Large houses that are built within building codes are helping with the housing shortage. Having multi families in a single-family home is not a new phenome- non. For decades, this has been the theme for most of Kalihi and Waipahu.

If home prices continue to rise, the trend will only continue. There will be more monster houses built and smaller houses will get renovated into larger homes.

Economics are dictating the trends. It will only be a matter of time for those who are against monster homes to eventually have their own monster home when it is time to rebuild or renovate.

Sid Villaflor

Punchbowl

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Kamehameha execs failed school’s pupils

The statements by former school trustee Oswald Stender and former president Michael Chun regarding child abuse at Kamehameha Schools are pathetic and disturbing.

Stender conveniently overlooks that, as a trustee, he had a duty to demand, not request, that the administration investigate the abuse charges. Chun’s assertion that “doing nothing is doing something” is inexplicable. Sadly, both Stender and Chun did nothing. Both chose a moral path to let lawyers “handle the matter,” resulting in a long cover-up until the recent revelations by the victims both these men were obligated to protect.

Kenneth Stewart

Kailua

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Nuclear siren alerts foolish idea for isles

Shame on the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency for the reinstatement of nuclear attack siren alerts.

By doing this, the state is engaging in ramping up fear among residents and tourists alike, as if the current U.S. and world political situation hasn’t already made people anxious, irritable, depressed and uncertain.

Why is the State of Hawaii normalizing this unthinkable event with this decision?

Schoolchildren going “to certain classrooms”? Using “pee buckets”? “Turn(ing) off the air-conditioning”?

These instructions are complete folly. This isn’t preparing for a fire, or heavy rain, or a response to the aftermath of an earthquake. No one can survive the unthinkable in the long term. Absolutely no one. Life is over.

We humans need to push our governments hard to rid the world of these awful weapons — NOT prepare for them to be used.

Once again, another disappointing directive from the state of Hawaii.

Kevin M. Roddy

St. Louis Heights

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Focus on roads and housing, not sirens

With all due respect for our state and county officials, I’m not sure why we’re getting so worked up over North Korea’s missiles (“North Korea fires ICBM in possibly its longest-range test yet,” Associated Press, Nov. 28), and fretting over state planning for the “extremely unlikely” possibility of a strike on Hawaii.

The state clearly doesn’t have the capability to deploy a missile defense system and if a nuclear missile strikes Honolulu there will be nothing left but smoldering radioactive ruins. Air raid shelters? Don’t make me laugh.

Aside from figuring out how to evacuate any survivors from outside urban Honolulu to the neighbor islands after the airport is destroyed, exactly what is there to plan? Let’s spend our tax dollars for real needs like affordable housing and decent roads.

Phil Lahne

Kailua

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Medical aid-in-dying is not being abused

As a Hawaii oncologist who has had terminally ill patients who want the option of medical aid in dying to peacefully end their suffering when no other option provides relief, I must respond to the untruths in a recent commentary (“Legal assisted suicide open to abuse,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Nov. 19).

Medical aid in dying has been practiced without a single case of misuse in six states and Washington, D.C., for a combined total of 40 years. Only terminally ill, mentally capable adults who are able to physically ingest the medication themselves qualify for this option. These laws, and the proposed Hawaii law, protect people, including those with disabilities, from coercion through numerous strict eligibility requirements and safeguards.

There’s no connection between the denial of expensive or experimental treatments and the coverage of medical aid in dying as an end-of-life care option, and there is no evidence that medical aid-in-dying laws influence insurance company decisions about medications or treatments they cover.

Charles F. Miller, M.D.

East Oahu

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Roadside grass, weed a growing problem

It’s everywhere and spreading like wildfire. From Kaneohe to Kapolei, Hawaii Kai to Haleiwa, it’s out of control and getting worse: the overgrowth of weeds and grass along our roads and highways. As bad as it has ever been.

To the city Department of Facility Maintenance and the state Department of Transportation: if you’re not going to repair our roads, at least trim the weeds. If you need gas money for the weed whackers, I’ll pitch in a couple of bucks.

Doug Sutton

Kaneohe

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Disconnect in pot, gun laws offers irony

Let me get this straight: In order for the state of Hawaii to allow the use of medical marijuana, which automatically breaks one federal law, its Honolulu City and County has to twist itself and everyone else into a pretzel by demanding that another law be immediately obeyed.

So now the feds are not enforcing the controlled substance laws, as additional states enact medical and even recreational marijuana, but they are serious about their connection with guns.

So it appears that after eight years of warning that the Obama administration was “coming for our guns,” which never occurred, it’s happening now under the Trump administration.

William E. Conti

Waikiki