False claims harm local agriculture

In testimony provided to the Legislature on March 3, state Department of Agriculture board chairman Scott Enright shared findings from the department’s pesticide branch on school evacuations from the last nine years.

Of the 16 incidents in the report, none were linked to commercial seed crop agricultural activity. None.

Yet, the day after Enright shared his report, a commentary by a mothers’ group ran in this paper ("Corporations expose our children to dangerous agricultural pesticides," Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, March 4). The authors and co-signers clearly ignored facts reported by state regulators and, instead, made false claims about agricultural pesticide use.

As this fiction spreads, there is growing concern within Hawaii’s agriculture community that these groups are damaging all local agriculture.

The Hawaii Crop Improvement Association and its membership urge lawmakers to focus on factual evidence, and to ignore sensational claims, to make informed decisions on critical state policy.

Bennette Misalucha
Hawaii Crop Improvement Association

Don’t use bus funds for rail construction

They are just two letters, but "if" carries great significance for bus and HandiVan riders on Oahu.

Ernest Martin, chairman of the Honolulu City Council, said, "If the $210 million in federal funds intended for the bus are removed from HART’s financial plan, they must be replaced" ("City Council supports rail project, with proper oversight and controls," Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, March 15).

If? On Feb. 19, the local headline was, "Hands off federal bus cash, Council tells rail project" (Star-Advertiser). And Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the money won’t be used at all for rail ("Ambiguity shrouds request for more rail funds," Star-Advertiser, Jan. 25).

Now these duplicitous politicians are saying, "if?"

On a bus ride to Pearlridge, a blind woman got on the bus and told the driver she had been waiting for an hour and a half for the bus. Handicapped people and seniors depend on the bus; it is their only option. Hands off the bus dollars.

Judith Pettibone
Makiki

Critics miss point on Carleton Ching

Why must we continue shooting ourselves in the foot?

Our Legislature is considering Carleton Ching as the chairman of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources. During testimony on his nomination, the environmental community made it clear that the DLNR is underfunded, with less than 3 percent of the state budget.

Ching was excoriated because his skill set includes lobbying before the Legislature. Does that not translate to the DLNR budget process? Expenditures for species protection may be increased. Isn’t that just what is needed?

Ching was not conversant with legal decisions of which the Water and Land Committee chairwoman, Laura Thielen, was aware.

Thielen, with experience as the land board chairwoman, said that the chairman can act unilaterally, without any guidance from the board or attorney general? Thielen knows that board members can delegate responsibilities or may require approval of potential legislation. Don’t they count?

Rather than continuing the "us against you" mentality, perhaps some introspection is in order.

Roger C. Evans
Ewa Beach

Ige counting on gullibility of public

Not since John Waihee’s ludicrous 1993 claim that Sharon Himeno was the most qualified woman for the Hawaii Supreme Court has a governor’s calculation of public gullibility been so blatantly displayed.

Nobody believes Carleton Ching is remotely qualified to run the critical and complex Department of Land and Natural Resources, a fact rather vividly and embarrassingly underscored by Ching himself at his confirmation hearing.

However, Gov. David Ige appears untroubled by this absence of aptness, perhaps because he has something else in mind that relies on attributes other than mere qualifications.

Just as he had good reason to be tight-lipped about his advisory circle, populated as it is by development insiders, he likely finds it useful to hold close his plan for the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Ultimately, the degree of public gullibility may have less to do with the public’s susceptibility to the administration’s absurd rationale for the Ching nomination than the failure to demand more from candidate Ige about his vision for our state.

Doug Lamerson
Manoa

Teach kids about tobacco’s dangers

Raising the age to 21 for purchasing tobacco is an excellent idea because tobacco is the gateway drug and, by the time someone is 21, his or her judgment is more mature.

In Massachusetts, a novel program was conducted wherein high-school students went into the middle schools, telling the younger students about all the negative aspects of tobacco. They were paid the minimum wage for their time.

It worked, because the younger students looked up to the older students, who were confronted with the ills of smoking, because you can’t teach unless you know what you’re talking about.

Why not take some of the tobacco money the big companies are required to give to Hawaii by the tobacco settlement and use it on programs like this to prevent a potentially deadly substance from destroying lives?

Marilyn Kennedy
Manoa