Vacation rentals have good side

After reading and hearing so much negativity toward vacation rentals, I feel compelled to share my perspective, having used them in the last five years in Kailua.

Letter writer Ursula Retherford, saying that we renters are hurting the quality of neighborhoods and the environmental quality of the island, makes me angry ("Vacation rentals bad for neighborhoods," Star-Advertiser, April 26)!

In all things there are the good, and not so good, but I am getting tired of hearing that we mainlanders and renters of B&Bs are the problem. I am pretty sure there are problems local, as well.

We used to use hotels but now that we are retired, we have been using B&Bs in Kailua.We can stay longer, for a whole lot less.We respect others around us. We respect this wonderful island.We are quiet. I have put out fires along the route we take to walk and jog. We have cleaned up trash. We clean up after using the beach.We spend our money in your town. We are the people who have a smile on our faces. We like to think we are helping out the homeowner.We appreciate all that is available to us.

Beverly Bowker
Eugene, Ore.

Ethics panel made a bad call

"Utter bosh, bunkum and balderdash" — lexicon passed to me a long time ago by a teacher of Australian heritage — best describe any interpretation that chaperoning students on a school trip reeks of a "freebie" for our consistently underpaid and continuously overworked teachers.Gimme a break.

The Ethics Commission needs to figure out the nuances involved in this issue. Whether it be to New York or Boston or, perhaps, if our students are talented enough to someday be invited to perform elsewhere on the globe, how reassuring for parents to know that their children are under the 24/7 supervision of teachers known to school authorities.

As this same Australian teacher would have put it:Anyone with the brains of a mango fly would know this is a good thing to do.

Wylma C. Samaranayake-Robinson
Kakaako

Public fed up with rail flimflam

In David Shapiro’s excellent column ("Ending rail near Aala Park seems like a viable option," Star-Advertiser, Volcanic Ash, April 6), he asserts: Mayor Kirk Caldwell, et al., orchestrated crisis theatrics; the public is fed up with rail flimflam; labor unions/monied interests muscle for more taxes; both houses advance bills supporting more taxes; no real accountability is a blank check; rail project is built on bad judgment, bad management and bad faith; backers show little intent to change their "slippery ways" in refusing to provide a true assessment of rail end cost.

I believe most of us believe a mass transit system here is a good idea, but at what cost? We all would like a fancy car or boat, but don’t like the idea of bankruptcy to attain them. What this whole fiasco seems to shout out is this government has no checks and balances.

It seems that whatever the unions and Democrats want, they get. Let not a critical voice be heard.

Art Todd
Kaneohe

Rich pay large share of taxes

Nowhere in recent memory — at least since the last State of the Union address — have we been provided such a raucously strident defense of Marxist principles ("Tax laws fuel widening divide," Letters, Star-Advertiser, April 24).

As is the case in an overwhelming number of instances of progressive pontification, the premise is necessarily based on pure misrepresentation of facts.

The assertion is made that "those with the largest incomes pay less than the poor." This is a misstatement of cavernous proportion. A quick perusal of the average effective federal tax rates by cash income group demonstrates that the lowest quintile pays 1.1 percent while the top fifth ponies up 26.2 percent. Further, the top 1 percent of earners pays a lopsided 30 percent.

The 50-year War on Poverty, fueled by the unlawful and punitive confiscation of income, has proven the utter failure of a cheerfully utopian vision. What was intended as a temporary safety net to "uplift our poor" has become the offering of a permanent hammock at an unsustainable cost.

Stephen Hinton
Haleiwa

Ahn contradicts herself on Deedy

I agree with the Star-Advertiser comment regarding Christopher Deedy: Enough is enough ("Third time for Deedy is definitely not a charm," Off the News, April 27).

Judge Karen Ahn needs to review her own notes. As the newspaper item stated, "Ahn herself instructed Deedy’s original jury that evidence in the case did not support a manslaughter charge."

Now she wants to charge him for manslaughter; she is disregarding her own instructions.

Marilee Y. Lyons
Haleiwa