Don’t pit bus needs against billboard law

The City Council is in the position of either choosing to put aside Hawaii’s landmark billboard law or being responsible for tethering the public transportation we need.

This should not be a choice between being the Council member who either deprives constituents of needed public transportation or looks at our sign-polluted state and remembers his or her role in opening the door to sign blight.

Our sign laws have withstood court challenges because of the evenhanded nature of the ban.But citizens need bus routes now and will even more when they need to get to the fixed rail.

This quandary is like blaming a game loss on the player who misses a last-second shot — it took a lot of plays to get to that point.The budget is a long-term process that should reflect public values, not force a choice between two very important options.

Paula Ress
Kailua

Ads on buses worth it if they help TheBus

My spirits soared when I read that City Council members were warming to bus ads ("Council panel revisits bus ads," Star-Advertiser, April 24), but I was quickly dashed by the April 28 editorial saying bus ads are "not worth it" ("City bus ads just not worth it," Our View).

Your description of the dire consequences is highly overblown.

We need our bus system restored to its former excellence. That will require money.

Edith Prussman
Diamond Head

Team owner showed progress still needed

The embarrassing and racist comments of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling rightfully earned him public shaming along with NBA sanctions.

However, there have been other major franchise owners with comparable public displays of ignorance, prejudice and extreme insensitivity.

Former Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott was fined and lost the right to run her team for two years for her public reverence of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, racist references to her star players (Dave Parker and Eric Davis), mistrust of Jews, anger toward her earring-wearing players and fear that Asian-American children would "outdo" our kids in school.

By no means am I downplaying Sterling’s comments or his history of such behavior. Rather, I hope to point out how America is, thankfully, much less tolerant of this type of behavior. Unfortunately we, as a society, are still a long way from abandoning our prejudices and treating everyone as equals.

Marc Rosen
Aiea

Sterling’s punishment somewhat troubling

I am troubled that Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is being persecuted because of his personal beliefs.

Please understand, I don’t agree with Sterling, but I do consider that he has the right to his own opinions. I trust that personal beliefs are the property of the individual, no matter how appalling they may be.

If the individual does not violate the law with his beliefs, then what wrong has been committed?Don’t we have a constitutional right to free speech? What about free thought? Should we allow a person to be persecuted and civilly penalized because of a private conversation he had in which he expressed his personal opinion?

Did his beliefs physically harm anyone? Shall we take personal property away from him without due process? What’s next for us? Shall we fine or jail those that don’t have a favorable opinion of a politician, or our government, or of another person?

Robert Cravalho
McCully

Tax income not good reason to legalize pot

The legalized marijuana debate rages on with the inevitable justification of increased tax revenue. Yet should the government’s purpose be to seek profit?

Imagine the pitfalls of government where individual rights are subjugated to the purpose of profit.

One of the few true roles of government is protection from the criminal behavior of others. In Washington state and Colorado, people are overdosing on THC through their pot candies and dying or hallucinating. The ability of THC in higher doses to create hallucinations (a break with reality equaling the legal criteria of temporary insanity) was the reason it was made illegal.

Watch these two experiments and learn from their mistakes before rushing to duplicate them.

Joseph Ronin
McCully

Raise for city officials seems inappropriate

With a plethora of Kakaako high rises, no grocery stores nor places to walk the dogs, another Waikiki tower is certain to gladden the hearts of the working-but-homeless who, we are assured, would much rather see another monument to wealth than a roof over the heads of their children ("Fifth Waikiki tower planned," Star-Advertiser, April 30).

Likewise, Social Security pensioners who received a 1.5 percent increase in 2014 because of a rise in the cost of living should be absolutely delighted with the news that our bathed-in-benefits elected officials deserve an 8 percent increase ("Pay raises for top city officials OK’d," Star-Advertiser, April 30).

Our elected officials should be very grateful that May Day in Hawaii is celebrated with flowers.

Rico Leffanta
Kakaako

Redefine ‘sidewalk’ to aid enforcement

After stepping around mounds of trash, shopping carts and people sleeping across the sidewalk, I have decided to help our elected officials in their futile quest to draft a fair and simple sidewalk law.

One dictionary defines a sidewalk as "a usually concrete path along the side of a street for people to walk on." The great legal minds in our government could easily craft this definition into a law that says, "Sidewalks shall be used for people to walk on, unless for another permitted use allowed by the City and County of Honolulu."

This law would be very simple for police to enforce and it would immediately rid the sidewalks of campers, panhandlers, druggies, drunks, unattended items, human waste and stolen shopping carts.

I certainly hope this helps Mayor Kirk Caldwell and the Council deal with this ongoing problem.

