After inflation, will prices go down?

A gallon of milk is “on sale” for $7.29. A beloved restaurant in Kailua adds a 10% inflation surcharge on all menu prices, says a sticker on the menu. Supply-chain issues, it says. My homeowner’s insurance increased 47% over last year due to cost of labor and materials, the insurance agent said. Hawaiian Electric’s kilowatt/day rate has increased 41% compared to 12 months ago. Inflation is now at 8.6%. A year ago it was 5.25%.

If and when the inflation rate does go down to the desirable long-term average of 3.26%, will prices for goods and services (logically) reduce accordingly? Or will prices stay conveniently high because some companies know they can get away with it since everyone will be used to it by then?

Lisa Adlong

Hauula

Bill 41 may not be strong enough

John Kim and Ed MacNaughton said that sea-level rise, 1.3 inches per decade, is too slow to justify the proposed 60-foot shoreline setback (“Politics, panic distort sea level rise issue,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Oct. 5).

I disagree.

As sea levels rise, sand eroded away may be replenished from coastal dunes. Build a house, however, and problems arise. With the dune stabilized, sand input ends, the beach erodes, bluffs form, and the house is put at risk.

North Shore waves in 1969 demonstrated the danger: Twenty-five houses were destroyed. Sea level is now seven inches higher, the bluffs more precarious, the hazard more extreme.

Kim and MacNaughton claim the proposed coastal setback is excessive, since future sea-level rise is unknown. Physics, however, demands that even without further warming, sea level will rise at its current rate for at least a century.

A decade from now, with Waikiki, like Kakaako, repeatedly flooded, Bill 41 may seem too feeble. It is, however, the best legislation currently possible. May the City Council pass it.

Gerard Fryer

Waialae Nui

Property owners can’t take the beach

Beachfront property owners like Josh VanEmmerik had to know what they were buying in 2021, since North Shore properties have been in jeopardy for years (“Shoreline violations,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 5).

So now he apparently thinks he can dump concrete and rebar onto the fronting beach to save his million-dollar house.

Hey, that’s not his beach, it’s ours! And the concrete is destroying our beach.

$15,000 a day is not enough of a penalty for such a heinous act.

What’s worse is there are sure to be many copycats who will see concrete as the answer to their dilemmas. Our beaches will be cemented away.

Basically, what has been done is a taking — a taking from the public, the destruction of something that belongs to the public.

We the people must stand up and demand redress. The Department of Land and Natural Resources needs to do its job.

Mollie Foti

Kailua

Navy, military must be held to account

Oct. 8 marked the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Navy’s lying and implausible deniability concerning its irresponsible operation at Red Hill that threatens Oahu’s water aquifer.

Our elected officials need to keep the pressure on the Navy to stop its prevarications and stalling tactics. The Navy should be compelled to safely and expeditiously empty the huge fuel tanks at Red Hill and not drag it out over years.

The Navy has violated the community’s trust. More than 5,000 gallons of jet fuel has leaked into Oahu’s water, with 20 to 40 years estimated as the time needed to “naturally attenuate” or reduce the impact of the harmful fuel and chemicals.

The stunning irresponsibility, negligence and dishonesty of the Navy regarding Red Hill raise much doubt about the U.S. military’s stewardship over other tracts of land they occupy in the islands. The state should not extend the leases to the military of the land at Pohakuloa, Kahuku and other sites when those leases expire. It is time to demilitarize and restore responsible civilian control over the aina.

John Witeck

Kamehameha Heights

American flag represents us all

Why do special-interest groups insist on co-opting the American flag?

I’m referring to a front-page photo with a story regarding people wanting to carry guns around (“Police receive feedback on gun-carrying rules,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 5).

No one I know has any interest in toting a gun. Quite the contrary. I suspect that this is the fixation of a vocal minority.

The U.S. flag represents all Americans. People should let their arguments stand on their merits, or lack thereof, and not trot out our flag to serve their own personal (and to me, dangerous) cause.

Not long ago I walked away from a road-rage incident, and was none the worse for it.

In the heat of the moment, had I been carrying a concealed weapon, I might not have walked away, with tragic consequences.

Jared Wickware

Kalihi Valley

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