Other cities have banished homeless

I just spent seven days and nights in New York City.

The hotel I stayed in is at the heart of Times Square. We went all over the city.

Not once did I see a homeless person. Not once.

Shame on our local and state government for allowing this problem to grow here locally to near-epidemic proportions.

And shame on us all for not demanding that more be done. Strict enforcement of existing laws is a start, and development of new laws will reinforce ongoing efforts to improve this situation.

Other major cities seem to have the tools, so perhaps we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Andy Friedlander
Punchbowl

Stadium displaced homes to begin with

It’s deja vu all over again!

That eminent philosopher, Yogi Berra, must have chuckled when he read the editorial, "A future without Aloha Stadium" (Star-Advertiser, Our View, May 9), which suggested tearing down the facility to build workforce housing.

The state chased 1,000 families from the area, which consisted of military-type barracks buildings, to build the stadium back in the early 1970s. Now the editorial says to reverse the process?

After all, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation is supposed to build a rail station there.

Wasn’t the stop intended to bring people back and forth from the biggest sporting venue in the state?

Chip Davey
Downtown Honolulu

Regents didn’t pick enough candidates

I attended both retired Lt. Gen. Frank Wiercinski and interim university president David Lassner’s public forums.

Students heckled and booed Wiercinski with signs like "demilitarize" and "Hawaiian values?".

They interrupted his answers repeatedly.

University of Hawaii Board of Regents Chairman John Holzman did not stop the heckling.

When Lassner spoke, there was not one protest sign, nor any shouts or hissing from the same graduate students. Lassner answered soft questions, comfortably and ably.

Wiercinski took all the insults and heckling in stride and answered questions gracefully and patiently. He even made himself available to seek solutions with the protesters.

If UH wants to be the Pacific leader in research, academics and enterprise, a world-class leader withexperience is badly needed.

Sadly, by delivering only two finalists, the regents failed in their mission.Clearly more candidates are needed.

Chu Lan Shubert-Kwock
Chinatown

Academics haven’t done so well at UH

After readingher comments, I would assume that Cynthia Franklin has never served in the military or, for that matter, ever looked into what the military does on a daily basis ("Finalist for UH’s top job is targeted in petition," Star-Advertiser, May 13).

It’s not the bang, bang, shoot-them-up scenario that a liberal professor spouts off on a daily basis. Every military base is a city in itself.

And, yes, each base even has an education department.Our military is the best in the world and that happens because of education.

The University of Hawai is a wonderfuluniversity; however, ithas been riddled with one scandal after another and its infrastructure is a disaster.

Maybe it’s timefor hope and change at the university. It can’t hurt, considering how it has been run the past fewdecades with academics at the controls.

Go Warriors/Rainbows.

Bill Tildsley
Salt Lake

Monsanto trying to buy AJA support

I recently became a member of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, prompted by the organization’s efforts that produced "The Untold Story: Internment of Japanese Americans in Hawai’i."

I am using this excellent DVD and study guide to inform my grandchildren about part of their ethnic histories, and of the need to guard civil rights.

Meanwhile, like an increasing number of Hawaii residents, I have become increasingly informed and alarmed about the domination of Hawaii’s lands by Monsanto and other multinational corporations.

Monsanto appears eager to donate its Honouliuli acreage for its eventual establishment as a National Park Service monument to the internment.

I view Monsanto’s proposed donation of land as a calculated attempt to curry favor with Hawaii’s Japanese-American community, as well as in the wider community currently engaged in a struggle over genetically modified organisms.

Cheryl Ogawa Ho
Nuuanu

Crabbe’s questions not unreasonable

On behalf of the members of Ka Lei Maile Alii Hawaiian Civic Club, I am writing in support of Kamana’opono Crabbe, chief executive officer of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, regarding his letter to Washington, D.C.

His sincere attempt to clarify the status of the Hawaiian kingdom as an occupied country deserves Secretary of State John Kerry’s time and attention. The questions he posed are not unreasonable.

To fulfill their fiduciary responsibility in good faith, the remaining seven OHA trustees must remove their names from the May 9 letter to Kerry, as trustees Dan Ahuna and Carmen Hulu Lindsey have done.

This action would indicate solidarity among trustees and signal to the larger community that OHA’s intent is to help pave the way for truth and clarity before their constitutional convention this fall.

The community must be given an opportunity to understand how the truth of our history can lead to a strong and educated populace that is able to determine the best course of action for our future.

Evern Williams
President, Ka Lei Maile Alii Hawaiian Civic Club
Kapahulu