particularly in view of $4,200 in campaign contributions from ORI, seems just a tad disingenuous.

Rike Weiss
Niu Valley

Mo-peds need to be less noisy

We need more cycles and mo-peds on our roads.

They are less polluting and take up much less space than autos.

However, there is a growing minority of riders who blatantly disregard noise laws and roar through our streets at all times of the day and night.

I live in a condo overlooking Waikiki, and even though I am set back half a mile, it sounds, increasingly, like an airport runway.

This must be a great disturbance to the Waikiki residents and tourists who come to Hawaii for a relaxing vacation. I don’t see why anyone would like to rev their motors so loud and disturb the peace of all around them.

I suggest they wear earphones plugged into iPods with the sound; then they can be happy without bothering others.

As a taxpayer, I would like to alert legislators and police to this problem so they will enforce existing noise-pollution laws.

Stephen Tarek
Waikiki

Driving getting more dangerous

Michael Augusta certainly speaks the truth when he opines that our once “go easy, bruddah” roadways are now filled with speeders and folks who simply ignore the law (“Speeding to blame for too many deaths,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, June 10).

As one who drives old (and slower) classic cars as well as motorcycles, I can say first-hand that more and more drivers race by me every day, oft-times traveling 20 or more miles per hour in excess of the posted speed limit. It’s insane and all too dangerous out there for the law-abiding citizen.

Worse yet, our aloha spirit on the roadways has been replaced with road rage and impatient "stink eye" by crazy drivers as they impatiently pass folks like me — one who loves the art of driving and practices it at safe if not "hang loose" speeds.

Remember, speed kills both island people and our otherwise mellow aloha spirit.

P. Gregory Frey
Hawaii Kai

Pot conviction just a formality?

Sadly, marijuana advocate Roger Christie has been convicted and jailed for three years before even being tried by U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi.

He is being imprisoned for an "unspecified danger" to the community if he were released.

Mind you, he is not charged with a specific physical infraction, but tellingly, for being an "unspecified" danger that is not important enough to be specified.

It is clear that the judge convicted this man a long time ago, and it’s a shame the infraction was for an act that will be federally legalized within five to 10 years.

Stuart N. Taba
Manoa