The University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization (UHERO) projects Hawaii’s construction sector will peak and then start declining within a year.
This is another reason we support the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). Its construction jobs would help our island’s economy.
We also believe the broken UH teaching telescope Hoku Kea should not be decommissioned. A replacement, state-of-the-art telescope is here, but talk is of relocating it to UH-Hilo.
Wait — put a telescope in the rainiest city in the U.S., rather than at one of the world’s best astronomy locations? Why?
I want our keiki to become excited and knowledgeable about science, and for us to keep our economy on track.
These goals are so much more positive than Palikapu Dedman digging up our ancestors’ bones and putting them on Mauna Kea to block construction.
I’m Hawaiian and I vigorously protest his doing that. Who gives him the right to speak for me?
Richard Ha
Hilo
Native species comprise short list
Robert Cowie wrote that feral pigs are an invasive species (versus a native species) (“Feral pigs aren’t native to Hawaii,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Oct. 4).
He is correct in pointing out that pigs were brought here by the first Polynesian settlers. The only truly native species here are plants like coconut and hala that floated here across the ocean, plus birds that blew here in storms and managed to survive. However, that’s a very short list.
Traditionally, we also include the plants and animals brought here by the first settlers as native, even if it’s stretching the definition a bit. If we don’t include the wild pigs as native, then we also have to exclude taro, sweet potatoes, bananas and chickens (yes, I know they’re also annoying)!
And, by the way, we can’t blame mosquitoes on the pigs. They were brought in a ship’s ballast in the 19th century, many centuries after feral pigs arrived.
Gail Christensen
Hanapepe
Rail costing us way more than expected
Our grandparents and parents always told us, “If you don’t have the money, don’t buy it.”
Rail is costing Oahu residents $8.2 billion to Middle Street, probably another $8 billion from Middle Street to Ala Moana Center and the University of Hawaii.
Eminent domain will disrupt and displace many residents and businesses.
We have just fewer than 1 million residents on Oahu, which divided into $16.2 billion means about $16,000 per resident — probably the most expensive rail project in the world per resident.
If we want rail, every resident should come up with $16,000 each (for a family of five times $16,000 = $80,000) although many residents will never ride it.
Like our grandparents and parents said, “If you don’t have the money, don’t buy it.”
Mark Hada
Kalihi
City should have heeded Cayetano
There is so much controversy involving constructing the rail. If our government had listened to Ben Cayetano and built at-grade dedicated lanes for buses, we would probably be finished today and automobile traffic greatly reduced.
I say demolish the elevated structures on the west end, recycle the concrete and restart the construction with Cayetano’s plans.
Portable concrete recycling machinery could be moved from site to site. We would not need the professionalism of Kiewit anymore. We have the capability locally to demolish anything. We already have the less-skilled workers who can build at-grade busways.
We have buses that run on diesel fuel. There is no need to purchase steel-on-steel rail cars.
James Kataoka
Mililani Mauka
HECO erred to not get ahead of curve
As a Hawaiian Electric Co. shareholder, I’ve wondered why the utility was not the first to offer their customers the opportunity to place PV systems on their homes, given the profit potential, not to mention better control of the grid.
Programs that gave customers the ability to share the power they made at home with the utility have come to an end.
In what might look like a win for Hawaiian Electric, customers will no longer be allowed export energy to the grid.
A stable grid relies on a large number of users coupled with a variety of energy production sources seamlessly working together.
I anticipate large-scale grid defection — customers making and storing their own power and saying aloha to HECO forever.
Wanna buy my shares?
Mark Ida
Salt Lake
Millennials will help keep America great
America’s millennials likely will influence the outcome of this year’s presidential election. As a result, they and the rest of us stand to struggle under President Hillary Clinton or suffer under President Donald Trump in the foreseeable future.
Our youngest voting cohort will experience national and global economic, environmental and political issues unprecedented in the history of our republic. Nonetheless, on a positive note, lessons learned from this election hopefully will produce a crop of millennial government leaders who are astute, humble, honest and caring.
We depend on our millennial generation to help keep America great.
Alvin Z. Katekaru
Mililani Mauka