Every time there is significant rainfall in Windward Oahu, the bridge at Waikane overflows.
This has been happening for as long as anybody can remember.
When the road closes, emergency services, not to mention regular traffic, are cut off. Besides the tremendous inconvenience, it’s dangerous.
Yet, for the past 20 years or more, the state Highways Division has seen fit to replace the old bridges beginning in Kahuku and working south, without any apparent regard to priorities.
Who knows when they’ll get to Waikane? Certainly, if one bridge is causing major disruption to traffic and peoples’ lives, it should be replaced. Yet, if elected representatives or neighborhood boards have raised this issue with the Department of Transportation, I am not aware of it. Everyone, it seems, just accepts that “it is what it is.”
Well folks, if nobody demands a fix, it’ll stay broke.
Andrew J. Speese
Maunawili
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Stop persecuting Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood has been providing important and much-needed health care for women across the nation for as long as I can remember (I’m almost 70).
It is outrageous that this entity would be targeted for political and pseudo-religious reasons, denying care to those who need it.
Louise Simrell
Haleiwa
Best option for rail would be to let it fail
I beg to differ, profoundly, with your editorial (“Council needs to move on rail financing,” Star-Advertiser, Our View, Oct. 11).
Let’s just not vote at all anymore. That will bring that obscene monstrosity to an end. That whole project is unbelievably wrong: It’s a blight on our beautiful countryside, we cannot afford it, the design is wrong — on ugly pillars, it should have been at ground level (visit Portland, Ore.), it’s an old concept (steel-on-steel). … If we have to pay penalties, so be it. It’s less than the projected $6 billion, which experts project to be closer to $8 billion, if it ever gets finished. Probably never.
Now it’s in the hands of one possibly clear-thinking man, City Council Chairman Ernie Martin, never to call a meeting on the absurd request to authorize an additional $450 million in short-term bonds. That would end this rail nonsense.
He would be a hero for all of us and future generations. A monument for sure.
Gerhard C. Hamm
Waialae Iki
Blue Angels pollute and waste resources
Regarding the Blue Angels: What a waste (“Perseverence, trust help bring success to Blue Angels pilot,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 14)!
Wasting man-hours at taxpayer expense, wasting fuel, creating noise and pollution, plus their “Wall of Fire,” for what?
Neighbors should make their voices heard.
Barbara Ikeda
Mililani
Helping homeless can take many forms
Maybe church members want to help the homeless but don’t know how (“Churches striving to answer city’s call,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 11).
As a college-educated professional who’s been homeless myself three times, I have some ideas:
>> Build a model on how to help homeless people.
>> Developers need to be held legally responsible for the natural preserves and people they displace.
>> State and federal governments must give more of the tax dollars we give them to help the homeless.
>> Businesses need to recognize their role in creating the homeless situation, when they raise the cost of products but not pay scales.
>> Stop vilifying the homeless — it could happen to any of us.
Change needs to start from the top, where we’ve funneled all our time, money and other resources.
Cris Devine
Makiki
Name more women to government posts
Amidst much hoopla, it was reported recently that Hawaii has the highest rate of any state in electing women to the U.S. House of Representatives.
In addition, we are seventh highest in the percentage of women in elected office.
Kudos to the voters of Hawaii who put these women in office.
On the other hand, the percentage of women appointed to state and county boards and commissions, especially the high-profile ones, is dismal. It is unfortunate that our governors and mayors do not have the same commitment to gender parity as the voters.
After all, Margaret Thatcher is quoted as saying: “If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.”
Linda Estes
Koloa, Kauai
It seems UH knew it had a losing case
In February, former University of Hawaii men’s basketball coach Gib Arnold filed a grievance through his union claiming UH owed him $1.4 million (“Court seals Arnold settlement,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 14).
You knew that the university administration threw in the towel and felt Arnold would prevail when in June all it could do was counter with a suit seeking repayment of a paltry $2,000 from a travel advance.
Dennis Kohara
Kaimuki
