Bad news from Hawaii
is better than no news
Actually, it's all part of a clever master plan to promote new industry and investment into the state.
Unable to show the world anything new and better, we have adopted the view that there's no such thing as bad publicity.
Add some PR spin and the dirtiest beach becomes the world's largest ashtray; a crowded street is a vibrant throughway reeking not of carbon monoxide but of success; buses are called rapid transit; nepotism translates as prudent business practice; a banana republic becomes a diverse ethnic paradise.
Let's just hope that those outside the state are as impressed by the hyperbole as our own insiders appear to be.
M. Colgan
Cayetano has developed plan
to increase prisons
Two years ago, it was virtually impossible to build a $160 million, 1,000-bed prison facility from a $200 million CIP allotment, when $120 million goes straight to the Department of Education and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. To go ahead with such a plan would have been at the cost of schools.
The American Civil Liberties Union basically agreed to end court supervision of two Oahu prisons because it believes that the governor's pledge to build more than 1,000 beds for under $11 million is practical and real.
Because of Governor Cayetano's innovative plan, and with the Legislature's support, this administration will spend $11 million instead of $160 million for the same amount of prison bed space.
Kathleen Racuya-Markrich
Press Secretary
Office of the Governor
Prisons are in better shape
thanks to many individuals
I would also like to recognize several unsung heroes:
Deputy Attorney General Susan Barr oversaw the legal steps toward meeting the consent decree requirements.
Ted Sakai serves as the Public Safety Department's consent decree monitor.
Dr. Kim Thorburn, former prisons' health-care administrator, was responsible for improving medical care in our facilities.
Acting Warden Nolan Espinda has, for the past several years, ensured that OCCC maintained high professional operating standards.
The department's inspections and audit staff is responsible for ensuring consent decree requirements are met. The staff at both OCCC and WCCC should be proud of their accomplishments as well.
George Iranon
Director
Department of Public Safety
State of Hawaii
Foreign students want
and need to earn wages
Before September, if students lived here more than nine months, they could get part-time jobs. They could work 20 hours a week.
It is illegal for students to work now. If caught, they can be deported. But 800,000 foreign students are in America, and they need to work to pay for living expenses.
Students help support the American economy because they do jobs that Americans can't or don't want to do.
I am a student, and I chose America because I think it is the leader of the world.
I'm writing a letter with the hope that local members of Congress will make this a priority item when they return to session in January.
Mei ting Chin
Student of Academia Language School
Editor's note: Similar letters were submitted by Kazuo Nakayama, Yukari Sato and Yuki Kondo. All are students at Academia Language School in Honolulu.