Editorials
Tuesday, September 9, 1997SOME of the sting caused by the Hawaii Supreme Court decision on privatization of a Kona landfill has been taken out by a Circuit Court ruling that the landfill operation can remain partially in the hands of a private company. Ruling eases problem
of ban on privatizationJudge Riki May Amano determined that some functions performed at the Puuanahulu landfill, including environmental monitoring, had never been done by county workers at the old Kealakehe dump.
These functions, she ruled, can be performed by employees of the private company that has been operating the landfill, Waste Management. However, "waste intake services" should be performed by Hawaii County workers in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling protecting civil service jobs.
The decision was welcomed by county and company officials but not by the attorney for the United Public Workers union, which had successfully challenged the county's contract with Waste Management. Attorney Herbert Takahashi said the union may seek additional relief.
The ruling is a sensible one because the privately operated landfill was a more sophisticated operation than the old public dump. Not all the jobs replaced civil service positions. Under the decision, the county may be spared the need to create public jobs that never previously existed.
Still, the true remedy remains action by the Legislature to change the law in order to permit the state and the counties to privatize government operations if they determine that to be in the public interest. Privatization is not a panacea, but it is an option that is being examined by state and local governments all over the country in the search for ways to provide services more efficiently. Hawaii officials should have that option, too.
The death of Leon Edel at 89 deprives Hawaii of perhaps its most eminent scholar-writer and the literary world of the definitive biographer of the novelist Henry James. Edel first came to the University of Hawaii as a visiting professor in 1969 while a member of the faculty at New York University and was named Citizens Professor of English at UH in 1972. He retired in 1978 but continued to lecture at UH and other universities. Scholar Leon Edel
The James biography took 20 years and five volumes. Volumes 2 and 3 won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for biography in 1963. In 1976 Edel received the gold medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.Edel's professorship at the University of Hawaii gave UH greater visibility in the academic world and may have induced other scholars to come to Hawaii. The university should continue its pursuit of excellence as exemplified by him.
A "noise barrage" was one of the protest techniques used by opponents of martial law under President Ferdinand Marcos. Eleven years after the overthrow of the Marcos regime, opponents of a second term for President Fidel Ramos are again resorting to noise protests. Church bells rang and auto horns blasted around Manila Monday evening in response to calls by Catholic Cardinal Jaime Sin for a "noise barrage." Unrest in Philippines
Widespread concern about the president's plans prompted Ramos to make a nationwide radio address to declare that he had no intention of declaring martial law, that the elections next May would proceed as scheduled and that he opposed an extension of his term. However, Ramos did not repudiate efforts by some of his followers to amend the constitution in order to lift the ban on a second presidential term.
Ramos has achieved much in stabilizing the country politically and reviving the economy in the last five years, but this issue could undo much of that. He should try to end the speculation by repudiating the attempts to amend the constitution.
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
