Too many tourists are indeed ruining our roads, beaches, natural resources and tourist attractions (“Too many tourists?” Star-Advertiser, Insight, Aug. 27).
In addition, they are invading our airspace. Sight-seeing helicopters are continually buzzing over our beaches, our hiking trails and our tourist attractions. And now, air traffic control at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport allows sight-seeing helicopters to buzz over my home in Waipio Gentry at altitudes as low as 300 feet.
Is more tourist development really better? Better for whom? The quality of life for local residents is being destroyed. Enough is enough. We need to protect our beautiful state and our citizens from the destructive forces of over-tourism.
Joy Schoonover
Waipahu
—
Rule needed to stop lopsided victories
The rules of the Oahu Interscholastic Association (OIA) football league need to be changed. I refer to the Waialua’s 64-0 loss to Pearl City on Friday.
To allow a team to score such a one-sided victory is ridiculous and dangerous.
To allow such scores can lead to the possibly of injuries such as concussions. Where is the sportsmanship in such a one-sided game?
Every team hopes to have a win, but humiliation should not be part of the equation. These are high school players, not highly paid professionals.
Dorothy Williams
Mililani
—
Huge rail stations should be smaller
Has everyone seen how big the rail stations are? If you’re interested, go to Waipahu by Don Quijote and take a look at how much is being invested in these stations.
They are absolutely huge and, to me, oversized. Why can’t they downsize these stations to be more affordable? Each station will need security services, staffers, janitors and a few others to keep them clean and safe.
I voted for this, thinking that $6 billion would be sufficient to complete the project. However, in Hawaii projects typically have a lot of cost overruns and are never completed on time. There is no incentive for the contractor to finish early, so why not stretch the job out as long as possible?
If this was Las Vegas, the rail project would have been completed by now. As a taxpaying resident, I think Honolulu has bit off more than we can chew. I’m very disappointed with our mayor.
William T. Pirtle
Waipahu
—
Oahu should pay for rail on its own
The neighbor islands will help pay for the rail? Really?
I am sure that Oahu residents are very grateful that the Legislature is willing to help bail them out, but I don’t think that the neighbor island folks should be held accountable.
Let Honolulu raise the general excise tax to 5 percent or raise the transient accommodations tax only on Oahu. No? Is that because Oahu elected officials would not get re-elected? Is this really about their jobs?
State Sen. Ron Kouchi would have you believe that Oahu sends us money all the time for roads and more. But that is the job of the state, to share with the entire state, not for us to pay for a county project like rail.
So don’t be picking on residents who never got any input or say in the matter way back when.
If you think this is only about hotels and tourist paying, think again.
Lani Kahawaii
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
—
Legalizing marijuana would harm Hawaii
State Sen. Will Espero predicted legal recreational marijuana in Hawaii within three to five years (“Will Espero sees legal pot in 3 to 5 years,” Star-Advertiser, Aug. 25).
Legalizing marijuana for recreation would be a disaster. Those states that have already have it are raking in big tax income. But the cost of controlling the product, and the destruction of lives, are not worth the leftover tax revenue after paying for regulation and enforcement.
A better solution for Hawaii to pay for rail, cover the costs of dealing with the homeless, and the enormous need for infrastructure repair and maintenance, would be the adoption of a lottery, including participating in one of the big ones on the mainland played in several states. The tax take from ticket sales can easily cover the costs of control.
There is no significant social cost of having a lottery, and the prize money could keep a lot of Hawaii residents home to buy those tickets instead of going to Las Vegas to feed their gambling needs.
Jim Pollock
Kaneohe
—
Pali tunnel lights shine too brightly
A recent letter to the editor praised the new lights on Oahu highways and tunnels (“New LED lights are nice, bright and safe,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Aug. 27).
I’ll speak to the Pali Highway tunnels because they are the ones I use the most. I appreciate that the new lights probably use less energy and likely will be less prone to outages than the ones they replaced. However, for night-time driving, they are an abomination.
They light up the tunnels as if they were operating rooms. Besides being far too bright, they are pointed down at the roadway, instead of properly angled away from the driver’s eyes as the old ones were.
It takes several seconds to regain proper night vision upon exiting the tunnel. If a rockslide or stalled car was on the road just outside of the tunnel, drivers would not see it and plow right into it.
The city must reduce the brightness and change the angle of the lights before a terrible accident occurs.
Jack Laufer
Kailua
