Should UH athletics
be considered business?

Since the state and the University of Hawaii cannot adequately fund the UH athletics program, the UH Athletics Department is placed in the untenable position of competing in the business world for money where it alone is restricted by ethical and legal considerations of a state agency and an NCAA subject.

The state/UH must either fund the program completely or downgrade its athletic aspirations commensurate with its ability to fund.

To do otherwise is to replace an educational enterprise with a quasi-business enterprise in which figures, gifts and bribes are undifferentiated and are called networking, cultivating support, marketing, building relationships, etc.

Freebies, anyone?

Richard Y. Will

UH Athletics Department
is running itself very well

For many years I have worked with the University of Hawaii Athletics Department. I have found Hugh Yoshida and Jim Donovan to be people who understand that the department must operate as a business to survive.

Their efforts in working with the media, corporate sponsors and affiliated support organizations allow for the university to garner funding that supports their programs. More important, they are providing opportunities for athletes and coaches, and ultimately sports entertainment for the people of Hawaii.

As recent articles in the Star-Bulletin have questioned these expenditures and operations, I, in turn, question those asking for justification if they want the UH to continue offering these programs for the athletes, students and community to enjoy.

As the "only show in town," we should stop nit-picking and support those trying to do their best in a tough economy, or we run the risk of losing that "only show."

Patrick V. Bullard

Council of Revenues has
overly optimistic outlook

Your May 21 article, "$60 million loss forecast for state," shows that the Council on Revenues is still being "too optimistic about the steadily declining state economy," as I predicted in my April 9 letter to the editor.

The $60 million shortfall now forecast is about 1 percent of the $6 billion annual state income. However, it seems the difference between the previously expected 1.2 percent increase and a 1 percent drop in income is 2.2 percent. Thus, I expect this year's shortfall to be closer to $130 million, based on these new projections.

The overly optimistic 3.7 percent increase forecast for the next fiscal year now must also become an additional 2.2 percent greater to make up for the negative growth estimated through the end of June 1997.

Since the Legislature did nothing major to improve the business climate in Hawaii this year, I expect businesses will continue to move out of this overly restrictive state that wastes billions of dollars prohibiting many activities that do not harm others, while dangerous criminals often go free.

Wally Bachman
(Via the Internet)

City traffic engineers
are screwing up roads

I thought the height of blissful ignorance had been reached several years ago, when city engineers sought to improve traffic flow from Piikoi onto the Ewa-bound H-1 on-ramp via their version of "micro-management."

Instead, engineers limited access to this on-ramp by coming up with solid white lines, turn arrows and HPD enforcement "cells." Once orderly moving traffic onto the on-ramp became bogged down all the way back to Kapiolani Boulevard.

Now, city engineers have taken an already idiotic traffic scheme -- Kalihi crosses Nimitz, two lanes each way, limiting the majority flow to one through lane, left turners get their own dedicated lane -- and screwed it up royally.

If these engineers actually drove this route instead of standing and observing, they could have determined that the newly installed left-turn signal light will make matters worse.

These people must be held accountable for poor homework. It's time that our leaders showed better initiative in traffic management and reduction.

Edward Uehara-Tilton
Kaneohe
(Via the Internet)

This state already has
tsunami inundation maps

In your May 19 issue, you printed an Associated Press story about the opening of a tsunami mapping center in Oregon. It stated that the center would prepare tsunami inundation maps for the West Coast, then Alaska, and then Hawaii in 1999. This can be misleading to Hawaii residents, who have had the benefit of scientific inundation and evacuation mapping since 1990.

The work done here by the University of Hawaii in 1988-90, in conjunction with state and county civil defense agencies, resulted in the detailed maps in the telephone directory.

The work to be done on the West Coast will use similar methodologies to extend the mapping to other coastal areas, using newly available federal funds. When these funds become available to Hawaii in 1999, we expect to use them to update our maps and extend them to newly developed areas. Meanwhile, the civil defense maps in use here are the model for the other areas.

George D. Curtis
Affiliate Professor
Division of Natural Sciences
University of Hawaii-Hilo

---

Same-sex archive

---

Want to write a letter to the editor? Let all Star-Bulletin readers know what you think. Please keep your letter to about 200 words. You can send it by e-mail to letters@starbulletin.com or you can fill in the online form for a faster response. Or print it and mail it to: Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. Or fax it to: 523-8509. Always be sure to include your daytime phone number.