Investigate state unemployment office

Remember when state senators arrived unannounced at the state Department of Health? We need similar action at the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, and we need it now.

We need reporters from newspapers and television to show up at the door. We need a publicly posted daily count (like we have for COVID-19 cases) of how many unemployment insurance (UI) cases are outstanding and for how long.

We need a transparent investigation into this incompetent system. Someone I know called UI for the fourth time and the UI employee said, “Oh I see this is the first time you are calling about your account.” This unemployed person has phone records to prove the previous calls to UI.

Evidently no employee posted notes from previous call to his file, or the computer system is broken. I agree with the Star- Advertiser’s editorial (“Jobless- claims snafus intolerable,” Our View, Nov. 12). Let folks make appointments and be seen in person. This is ridiculous!

Dee Brock

Mililani

HPD should back off on COVID citations

The Honolulu Police Department received $13.8 million in overtime expenses and $4.6 million for contract positions from CARES Act funds (“Honolulu has allocated about 60% of CARES Act funds, but December deadline looms,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 13).

Rather than have officers distribute free masks, warn and educate the public, Police Chief Susan Ballard chose to have her officers overcharge citizens with misdemeanor citations, traumatizing them with the prospect of five years in prison and substantial attorney’s fees. This was the antithesis of aloha but a standard abusive police tactic to coerce pleas to a lesser charges.

The citizens are each entitled to a jury trial, a judicial nightmare created by Ballard. Honolulu Prosecutor-elect Steve Alm should correct this miscarriage of justice by promptly reviewing these cases and dismissing all but the few significant violations.

John Keiser

Makiki

Tout mask-wearing as act of freedom

Writer Hana Ryan explained the very important research on how effective messaging should be designed to get more people to wear face coverings (“Who wears a mask and why? Here’s what the research says,” Star-Advertiser, Nov. 12).

Along with federal and other wide-area mask mandates, there needs to be sustained local messaging, tailored to local cultures, saying that instead of being an infringement of our rights, mask-wearing is freedom.

Without mask-wearing, we are stuck in cycles of a pandemic with higher death rates, closed businesses and isolation from gatherings. I’m sure we have public relations specialists who can come up with light-hearted and clever slogans and images that can get this message across.

Let’s wear our masks and get more quickly to freedom, save an estimated 62,000 American lives between now and February, and $1 trillion in economic loss as well.

Tony Hoff

Kaneohe

Lottery, legalized pot can help economy

I’m no longer a local resident, but was born in Hawaii and graduated from St. Louis High School and the University of Hawaii. Since retiring, I visit Hawaii quite often.

I am saddened to see some shabbiness along highways, and roads in ill repair. This is because the state “no mo da money” to fix and upgrade infrastructure.

I have advocated for years that Hawaii get a state lottery to raise money. Although I am a Democrat, I am critical of the local Democrats for being so beholden to the Las Vegas lobby. I heard that lotteries bring organized crime. That argument has absolutely no merit. I’ve lived in Pennsylvania, Arizona and California, and there is no evidence that the lottery brought organized crime to those states.

Also, recreational marijuana should be legalized. For anyone who says the ill effects of pot are unknown, I counter that we know the ill effects of tobacco and alcohol, but they are legal.

Both a lottery and legalized pot would bring millions of new tax dollars to the state.

Pius Kang

Valley Village, Calif.

Stores have nothing for Veterans Day

The day before Veterans Day, I went to several retail establishments seeking flags, red, white and blue flowers, or other patriotic mementos to bring to grave- sites and also for a living veteran in my family. The stores had none.

Everywhere “the halls were decked” with Christmas merchandise, but nothing to help commemorate Nov. 11, Veterans Day. This is a shame and a disgrace. I am writing this letter in hopes that retail managers who think Veterans Day is not worth the trouble of some commemorative merchandise might change their minds, and next year and for every year, help us to remember our beloved vets.

Athena DeRasmo

Aina Haina

Listen to each other, not political parties

Politicians have divided our nation with their rhetoric. They have hijacked the civil conversations between we the people. They have polarized our shared values for family, life and freedom.

If we are to more forward as a nation we need to treat each other with respect and listen to each other, not the dogma broadcast by political parties.

Kathy Valier

Hanalei

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