Single-vendor towing contract keeps it simple

The city is right to decide against throwing out the baby with the bathwater: Just because the current towing contract with Leeward Auto Wreckers was a bust, that doesn’t mean the new single-vendor system failed, too. It still makes sense that having one contractor cover the island is the most efficient way to go.

Another good move: ditching the fixed $60,000 monthly premium to be paid to the city. Mandating it at such a high level is simply asking for trouble, with a company driven to increase their charges however it can.

Now that all this is evident, it’s time to make this operation work. This is pretty basic to municipal functioning, and it shouldn’t be so tough a nut to crack. The city just needs to stay on top of it.

They want to do what to the old News Building?

We’ll admit up front that we’re biased on this issue, but we’re not the only ones chagrined by the plans of Downtown Capital LLC for the former offices of The Honolulu Advertiser.

Once known as the News Building, it also was home to other news organizations over the decades, including the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, The Associated Press and KGU.

The artist’s rendering of Downtown Capital’s proposal displays a blocky parking structure wedged into the structure, knocking out its Waikiki wing and central section of what currently is a U-shaped building.

Granted, the most visible sections of the 1929 landmark are being saved. But, ouch, it still hurts to see it whacked like that. Aren’t parking stalls easy to reconfigure?