It is absurd to expect Honolulu voters to take the time to research and determine the best outcome for the proposed amendments to the Honolulu City Charter.
I’m not going to vote on issues that I elect and pay salaries to politicians to decide for me. I elect the public servants whose opinions are close to mine, and I trust that they will carry out my choices. If they fail to do so, I revoke my support for them.
I believe my practice is far more realistic — and reasonable — than expecting each voter to research, evaluate and choose from 20 proposed Charter amendments.
I’m not going to do the City Council’s job for them. That’s why they were elected: to make those decisions.
Stuart N. Taba
Manoa
Reprisals against Gabbard not news
The local news went nuts over the so-called email scandal surrounding U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (“Email warned Gabbard of reprisal,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 14).
I’m disgusted you would make front-page news of something that was not illegal, not unethical and not a surprise. Gabbard came out in support of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. Clinton campaign supporters didn’t like it and decided to no longer support Gabbard.
Wow! How shocking they decide to send their money and expertise elsewhere. Way to play up a whole lot of nothing in pursuit of the “local angle.’”
Tracey Scott
Wahiawa
Mayoral candidates don’t have solutions
As a former resident and regular visitor to Honolulu, I agree — sadly — with Lee Cataluna’s assessment of Kirk Caldwell and Charles Djou as do-nothing mayoral candidates with no real ideas of how to pull Honolulu out of its current “shameful tailspin” (“Caldwell, Djou identical in their lack of solutions,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 5).
Exactly right. Even a casual observer can see that Honolulu is becoming ever more dysfunctional, plagued with constant petty crime by the disenfranchised lower levels of society, and rife with ongoing greed by everyone at the upper levels, both in the private and public sectors.
It’s become a place of faux aloha, where everyone just brazenly takes and is not held accountable. Homeless? Crumbling streets? Too much traffic?
The entitled elite here don’t care, and these two candidates are not going to change anything because the system owns them. Too bad. Maybe they can learn something — anything — from the playbook of Frank Fasi or Jeremy Harris.
John Kitchen
Kailua-Kona
Residential A tax causes hardships
Changes to our property tax rates in 2014 are just another example of government making assumptions: this time, that anyone who owns a home worth $1 million or more and not living in it should be penalized and taxed at 6 percent instead of 3.5 percent of assessed value.
My mother is 92 years old and had to be moved from her home of 44 years to a care facility. We have rented her home to help pay for the care facility. Care facilities are extremely expensive.
She has lost her home exemption because she is no longer living in her home. The home was assessed at just under $1 million up until last year. I am afraid that it will not be assessed under $1 million for 2017 and her estate will be faced with a huge property tax increase.
Does Mayor Kirk Caldwell care about the effects of this new tax policy? I believe he cares about collecting more taxes and his precious rail above all else.
Pamela Rosa Webb
Hawaii Kai
Too-bright LEDs need to be altered
Last week’s fatality at Ala Moana Center, caused by obvious corrosion of metal railings, showed that public safety at this mega-mall is inadequate.
Despite a June 2016 warning from the American Medical Association that high-intensity LED lights can be harmful to human eyesight, the Ala Moana Center recently installed thousands of these ultra-bright, ultra-white lights throughout every level of its garages.
The blinding multi-LED-array lamps are installed just a few feet above eye level and blaze away 24 hours a day. They are unshielded and lack any diffusing lenses. If you look at one directly for just a few seconds you will notice damaging retinal after-images for many minutes.
The risk to elderly eyes and those of employees exposed continuously cannot be denied. Lawsuits are inevitable. If some of these intense lights were installed in the Ala Moana Center’s executive offices we would see a rapid response. Retrofit all the unsafe lights to meet adequate public eyesight-safety standards.
Brian Bagnall
Waikiki
Give candidates psychological exams
Drug test? Absolutely, yes (“Trump calls for blood tests, citing behavior by Clinton,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 16)!
However, also have the two candidates subjected to a psychiatric and psychological examination by renowned experts and have their results published for all to see, so we can determine their fitness for the office of the president of the United States.
Steve Vidinha
Kaneohe
Hacked emails can be faked, too
I recently heard an expert on internet hacking interviewed on National Public Radio who was asked if it was possible for hackers to alter some of the emails released by WikiLeaks. He said, of course it’s possible.
They could change anything they like and report it as true — there is no way to prove the accuracy of anything they are reporting. They could make up all sorts of stories, or exaggerate them any way they want. They have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Joan Navales
Aiea
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