Bishop Museum on path to irrelevancy

Basing the future of Bishop Museum on tourism is a fundamentally flawed model, as demonstrated by the 2013/2014 financial statements (available online) reporting $8 million debt incurred while chasing tourism dollars, coincident with downplaying and now ending institutional research support.

Contrary to Director Blair Collis’ statement that this research model is a growing trend in science, such has never been a trend and, indeed, a model of just partial support is increasingly seen as unsustainable (“Bishop’s next move,” Star-Advertiser, Jan. 9).

As casual hires, the museum’s career researchers and curators will no longer be able to obtain major grants, especially from the National Science Foundation, which expects clearly visible institutional support. Without such support the museum’s vast, irreplaceable and unique natural history collections, crucial to the advancement of knowledge and conservation of the spectacular but disappearing biodiversity of Hawaii and the entire Pacific islands, will simply gather dust.

It’s a sad vision for a once-lauded institution.

Robert Cowie

Former Bishop Museum researcher/curator

Kailua

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Museum’s leaders have lost credibility

The Bishop Museum, one of the most important depositories of objects and knowledge on the planet related to Pacific peoples, is now on the verge of collapse due to mismanagement by the director and the majority of the museum board.

Why are there no term limits or “buy-in” for board members? Most major museums have a buy-in between $50,000 and $250,000 a year to serve on the board.

Being concerned about the museum direction, we showed the director how to improve the museum, including ways to generate millions of dollars within six months, to no avail.

With the canceling of the Na Hulu Ali‘i featherwork show, now at the De Young museum in San Francisco, the museum leadership has lost all credibility with museums worldwide.

It’s time to put the museum’s house in order with a worldwide search for a new director and new board members. Otherwise, the museum will certainly fail.

Mark and Carolyn Blackburn

Waialae-Kahala

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Hard workers have little to show for it

Some people have their priorities wrong. When we know that many of our citizens are working three jobs to make ends meet, and the majority of them are paying exorbitant prices for rent, no wonder we have so many homeless people.

Hard work is nothing new for all of us who work. But what makes some hard work more valuable than others? Shouldn’t everyone get what they need to survive, especially with the high cost of living in Hawaii?

If we’re not going to have access to affordable housing, then we have to contend with a system that is caving in.

Many of us are at fault. All one has to do is look around and read the newspaper.

The problems are evident and warn us to be aware and get results for the sustenance of all island folks.

Gabrielle L. Makuakane

McCully

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‘Big Q’ response on Inouye baffling

The late U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye literally gave his right arm for his country.

Then he dedicated the rest of his life to making Hawaii a better place.

Now, “The Big Q” points out that 62 percent of respondents prefer to totally scrap the idea of the Daniel Inouye Center (“Do you agree with the decision to halt the proposed $50 million Daniel Inouye Center?,” Star-Advertiser, Jan. 16).

Are our collective memories that short? Or is “The Big Q” not a legitimate litmus test of the true feelings and memories that the people of Hawaii have for this honorable and courageous man?

Since late last year, “The Big Q” has stopped printing how many people respond to the question. Until that information is included, we should all dismiss the results of “The Big Q” as being useless, misleading and unreliable.

Paul LaPage

Kahala

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Don’t raise taxes for public schools

A few years ago, Forbes magazine ranked the state of Hawaii as the worst place in the United States to make a living.

The high cost of living and the cost of buying a home are two of the reasons for the low ranking. The tax-burdened citizens of Hawaii are facing a rail tax extension to 2027. I would call that a permanent tax.

The 2016 Democratic-controlled Legislature opened its session Wednesday and will consider another stinging shot to our pocketbooks and family budgets with a 1 percentage point increase in the general excise tax to fund the state Department of Education (“HSTA urges increase to help fund education proposals,” Star-Advertiser, Jan. 9). Another tax increase.

Just about every year, the DOE gets its share of the state’s budget.

Many families in this state work more than one job to survive. I hope the Legislature will show compassion for the overburdened citizens in this state by rejecting that 1 percentage point request.

Melvin Partido

Pearl City

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Lax enforcement leads to anarchy

Vern Hinsvark has it right (“City must enforce vacation rental law,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Jan. 12).

The inaction by government to punish scofflaws has led us to a slippery slope which, at its bottom, has anarchy.

Even here at home, individuals exempt themselves from rules that apply to everyone. The culture of defiance is promoted in all social mediums. There has become an epidemic of folks who see themselves above the law.

Government just encourages this behavior by its inaction. No more turning a blind eye, claiming lack of resources; it is the accumulation of being able to get away with small things that gives people the notion that they are not the problem and therefore the rules do not apply to them.

We are on the way to having a population of folks living outside the rules and a culture that substitutes defiance for civility.

Leigh Prentiss

Kailua