Well, it’s official now: The bungling and poor decision-making has reached a new level of incompetence.
I’m referring, of course, to the recent decision to stop the rail at Middle Street, a move that certainly dooms the project to operational failure.
It is the latest in a long series of highly questionable decisions, which include utilizing a 19th-century technology, elevating the entire route, starting in Kapolei instead of town, ending at Ala Moana Center instead of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and administrative moves resulting in legal challenges that delayed construction.
Soon, Ho‘opili will add 20,000 more cars, further congesting the narrow H-1 corridor. The gridlock will be unimaginable.
But not all share the misery.
The construction industry that lobbied so hard and manipulated the last mayoral election, is making out like a bandit. And perhaps that, rather than traffic mitigation, always was the desired outcome.
Joseph W. Turban
Makakilo
Skip building some stations in short run
In response to Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s announcement that rail will end at Middle Street (“The middle of nowhere”, Star-Advertiser, June 17), let me get this straight: Caldwell is potentially forfeiting $2 billion in design plans, property acquisition and federal funds because the city is short $1.2 billion?
Why not abandon some of the stations on the western corridor and complete the downtown stations, where urban density forces people to pay $200-plus per month for parking?
Once open, rail ridership would encourage completion of other stations on the West Side and maybe even the more expensive stations in East Honolulu.
Is the city really brainstorming for workable alternatives in terms of both design and funding?
Jacquelyn Chappel
Kaimuki
‘Nowhere’ clearly an editorial opinion
Most of the time, I find your news reporting to be admirably fair and impartial. However, your front-page headline about the rail line stopping at Middle Street in the June 17 edition read, “The middle of nowhere,” which was clearly a values statement reflecting the editorial position of the Star-Advertiser.
I urge you to remember that the pro-rail vote that the project is founded on won by only 6 percent. While I strongly disagree with the rail project, your institution has free speech rights just like any other publication. But, please, keep those opinions in the editorials and out of the news and, especially, out of the headlines.
Stuart Allan
Waikiki
Make it more costly to get exemptions
No money to exhibit feather cloaks at the Bishop Museum (“No isle stopover for ‘Na Hulu Ali‘i,” Star-Advertiser, June 20)? No money to finish rail?
Rubbish. There is so much money here it’s obscene.
The city needs to do business like Donald Trump — add a 10 percent “licensing fee” to any luxury condo building not 75 percent occupied by voting residents of Hawaii.
Requests for exemptions in height? No problem: That will be $10 million a foot, payable in advance of the exemption.
Mary Macmillan
Mililani
Students taught contradictory ideas
Twelve Kamehameha School graduates protested the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by not standing for the national anthem. Kamehameha admonished them for it and in so doing unwittingly sanctioned illegal colonialism.
The Hawaiian language, culture and traditions are core subjects that are celebrated in dance and song at Kamehameha. The students learn to be Hawaiian. They are also taught to honor the country that stole their kingdom — a contradiction.
These Hawaiian graduates are very much American. They believe in God, country, family and the American way. They didn’t take a stance against America. They found a way to publicly advertise a wrongful act against the Hawaiian people and exercised their right to do so.
The young have a duty to forge change. Only through insistence and public persistence can that occur. It requires warriors like these young persons to bring it about.
Bill Coelho
Pukalani, Maui
Use Hawaiian for TMT discoveries
If the Thirty Meter Telescope should ever be approved for construction atop Mauna Kea, I suggest that it be made mandatory that all the discoveries made there would have a Hawaiian word associated with or attached to them.
This would promote the understanding of the Hawaiian language throughout the world. It would also have the spirit of giving something back to Hawaii, instead of just taking from Hawaii.
William Geiger Jr.
Kapolei
Roger Christie just ahead of his time
I heard the tragic news on Hawaii Public Radio that Roger and Sherryanne Christie lost their U.S. District Court appeal.
Almost the very next story talked about Hawaii’s drug courts and how 85 percent of defendants are on crystal meth.
Roger Christie has consistently told anyone who would listen that in 1991, the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that Hawaii’s Green Harvest program was directly responsible for the meth epidemic in Hawaii.
He also was the only person with guts to stand up and try and help some of these meth addicts by giving them a joint and counseling them. Bless him and shame on the rest of those in legislative, law enforcement and judiciary roles who continue to waste people’s lives while continuing cannabis prohibition.
Sara Steiner
Pahoa, Hawaii island
