Hawaii island is best place for UH ag hub

The agriculture brain trust for Hawaii provides research, teaching and assistance to current and future farmers in the state and throughout the Pacific.

The federal government has focused its agricultural research services in Hilo, where Hawaii County’s land, water and geothermal energy generation are in abundant supply. Clearly, Hawaii island represents a truly sustainable agricultural resource for Hawaii’s people, and has a realistic chance of surviving the urban encroachment consuming agricultural lands on all islands here.

It is time to augment the federal government’s investment in Hawaii island agricultural development by moving the University of Hawaii’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR) to Hilo and complement the excellent agricultural training at UH-Hilo with a much-needed research capability and associated funding.

Keeping CTAHR in Manoa will subject it to the same development forces that we see consuming ag land on Oahu.

Joseph DeFrank

Mililani

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West Oahuans resent rail ‘stacking of deck’

The stacking of the deck by pro-rail advocate Stanford Carr and the Star-Advertiser editorial the day before the Legislature’s special session to raise taxes to pay for rail smacks of improper ethics (“Rail opens option to improve lives,” Island Voices, Aug. 27; “Rail plan solid; now up to city,” Our View, Aug. 27).

Carr just puts a local face to billions of dollars of rail money being wasted on mainland contractors. In his zealous description of rail as “the potential to be one of Oahu’s biggest economic catalysts in history,” he fails to mention the millions he could be making at taxpayer expense.

Oahu taxpayers will be committed to spending billions more for a failed rail project and then hundreds of millions more in operation and maintenance for the future. West Oahu commuters will still endure hours of commute time because rail will not reduce traffic.

Earl Arakaki

Ewa Beach

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Start now against rising-sea future

Your editorial on climate change was right on point, as far as it went (“Start plans today for sea-level rise,” Star-Advertiser, Our View, Aug. 26).

Those who attended the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’s public meetings about its “Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Report,” left concerned — very concerned.

Climate change is upon us and anyone who spends time on Hawaii’s shorelines knows sea level rise is real. Previous calculations for the extent of sea level rise in the short term (3 feet) are now being thrown out the window and it looks like we could see 6 feet in the foreseeable future.

King tides show us what havoc a 3-foot ocean rise creates. At 6 feet, it is bye-bye Mapunapuna and lots of other places, including parts of Waikiki.

Your editorial did not mention that DLNR apparently has no plans to suggest any legislative initiatives for the 2018 session.

The bottom line, as you say, is that it would be best to start now.

Rick Gaffney

Kailua-Kona

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Texas post-disaster reveals caring, aloha

With all the devastation, damages, deaths, rescues and people helping people, one cannot imagine how catastrophic Hurricane Harvey has been on the state of Texas.

I’ve seen the enormous overwhelming rescues and people such as the furniture store proprietor, who opened his store and warehouse to anyone, regardless of race, just to serve the needs of others who have lost everything. This man is truly a saint and caring person.

As a nation, because of this catastrophic event, and for those who have participated in recent demonstrations, flush bigotry and hate down the toilet and unite together as one. We are the United States of America. Look at pictures of this devastation and put a little love in your heart. Forgiveness is truly patriotic. Hawaii’s aloha to the state of Texas.

John Keala

Waianae

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Spectrum needs to fix reputation here

Concerns have been growing about the concentration of power with major cable companies. We lived through a real-life example of this recently where the potential for abuse became the reality of suffering (“Spectrum has ‘right’ to exclude Hawaiian Tel from Wahine telecasts,” Star-Advertiser, Aug. 28).

Spectrum did not simply exact pain on upward of 200,000 fans across our state; it disrespected the very fabric of our culture. Just because someone has the “right” to do something does not make it “right” to do so. Poorly disguised by weak rationale was its glee of a “gotcha” moment in pulling the plug “at the last minute.”

It did not simply reinforce our concerns about abusive cable organizations, it created a giant public relation stain.

Repair of its reputation can begin by entering into reasonable (and profitable) negotiations with Hawaiian Telcom. Its needs to humbly take responsibility and apologize, to begin demonstrating it wants to be responsible citizens of our community.

Or does it prefer the image of a greedy bully?

Dick Morris

Hawaii Kai