Letters to the Editor
Tuesday, June 4, 1996

Makua is made better by its loving residents

The residents of Makua Beach are not preventing beach access; they are not harassing beachgoers. The people of Hawaii do not need another sterile beach park on the Leeward coast.

Many beach parks have destroyed the character of the beaches they are built on. Some are so poorly maintained that they provide less access and recreation than the original, natural, "undeveloped" beaches.

What better place to enjoy the sun, sand and surf than at a living community like Makua?

It is senseless to destroy this self-supporting and close-knit community. The state itself admits that it lacks the money to help many of these people with public assistance payments and rent subsidies.

Leave the Makua Beach residents alone. Stop the evictions.

Michael W. Sawamoto
Ewa


City Store is great - if you ever find it

Regarding the article about "Poor sales at city store," (Star-Bulletin, May 29): No doubt a soft retail market and start-up costs have helped shade sales at the Ala Moana store a flat, depressing gray but, having stumbled on the store by accident, I can give you another reason for slow sales.

Shoppers don't know the store is there! You need a compass, a flashlight and a Sherpa guide to find the place. Truffles are easier to find than this store.

And City Store in the Satellite City Hall sounds like a place to requisition paper clips, pay parking tickets or file to run for mayor.

It is not a terribly descriptive name for a way-cool little store.

I realize makai-side space is probably premium but the only way to find the city store now is accidentally when one is either lost or looking for a parking place out of the sun.

Barb Bedient


U.S.'s best beach should be known by real name

Now that the beach at Ka'ohao (Lanikai) has been named the most beautiful beach in the nation, wouldn't it be great if we could go back to using its Hawaiian name? Since the area is correctly called Ka'ohao, that might be the name, but I'm not certain.

In any case, we could get rid of Lanikai, the incorrect name given the area by someone who didn't understand Hawaiian and who probably didn't know that the area had a real Hawaiian name. (We are certain that whoever did that meant Kailani anyway, since modifiers always follow nouns in Hawaiian and Lanikai is a mistake.)

I'm told that some developer (in the 1920s) changed it from Ka'ohao to Lanikai, thinking the new name meant "heavenly sea." As it is written, it means "sea heaven."

Keith Haugen


Nation's top beach needs a haven for the disabled

Now that it has been announced to the rest of the world what Windward residents and most of Oahu already knew - that Lanikai and Kailua beaches are No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the United States' 10 Best Beaches - isn't it time, for those supporting the tearing down of Camp Kailua, in favor of open space, to rethink the possible consequences?

Waikiki Beach is no longer listed as one of the U.S.'s top 10. Yet in its day it was the main attraction that brought tourists to Hawaii. Tourists coming to Hawaii now will certainly want to see and use the U.S.'s two top beaches.

Saving Camp Kailua not only will benefit the elderly and disadvantaged, but will also act as a buffer and deterrent. Or we can sing along with the developers and politicians whose theme song is "Tourism is the fuel that feeds Hawaii's engine" and look forward to the widening of the road, which is already in the plans, and perhaps a Lanikai Trolley that would drop passengers off at public beach accesses and pick them up again?

John Weil

Kailua


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