Water bill system is a total mess

Your Sunday front-page article on water billings was of great interest, especially since our household bill has shown zero water usage for the past three months ("Billing estimate quagmire eases," Star-Advertiser, Oct. 20). I have talked to the Board of Water Supply customer service, so far with no result.

Frankly, this is a total mess. If they were not ready for monthly billings, why did they start? What’s the total current cash unavailable to date? You cannot run a successful business this way. In a real business, Board of Water Supply manager Ernest Lau and his staff would have been fired.

I want a reliable water supply. I disagree with City Councilwoman Kymberly Pine. We should pay for what we use, but what are we using? If the meters are not working properly, how can they prove actual usage not billed? Why didn’t they replace the batteries in a timely way?

When will this end? There were no answers in the article.

Paul Tyksinski
Kailua

Health Connector lacks competence

How embarrassing! President Barack Obama was born here, yet we were the only state in the whole country where you could not go online to get price information about Obamacare health coverage.The Hawaii Health Connector received more than $200 million dollars to get the website set up, and had to deal with only two companies selling health insurance, and yet it still couldn’t do it.

It seems to me that something this important should have had someone much more competent working on it.

Scott Rowland
Waimanalo

Hotels shouldn’t charge ‘resort’ fees

Thank you, Kathleen Soule, for challenging in court the pricey and mandatory up-charges hotels are disguising as "resort fees" ("Woman sues Hilton over nightly resort fee," Star-Advertiser, Oct. 17). Soule speaks for many irritated hotels guests who remember when access to the swimming pool and an Internet connection were included as part of a standard hotel room charge.

Not any more. Hotels like the Hilton now include the specious word "resort" in their brand and presto, that is all they need to justify charging consumers even more. This resort fee makes for poor policy and causes tremendous public resentment.

Guests have no choice but to pay up or go and vote with their feet and stay away. Hotels may euphemistically be calling it a resort fee, but it really is a fee of last resort — one in which hotels resort to any method to make more money from you and me.

Richard Dinges
Hilo

Words don’t always denote racial slur

What makes a word a slur? What makes a word carry derogatory connotations? Here in Hawaii, we frequently use the word "haole" when referring to a white-skinned person. That word can be offensive if used in a derogatory way, but we often use it in a harmless way.

Is it a slur when we use it in a harmless way just because it concerns race and color?

Unfortunately, race has become such a sensitive subject that we have lost the proper perspective. Have we become blind to the fact that the evil in a word used as a slur doesn’t come from the word itself but from the intent to harm with which it is used?

Critics insist the Washington Redskins’ name must be a racial slur just because it refers to skin color. But the fans who sing the "Hail to the Redskins" fight song do not intend the name as a slur in any way, shape or form.

This controversy is a perfect example of political correctness run totally amok.

Lunsford Dole Phillips
Kailua

Constitution guards religious beliefs

In primary school, we learned to pledge allegiance to "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Our forefathers sought religious freedom, declaring a separation of church from state in the First, not the 14th or 15th, amendments to the Constitution.

Our forefathers delineated religion from state, but not at the expense of its exclusion. Hence the minted phrase, "In God We Trust."

It is the state’s jurisdiction to declare marriage laws. The bulk of the state’s populace has already voted to define matrimony as one between a man and a woman.

People are at liberty to choose among lifestyles to pursue happiness. The justice lies in allowing the consequences of one’s choices to follow. Marriage is instituted of God between a man and a woman.

Forcing churches to perform and participate in rituals they strongly oppose defeats the Constitution and the allegiance we vowed to uphold it as citizens. Seems elementary to me.

Vernetta A. Hall
Laie

Marriage equality benefits children

Two groups of children will benefit from marriage equality in Hawaii. The first group is children of same-gender couples. These children will, through the institution of marriage, be able to claim full status as members of a family. "Yes, my parents are married, just like yours." If families are so important to our culture, shouldn’t we recognize their families?

The second group is lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered children. Some of these children have been disowned by their families, banished by their churches, and given little support or direction from a society that doesn’t understand them, leaving many of them with few options other than self-denial, drug abuse or even suicide.

It is time for us to give them the opportunity to see themselves as fully recognized citizens. Yes, children, you will grow up, fall in love, get married, and live as respected members of our society. It is a message that is long overdue; no child should be exempt from being cherished by our island community.

Jonathan Gillentine
Kaneohe