In response to Harold Loomis (“No excuse for long DMV delays,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, July 30), the city’s Department of Customer Services could not agree more.
Since January, we’ve been warning of a big increase in renewals expected in 2018, and in anticipation of this, we introduced new systems to ease the process for those seeking a driver’s license or ID.
We now offer 13,000 appointments each month, as well as options to request a duplicate card online to avoid a visit altogether. In fact, we house all of our licensing tools on one easy website — license.honolulu.gov.
Your license can be renewed at any point in the six months prior to expiration, and with an appointment, you’ll be done in about 20 minutes.
Since the summer months of June and July are extremely busy, we are temporarily providing Saturday hours at our five licensing centers from 8 a.m. to noon through August 25.
Sheri Kajiwara
Director, city Department of Customer Services
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Bring your own bag; it’s easy and better
I’ve been astounded by letters from people vehemently opposed to the new Oahu plastic shopping bag ban. My goodness, you’d think the government was trying to take away their guns — which, if you’re a member of Hawaii’s marine life community, the bag ban basically does.
C’mon, my plastic-addicted friends, it’s not that hard. I’ve been using my own shopping bags since 2007, and may I suggest a high-quality cotton bag I discovered while covering the Dalai Lama on Maui that year for MidWeek.
They’re made by Tibetan Buddhist nuns at monasteries high in the Himalayas, and help support their education. Most come from poverty. It’s for a great cause, and bags are sold through the Tibetan Nuns Project, tnp.org.
Those two bags, by the way, are 11 years old, heavily used and still in great shape. I’ve added a few more to my rotating repertoire of reusables stashed in the back of the car. Oh, and they’re easy to launder.
Don Chapman
Kaneohe
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Releasing prisoner was embarrassing
The false missile alert wasn’t a funny joke at all, but the mistaken release of suspected killer Brian Lee Smith, who turned himself in to police before a search was conducted, was really laughable (“Big Island murder suspect turns himself in; official apologizes for mistaken release,” Star-Advertiser, Top News, July 27).
How embarrassing for the officials trying to figure out how the prisoner was released by mistake, only for him to return without their lifting a finger.
It appears that the performance of our state government has reached rock bottom. We must do better for our concerned citizens.
James Kataoka
Mililani Mauka
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Provide resources for rehabilitation
While Hawaii could improve rehabilitation of incarcerated people, and decrease the need for prison beds, our state is moving backward.
The state’s Department of Public Safety, which administers our prisons and jails, now has an annual budget of more than $300 million. While failing terribly to provide basic necessities for rehabilitation, our state has spent more than $16 million on plans for new prison/jail construction.
Photo identification and even bus fare are not routinely provided for all people who need it when leaving incarceration.
One man released from the Halawa high-security prison, after spending years in Hawaii’s private Arizona prison, had no money and nowhere to go. He walked back into our community without any support.
Imprisoned people’s educational, drug and mental health treatment needs also are unmet. Drug treatment is not provided for all who need it, and numerous prison suicides show glaring mental health problems.
Please contact your elected representatives and political candidates about this problem.
Lorenn Walker
Director, Hawai’i Friends of Restorative Justice
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Speak out against cruel Trump policies
Recently someone wrote that non-indigenous Americans and non-Native Hawaiians “have no moral authority to … decide on the matter of immigration into the U.S. or Hawaii.”
However, as an American, I feel a moral obligation to speak out against President Donald Trump’s xenophobic and racist immigration policies: his Muslim travel/immigration ban, zero-tolerance immigration policy that tears children from their parents, and removal of protective DACA status from young people who have lived all of their lives in the United States.
Our president should understand that the principles and beliefs upon which our nation was founded are based on our Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
We all must speak up for the civil rights as well as the humanity of our minorities, who oftentimes have neither voice nor the political power to defend themselves.
Myra Taketa
Mililani