Michael McGuire
Waikiki

U.S. troops active in Philippines since ’01

In a report from Manila, The New York Times said, "The 10-year deal with the Philippines will give U.S. troops, ships and planes expanded access to bases here, something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, after fierce public opposition forced the United States to relinquish its Subic Bay Naval Base."

This is not accurate. A decade ago, in programs launched after the 2001 attacks, the Philippines and the U.S. were already engaged in annual military maneuvers involving thousands of troops, and several hundred U.S. soldiers were training Filipinos to fight Muslim terrorists.

It was 1991, 23 years ago, when the U.S. was forced to withdraw from Subic Bay, Clark Air Base and smaller facilities after the Philippine Senate, by one vote, refused to renew the leases for those bases.

President Corazon Aquino had supported the renewal.

It is one of history’s ironies that her son, the current president, is supporting an enhanced U.S. military presence to counter Chinese belligerence.

Carl H. Zimmerman
Salt Lake

FROM THE FORUM

Readers of the Star-Advertiser’s online edition can respond to stories posted there. The following are some of those. Instead of names, pseudonyms are generally used online. They have been removed.

"Bill would upgrade Pohakuloa," Star-Advertiser, April 28:

>> The military has a poor track record of cleaning up the environment after training is completed. I don’t think Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island will be any exception, so leave the training area as is and no expansion/upgrade

>> Unless you were here on Dec. 7, 1941 — hearing the explosions, machine guns firing, and seeing a Japanese fighter plane diving down firing on targets in Wheeler Field — you can’t fully understand the need to have a strong, well-trained military force. The cost in providing for the needs of our military is insignificant when compared to what we get in return: protection of our freedom and families.

——

"Report: 4 of 5 Hawaii high school students graduate," Star-Advertiser, April 28:

>> It is shameful that Hawaii graduates only 82 percent of its students. Come on, Department of Education. Surely we can do better, considering the large amount of money that is poured into the system. If only the DOE would consider each child’s individual needs instead of forcing them into the one-size-fits-all system. Hawaii’s schools, especially the high schools, are a minefield of wasted potential.

>> But can they all read at a 12th-grade level? Same for doing math and knowing anything about history and science.

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"Pot advocate gets 5-year sentence," Star-Advertiser, April 29:

>> For some reason, this story reminds me of the protests we used to have 40 years ago when we raised the question, "Who will be the last GI to die in Vietnam?"

>> Comparing a drug dealer to a soldier is pretty offensive. Those drugs over the last 40 years have taken their toll on you.

>> No, but the war on drugs has taken a toll on America. Now we are No. 1 in prison population. This is not something to be proud of. 

>>  I just don’t understand how so-called conservatives can call for tougher sentencing of people who use marijuana. How pathetic. Big Daddy is not being conservative.

>> This case is interesting in that the feds just kept him locked up until he pled guilty. So much for the right to a speedy trial.

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"Stowaway’s mom alarmed by trip," Star-Advertiser, April 29:

>> Great. Let’s allow another Somalian refugee into our country. I sure hope that the state will be collecting the money for having their son in one of our health care facilities for the past 10 days. No free rides in our state

>> This is a boy, a scared 15-year-old boy. Have you no compassion? I’m appalled at the self-righteousness, racism and arrogance of some of these commenters. For a young boy to do this, it takes both courage and intense fear that hopefully most of us have never known.

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"Pay raises for top city officials OK’d," Star-Advertiser, April 30:

>> The hoary canard of "we’re paid less than other cities" is a self-serving excuse to continue the upward spiral of unjustified raises. Now, those "other" cities will point to Honolulu and say they need to increase their salaries, unions will point to the pay difference (and cite how other public employees elsewhere are paid more) and the greed-train continues.

>> Pay increases for firefighters and police: 4 percent. Pay increases for city top brass: 8 percent. Rate of inflation: 1.5 percent. This is why cities go bankrupt. Honolulu’s time is coming. 

>> If they were getting an 8 percent pay raise every year, your statistics would have more validity. Seems like they are trying to make up for many years of no pay raises. I don’t have a problem with that.

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"Legislators give $100,000 grant to group run by fellow lawmaker," Star-Advertiser, May 1:

>> This is a waste of money. Volunteers should take care of the cemetery.

>> It’s just so easy to volunteer other people’s money.

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"43-story Kakaako tower OK’d," Star-Advertiser, May 1:

>> This project was approved after the project "received relatively little opposition." It’s likely that many people have recognized the futility of opposing projects, since the HCDA approves all project proposals regardless of opposition and valid concerns about infrastructure, affordability and congestion.

>> My sons and their young families dream of owning a home in the place of their birth, Hawaii. To address our growing population, would you suggest we grow horizontally (more Mililanis, Kapoleis, Hawaii Kais) or vertically (high rises in Kakaako)? Or build no new homes? Or maybe you have another solution?