Council wisely avoids the water board trap

City Council members have wisely backed off a proposal to take over the Board of Water Supply, instead deciding to seek a management and performance audit of the semiautonomous board, which has been beset by complaints from customers about the doubling of service fees and other billing issues.

The fact that the agency has problems is widely acknowledged, but the proposal to put the board under the Council’s purview went too far, too fast. A careful audit should be able to verify whether or not such a drastic overhaul of the board’s governance and financial decision-making is warranted, making it the smarter step.

Language barriers fall — on cable TV

Here’s more evidence that Hawaii’s famed ethnic diversity continues to grow: Two more Asian networks are being added on cable.

Oceanic Time Warner Cable will be adding Saigon Broadcasting Television Network (SBTN), a 24-hour channel focusing on the Vietnamese-American community with a variety of news, talk shows, dramas, movies and other programs on culture and history.

TVK2, meanwhile, will feature Korean-American entertainment that includes music, lifestyle, dramas, news and current event programs in both Korean and English.

Hmmm — both Korean and English. Given the recent controversy pushing the state to offer written driver’s license testing in 12 foreign languages (and not just English), perhaps the many foreign-language TV stations here can also offer public service programming to help folks with information and skills to ease them into this community.