Colleen Hanabusa should have resigned from the board of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation upon her run for Congress (“Hanabusa harangues rail officials,” Star-Advertiser, Aug. 9).
Most agree that HART planning should have been done at the beginning, so increased costs and delays would not be the issues they are today.
Hanabusa’s “harangues” are a bit late and seem politically motivated to get the support of voters with rail concerns.
Paul Miller
Kaneohe
Lawmakers right to override veto
Mahalo to the legislators who stood up to the governor and overrode his veto of Senate Bill 2077.
SB 2077 provides a severance or early retirement option for state workers whose positions are being eliminated from public service due to the privatization of the Hawaii Health Systems Corp. in the Maui region.
The lawmakers are speaking the will of the people — showing their commitment to those who depend on the Maui regional hospital system and to the dedicated public employees who are being terminated from their state jobs.
I sincerely hope the governor implements SB 2077. Otherwise he is just mocking the entire legislative process and the people of Hawaii.
Mary Wagner
Wailuku
Beggar’s demands intimidate visitor
On Aug. 3, I, along with my wife and niece, were enjoying an evening walk in front of our hotel, the Hale Koa, when an apparently homeless beggar stood in my way and asked me for a dollar.
I told him no, I don’t do that.
He then demanded $10, calling me lots of vile names. I exchanged a verbal back-and-forth with him until he started talking about having been stabbed in the past.
Hearing that, the alarm bells went off for this 72-year-old retiree with thoughts about a knife attack. Luckily I was able to disengage from this possibly dangerous situation without anybody getting hurt.
Is this the direction beautiful Waikiki Beach is headed?
Doug Anderson
Royal Oaks, Calif.
Iran still owes U.S. for hostage crisis
Iran gets $400 million, plus $1.3 billion in interest, for a total of $1.7 billion. And we got what? Oh yeah, it wasn’t ransom — just a regular hostage exchange in which we got two fewer than Iran did.
And how much did we get from Iran in compensation for the destruction of an embassy and its contents, plus 52 hostages for 444 days? How much interest do they still owe us for that?
Gary MacLeod
Kailua
Rail sold to voters based on false costs
Thank you for your story about rail cost overruns around the country (“On the same track,” Star-Advertiser, Aug. 7).
It was completely predictable (and in fact many did predict) that rail would exceed the budgeted amount. The Hannemann administration had to know that. It was dishonest to pitch the system to the voters on the basis of false costs. It is those chickens that are now coming home to roost.
Bill Wynhoff
Kailua
State DOT should finish rail project
Roy Kamisato said the state government should complete the rail project (“State should finish building rail system,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Aug. 2).
I heartily concur.
State government, specifically the state Department of Transportation, is accustomed to managing large transportation projects.
And, with Gov. David Ige saying there is no money for road projects, it would be an excellent use of resources to turn the rail project over to the DOT for completion.
Let’s get this done.
R. Carol Taylor Kim
Makiki
Restore fuel dock at Waikiki landing
Now that the Waikiki landing project is no longer moving forward, it would be nice to see the state Department of Land and Natural Resources reopen the fuel dock and convenience store that used to function at the end of docks 5 and 6 at the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor (“Developer’s bankruptcy case dismissed,” Star-Advertiser, Aug. 2).
I had a houseboat there at one time and know many other tenants. The services provided by the fuel dock operators previously known as PBYC (Poor Boys Yacht Club) — the fuel dock, laundromat and convenience store — should be brought back.
David Moskowitz
Waikiki
Don’t scatter ashes; use concrete reefs
I was among the mourners on a boat that released the ashes of Dr. Robert W. Hiatt into Kaneohe Bay. I was appalled at the amount of ashes and the very obvious pollution.
Considering all the scuba divers, fishermen, surfers, sailors and marine biologists who prefer burial at sea, there is serious pollution impact. We should ban the release of a deceased’s ashes in the sea, but allow them to be mixed into cement to form a small memorial reef (“Memorial reef idea gets cool reception,” Star-Advertiser, July 28). Then provide a burial site for such reefs where the sea is consistently clear and the substratum solid rock.
John E. Randall
Kaneohe
