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Regarding the article, “Homeowners want protection from flooding” (Star- Advertiser, May 3): This can has been kicked down the road for so long that its scratches and dents make it barely recognizable. North Shore residents have been asking for help for 20-plus years and no city department will take responsibility.
Why has Paukauila Stream not been maintained?
Until that stream is dredged, why won’t some agency get out there this month and cut back the entire overgrown brush that is choking the stream and acting as a dam to restrict water flow to the ocean?
When I was a kid we used to be able to see toward the ocean, but now all we see is overgrown brush. Please, someone, clear back the brush so it does not restrict water flow from the stream to the ocean. Hurricane season is near.
Dee Montgomery-Brock
Mililani
Pipeline systems should not connect to internet
Pull the plug! Our country’s mission- critical computers such as those that control the Colonial Pipeline should not be attached to the internet. The systems cannot be hacked as long as there is no outside access.
I realize that the internet connection allows for the convenience of supervisors to work remotely from home but other, more secure means are available that limit the ability of hackers to attack from outside a closed system. The convenience is not worth the risk.
These systems need to be returned to an intranet, in which the computers are accessible only from within the system itself.
David Kwiat
Kailua-Kona
Inept government will botch new stadium
Hawaii government officials must be proud at how inept they are. They have a dismal track record for their every undertaking.
They proudly boasted that Aloha Stadium would be made from steel that would not rust through the surface, and we know how that turned out.
The rail has proven that they cannot undertake any task without faulty design issues that obviously should have been caught beforehand.
Now what can we expect from the new stadium? More delays and, of course, ballooning cost overruns. We can expect a lot more revealing news in the future.
Jon Shimamoto
Mililani
Aloha Stadium, parking primarily for UH football
As a University of Hawaii football season ticket holder since 1978, I am concerned that the Aloha Stadium Authority has abdicated its responsibility to provide a venue for UH to play Division 1 football.
Per the vision of John Burns, this is the primary purpose of Aloha Stadium (not the swap meet). My concern with the new development plan is that there appears to be little or no parking. No parking means no fans. No parking means you just wasted $400 million. No fans and no football revenue and you have no football team and consequently the loss of all UH sports.
Glenn Yokoyama
Waialae Nui
Teach children not to litter in public parks
Where are all the role models? I usually walk my dog every morning. We usually go to the Mililani District Park. Every morning, without fail, I see trash and plate-lunch boxes on the picnic table. There is a trash receptacle a few feet away. Can you imagine the person who has to clean that up? If it was me, I would feel like they are disrespecting me and my job.
That behavior is learned. It’s taught. I don’t know who the caregivers or their parents are, but shame on them.
I respect the parents of the children who play Little League baseball. They always come prepared with their extra trash bags and when they are done, they tie the trash bags and leave them by the trash receptacle. I’m almost certain that the person who has to clean that up is most appreciative.
That behavior is learned. It’s taught. So when the children see their parents doing that, they know that it’s the normal thing to do. Courtesy is free. It doesn’t cost anything.
Chester Wong
Mililani
No waiting period for inspecting Iran nukes
Hopefully President Joe Biden will make nuclear deals with Iran and North Korea. However, it is equally to be hoped that he does not repeat the fatal flaw of the first Iran deal, which imposed a waiting period for the inspection of suspected sites.
This would have allowed them to move the materials for making a nuclear weapon — such as enriched uranium — to a second site during the waiting period for the first site; then when the second site would come under suspicion, it would have a waiting period during which the material could be moved to a third site; and so on.
That is why a future president may cancel the deal again.
Alvin Blake
Los Angeles
D.C. residents deserve benefits of statehood
Donald Carvin advocated retrocession — returning ceded lands to Maryland — as a solution to give more than 700,000 residents of Washington, D.C., voting representation in Congress (“Maryland can take over part of Washington, D.C.,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, April 24).
Carvin and the Republican members of Congress who are promoting retrocession at the national level have failed to ask the 86% of D.C. voters, who endorsed a statehood referendum in 2016, or the more than 4 million voters of Maryland in 2020, if a marriage-like union, forced by nonresident voters, is something that would be acceptable to them.
In 1959, 93% of Hawaii voters endorsed statehood. In 2021, the residents of Washington, D.C., deserve their own U.S. senators and to become the 51st state in the Union.
Eduardo Hernandez
Kakaako
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