After-school tutoring gives students a boost

More needs to be done to help our children succeed in school. Being an educational assistant for four years, this school year I had a chance to tutor some of our students after school. I would encourage all schools in Hawaii to start tutoring their students after school, and have all the educational assistants to help with the tutoring.

I found that tutoring after school helps the students learn and perform better in school. All we did was help the students with their homework and, if time allowed, give the student extra work to help them with their learning.

The extra hour in school will go a long way in helping our students succeed in school and maybe put us over the top in getting the rest of the “Race To The Top” money.

Alan Kim
Wahiawa

Seniors have many uses for plastic bags

Because of the few, the many have to suffer.  Jane Yamashiro’s comments make an excellent statement of the many uses that plastic shopping bags have (“Bags don’t cause litter, negligent people do,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, May 6).

I, too, use the plastic bags for the same reasons and I recycle my excessive bags back to the supermarket. If everyone followed her example, we wouldn’t need to add a surtax on a product that’s useful, and those with fixed incomes wouldn’t be overtaxed and overburdened.

Nelson Waikiki
Honolulu

HSTA election shows dysfunctional union

The re-election of Wil Okabe as union president is a clear sign of the union’s slide into disfunctionality. Okabe submitted the proposed contract with the state to the union membership, only to have it resoundingly rejected. This was a vote of no confidence in his leadership, an obvious sign that he was out of touch with the members.

Yet the same membership has now re-elected Okabe to a second term. How come? The explanation is the miserably low turnout for the election — just 22 percent of the members bothered to vote. That indicates not a vote of confidence in Okabe, who beat challenger Paul Daugherty by just 52 percent to 48 percent, but a lack of confidence in the union.

The state administration must be frustrated. How do you deal with a leader who couldn’t lead his members to ratify the contract he negotiated and a union membership that couldn’t be bothered to vote him out of office?

Carl H. Zimmerman
Honolulu

Wages soar in China as economy grows

William Pesek acknowledged the strength of China’s economy by saying that China is “destined to surpass the U.S. economy” (“For Clinton, China is a big, important headache,” Star-Advertiser, May 6).

Yet at the same time he belittled China’s achievements by speaking of several hundred million Chinese “wondering why incomes aren’t rising faster than living costs.”

The reality is that China’s inflation rate in the past three years has been a tolerable 5 to 6 percent, while China’s peasants had a per capita increase of 12 percent per year, thanks in part to money sent home by their youngsters working in the cities.

As for the latter, their wages have soared in recent years thanks to their increased bargaining power due to labor shortages. As a result, from 2004 to the present, the lowest-ranked workers have quadrupled their wages from $50 per month to $200 per month, while the highest ranks have increased theirs from $100 to $320 per month.

Oliver Lee
Aina Haina

DHHL should sell its lands to Hawaiians

The state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands should have petitioned the courts decades ago to allow it to sell lands in fee simple to the Hawaiian people. This would have resulted in an economic bonanza for the agency and the homesteaders. The agency would have accumulated millions of dollars from the sale of its properties, and these monies could have been used to provide the infrastructure for housing developments.

Homesteaders would have owned a valuable asset that would have appreciated over their lifetimes, and this estate could have been left to their children. The impact on the Hawaiian community and on the finances of the agency would have been enormous. Bishop Estate created its wealth by selling property in fee simple.

It is not too late for Hawaiian Home Lands to do the same thing and avoid seeking capital from a state that is already strapped for cash.

James Growney
Honolulu

Kailua town already a commercial circus

I find it amusing, all the carrying on about the business activity on Kailua beach. Wait until Target opens and it puts up another traffic light. With the post office activity, Longs Drugs, Macy’s, Whole Foods and the nearby farmers market, the whole town is becoming a circus.

The only thing missing in Kailua is a Ferris wheel and one of those construction cranes from Honolulu.

As for Kailua beach, no one seems to be concerned with the larger problem of dogs on the beach. It has gotten out of hand because owners will not leash their dogs.

Tony Rizzo
Kailua

Everyone should get access to beaches

My most magical day in Oahu was kayaking (in a rented kayak) off Kailua beach. With a proposed complete ban on all commercial activities, except of course commercial filming, I trust the esteemed residents of Kailua will enjoy their new Malibu, Calif., lifestyle. 

A drive down Highway 1 in Malibu presents a most formidable barrier for visitors trying to access the beach. For those residents living on the beach, however, life is good.

