Hawaii Business Roundtable supports initiatives that help our state build a vibrant research and technology sector to create new jobs and add diversity to our local economy.

The Thirty Meter Telescope deserves our community support because it represents a unique opportunity for Hawaii to be at the forefront of research and technology, while offering jobs that will allow our children to remain in the islands and helping our country continue its 150-year leadership in astronomy, research, discovery and innovation.

Thoughtful conservation considerations have been made, including TMT paying an unprecedented $1 million lease fee per year, of which $800,000 will go to the Office of Mauna Kea Management for the protection of natural resources and stewardship.

Honoring and respecting our host culture while expanding our knowledge through studying the stars has been a part of Hawaii’s rich cultural heritage.

We look forward to the exciting discoveries TMT will bring to our children and the entire world.

Robert Harrison
Chairman, Hawaii Business Roundtable

Rail structures a blight on aina

The picture of the elevated rail guideway was the ugliest thing I have seen anywhere ("Rail work to shut Fort Weaver lanes," Star-Advertiser, June 24). We are in Hawaii, not Chicago or New York where such hideous beasts can prevail.

The question now is: Where will the money come from to tear down those offensive structures? No reserves in our budgets yet.

For sure, our people will come to their good senses and eliminate this blight from our aina.

Probably later when it’s more expensive, but come down they will.

And the unions will love it again.

To put this into perspective, San Franciscans came to their senses and tore down their ugly, elevated Embarcadero Freeway, also a supposed traffic improvement. But down it went, and the sight along the wharf is now really pretty.

Gerhard C. Hamm
Waialae Iki

Confederate flag curiously persists

Slavery was likely to continue within the Confederate States of America, but the flag represented a separate sovereign, not a grotesque institution within that sovereign.

The argument against such a separation raged 80 years prior to the Civil War. The Federalists projected the doom of a land divided into separate nations. The states agreed to remain united under a stronger central government, but vast powers were deferred to the states by the new Constitution. These deferred powers were pressed to the extreme of secession, and the flag of a separate nation represented a reversal of the sound and logical thinking of the founders.

The Confederate flag is certainly associated with slavery, but it represented the death of the miracle of a union of states underpinned by a government of, for, and by the people.

The fact that the symbol endures is therefore all the more curious.

John Hansen
Waipahu

City should make good to couple

Sometimes something happens that reinforces our negative feelings about our government ("Bad advice from (city) stalls venture," Star-Advertiser, June 24).

Relying on representations from the city, a couple from Texas invested their life savings to establish a buggy rental company only to get here and face the nightmare of being told their small vehicles did not qualify for our streets.

In the article, city officials offered mealy-mouthed, weasel-word statements of quasi-support, but no one stood up and said, "We are responsible, and we are going to make this right."

The shame we feel for these government employees is likely exceeded only by the pain and anguish this couple has suffered.

Yes, it may cost us taxpayers to fund a full replacement with qualified buggies, but without delay, we must do what is fair and right.

Dick Morris
Hawaii Kai

We have enough dune buggies

Are we supposed to feel sorry for the couple from Texas whose lack of due diligence has prevented their dune buggies from polluting our already over-commercialized North Shore?

This is not front-page news. This is not keeping the country, country. Aloha aina.

Pat Brady
Waialua