Police in Hawaii need more compensation
Washington's King County has the right idea on how to recruit officers ("Seattle County police recruiting HPD officers," Star-Bulletin, Aug. 27). Let someone else absorb the initial training costs, then lure them over with a better salary offer. This is a basic concept in business.We need to re-evaluate the pay for police officers. If we're going to pay our officers below the national average, then more money and a lower cost of living is going to lure them away.
The military gives re-enlistment bonuses to retain skilled soldiers, as well as additional pay for housing, and cost of living allowances. The competitive technical community offers more money as a recruitment incentive.
If the counties/state can't afford to pay the police more, they should consider other benefits that would make experienced police officers stay in Hawaii.
Lionel Payes
Waipahu
(Via the Internet)
Perspective of a cop who left Honolulu
I am a former Honolulu police officer who left HPD in 1993 to work for a department in the Seattle area.The crime rate in Honolulu is comparable to other mainland cities of its size on the West Coast. What is not comparable is the pay between Honolulu police officers and West Coast officers.
The difference can be more than 40 percent in monthly salary. This is why there is a mass exodus from HPD. The lure of higher pay, lower cost of living and affordable housing is all it takes.
City officials continue to say there isn't enough money to increase officer salaries. If they think the exodus will cease, they are wrong. It is not going to stop. HPD will be known as the "one-stop cop shop" for departments around the nation.
I challenge Mayor Harris to find the money to pay his police force fairly. When officers feel they are not valued, they will seek better opportunities on the mainland. It will also breed cynicism and discontent among those who stay.
Brian Tuskan
Detective,
Redmond Police Department
Redmond, Wash.
(Via the Internet)
Here's 'real' cause of fire at state health department
What? Arson at the state Department of Health? Hardly. That was merely a bon fire of old Democratic campaign signs and bumper stickers, and a few thousand Democratic expense vouchers, maybe. Probably some old, used parlay sheets from the department's own printing plant, and a few thousand old tickets to Ariyoshi and Waihee fund-raisers that state workers so willingly shelled out plenty for.When I was with the DOH in the late 1970s, that stuff was stored on the first floor by the director of environmental health's office. I wonder where they store their campaign materials now. Or do they burn them after they read the latest polls?
James C. Conley
Tarpon Springs, Fla.
(Via the Internet)
Young people have a stake in election
Hawaii's unthinking voters deserve a failed economy if they keep voting for the same failed politicians without change.Young voters, your future in Hawaii is at stake! Vote for a change or you might as well request foreign aid from Afghanistan.
Chester Lau
(Via the Internet)
HGEA director has sold out to governor
Whenever the Sam Sloms, Cliff Slaters and Lowell Kalapas of the state spout their anti-government rhetoric, the head of the HGEA should speak out forcefully on such issues as privatization, decent pay and working conditions for his membership.The absence of Russell Okata in answering the reactionary charges is a telling sign of ineffective leadership. His participation and support of Governor Cayetano's big business task force tells even more about where his sympathies lay.
Last week, AFSCME's international convention came to Hawaii. AFSCME President Gerald McEntee and Secretary-Treasurer Bill Lucy have moved the union to the front of the struggle to re-establish the independent political power of labor and the working class.
Hawaii is at a political crossroad in 1998. The HGEA can emulate national labor's independent progressive movement or it can rest on past glory and the political patronage of the moribund Democratic plutocracy.
Unfortunately for the union's membership, I have an idea how this story will play out. The rats will go down with the ship.
Ikaika Valdez
Pearl City
(Via the Internet)
Web site contains info important to voters
It's election time again. For anyone interested, there is a web site with information on how your U.S. senators and representatives voted on key issues that would save taxpayers millions, perhaps even billions, of dollars.For example, did you know taxpayers fund a crop insurance policy for tobacco farmers? This costs us millions of dollars a year, and yes, all of our elected officials voted to keep us paying for it.
No congressional representative or senator from Hawaii voted for the taxpayer more than half the time. Sen. Daniel Inouye was the worst, voting against the taxpayer an astounding 81 percent of the time. Rep. Patsy Mink was the best. But even our "best" voted against saving us millions of dollars half the time.
We cannot stand this reckless wasting of our hard-earned money any longer. Your vote is the only thing that will end out-of-control spending. The web address is http://scorecard.taxpayer.net. Please check it out and vote intelligently.
Dale Boylen
Kihei, Maui
(Via the Internet)
Clinton hasn't a clue about meaning of S-E-X
President Clinton has put a new twist on the classic quotation regarding pornography. It seems that he feels that he can define sexual relations -- he just doesn't know them when he sees them!Louis H. Trigg
Pearl City
Supreme Court protects rights of minorities
I had to laugh when I read Mark R. Spengler's Aug. 24 letter attacking our court system. When people who want to take away our civil rights say, "We are a people of tolerance," isn't it funny?Spengler insulted our Supreme Court justices by saying that they "cannot think through the implications of their decisions." When the court protects minorities from bigots and right-wing Christian fundamentalists, it is upholding the rights afforded to all citizens by the Constitution.
I am proud to be an American, and I support our justice system wholeheartedly. Many brave Americans have sacrificed much, some even their lives, to protect our freedoms and liberties. I deeply regret having to remind people to show a little respect for institutions like our Supreme Court, which helps keep us free.
Alex Miedzwiadok
Same-gender marriage is not religious concern
Same-sex marriage is NOT a religious issue; neither is marriage, in the eyes of the state, a religious matter. It is a civil matter. The state is not allowed to discriminate in assigning rights based on gender, creed, etc. If your religion has some kind of hate-dogma against gays, then your church should just not perform gay marriages.Research and reflection will show that the state is bound by the Constitution to offer same-sex marriage rights in civil ceremonies as a matter of duty, whether the majority likes it or not. Remember that the Constitution is there to protect the weak, the unrepresented and unpopular causes.
The religious pundits and zealots (mostly Christians) who want to recast America's Constitution as a new book of the Bible should back off! Study your Constitution and your heart before casting a vote that could be unconstitutional, because unconstitutional equals un-American .
Kit Grant
Honolulu
Judges shouldn't make the laws for Hawaii
Seventy percent of Hawaii's people are against homosexual marriages. On Nov. 3, a referendum will be on the ballot that will allow voters to end this controversy.The Hawaii Supreme Court and Judge Kevin Chang had no business promoting this idea of legalizing same-sex marriage. Judges were given the power to interpret legislation, not to make the laws.
Our government is ruled by the majority of voters, not by judges.
Kwock Young
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