Perhaps the next step at Kailua will be to implement a policy similar to that of the Village of Southampton in Long Island. For example, Coopers Beach in Southampton charges only $40 per car in the summer. Also, some beach parking areas in Long Island are restricted to property owners and lease holders, which is another effective way to limit the number of those tourists hoping to enjoy a day at the beach.

Public access to the beaches of Hawaii may not be impaired; however, the perception that beaches are for everyone is eroding little by little.

Kurt Wollenhaupt
Haiku, Maui

HCDA under thrall of special interests

The decision by the Hawaii Community Development Authority to grant developer OliverMcMillan, JN Automotive and their Symphony Honolulu Tower (400-foot, high-rise commercial residential project) a variance from state rules on new high-rise projects in Kakaako shows, in my opinion, a lack of credibility and/or ethics on the part of HCDA executive director Anthony Ching and the majority of the other members.  

Going around such building rules or zoning classifications, from farming to commercial and residential, to benefit special interests, is wrong. The benefits to them come at the expense of the majority of our society.

These current members of HCDA should be replaced — or the Legislature should cancel, delete or nullify the existence of HCDA altogether.

Wilbert Wong Sr.
Kaneohe

FROM THE FORUM

“Public schools attempt to close the parent gap” Star-Advertiser, May 7

>> It’s not parental involvment in schools that is the problem; it’s parental involvement in raising their children that is lacking. This is a moral and disciplinary problem rather than an educational problem. As far as technological over-stimulation, kids shouldn’t be accessing this stuff in school, period. Schools need to get back to teaching children rather than attempting to raise them in their parents’ stead.

>> There is no question that kids whose parents take an active role in their education are more likely to succeed. The problem is that our schools are full of kids from single-parent homes either because the mothers are unwed, which our liberal society now accepts as normal, or their parents are divorced.

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“Erosion taking a big bite out of isle beaches” Star-Advertiser, May 8

>> If sea walls cause erosion, then get rid of the sea walls, and for sure do not let any more be constructed. Absolutely no building should ever have been allowed on the shoreline. Those that did build should face the consequences now..

>> The state actually builds more seawalls than anyone else. Next time you drive around the island take note of how many seawalls have been built to protect state and county roads from being undermined by the ocean. So are you saying those should be removed as well?

>> Erosion is part of life on this planet and no one can stop it. Some say it is due to “global warming.” I say it is just the natural order of things.

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“Schools vital to obesity war, institute says” Star-Advertiser, May 9

>> Good luck with this in light of the local diet culture. No more pork, Liliha bakery goodies, or manapua; I don’t think so…

>> Have you ever gone shopping at any supermarket? Depending on the season and availability, broccoli can be $2.99 a pound! And the supermarkets that appeal to the health-conscious consumers are worse. Ever gone shopping at Whole Foods? They stress the healthiness of what they sell, everything’s organic, etc. But the prices are sky-high!

>> Then you should walk to your local farmers market and purchase fresh locally grown produce, for much cheaper than at the supermarket. Get some excercise, support local farmers and merchants, pay less.

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“Kailua Beach business ban OK’d” Star-Advertiser, May 10

>> The locals are entitled to have a pristine beach, especially as small as Kailua beach is. The commercial zone is the Waikiki and Disney development. Keep the other beaches free from commercialism.

>> Wow, our City Council comes up with another beautifully constructed idea to keep Hawaii unfriendly to business. Old Frank Fasi was so correct when he said the City Council would be the last group of people who would be chosen to run a multi-billion dollar corporation like, uh, maybe, Honolulu!

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“Possibility of voters killing HART dies from lack of votes” Star-Advertiser, May 10

>> Why is the Council trying to overturn a public vote to create HART in the first place? The public voted to create HART in 2010 to get rail out of the hands of politicians. Stop this, City Council. Let HART do its job!

>> The rail tax is sapping $165 million from us every year. This is money that we the citizens could be circulating in our local economy. That’s why there is no economic recovery for us. This is the new economy.

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“City bans plastic bags that will not decay” Star-Advertiser, May 11

>> This law appeals to people self-righteous need to believe they are saving the planet, when in fact they aren’t making any difference and are only interfering with those of us using plastic bags responsibly and recycling them with H-Power.

>> Most of us are used to the convenience of plastic bags, but once we get used to re-usable bags or paper it will not be a big deal. However, the effects to our environment from such massive use of disposable plastic IS a big deal and we should do all we can to be responsible stewards of Mother Earth.

>> This bill makes sense — many types of wildlife suffer a painful and horrible death due to ingesting bits of plastic bags, getting tangled in them, etc. It’s the spirit of aloha to help remember and care for all creatures as best we can.