Bishop Estate critics mustn't be silenced

Eric Poohina (Letters, Sept. 2) is wrong to suggest that only those who are alumni of the Kamehameha Schools have a right to comment on how the Bishop Estate affairs are being mishandled.

As a Hawaiian not happy with how the trustees have managed (or mismanaged) the trust over the years, I feel the need to speak out. I have as much right to comment and be involved as someone who was lucky enough to get into the Kapalama campus.

More than 30 years ago, we complained that the trustees should open more campuses to accommodate more youngsters, especially on the neighbor islands. Finally, that is happening, but many years too late to accommodate our children.

If it had been left to those who already had an "in" at Kamehameha, this might never have happened. The expansion came because Hawaiians like me complained about the estate taking care of only a small number of Hawaiian children at the expense of the majority, whose need was just as great.

Carmen Uilani Haugen
Via the Internet

Everybody should butt out of estate's business

During the last couple of years, I've read many letters regarding the Bishop Estate. Finally, there's one from someone who has it exactly right.

In your Sept. 2 issue, Eric Poohina pointed out that the Bishop Estate is a private trust. Neither the governor, former attorney general nor any of the self-appointed guardians of what is good for Hawaii has any right to meddle.

The only parties who have any legal standing in the trust's matters are its beneficiaries and the trustees themselves. In any other competent jurisdiction (I stress the word competent), it would have been so ruled by the first court to review it.

Just to remind everyone, the beneficiaries of the Bishop Estate are the children of Hawaiian ancestry. Those of us who are neither beneficiaries nor trustees are entitled to our private opinions as to the effectiveness of the trustees and the practices of the estate, but the fact remains it is none of our business.

Jack M. Schmidt Jr.
Kailua
Via the Internet

Bishop Estate Archive

Quotables "We wanted to create a tool that would allow a parent to sit with a child and, in a fun way, talk about a very difficult subject." Adriana Ramelli DIRECTOR OF THE SEX ABUSE TREATMENT CENTER ON OAHU On a coloring book titled "Let's Talk About Touching," a free educational resource offered by the center to help parents discuss with their children the topic of sexual assault "President Mortimer thinks it's a matter of him communicating his ideas to everybody else. He doesn't understand listening is part of it." Mary Tiles CHAIRWOMAN OF THE UH-MANOA FACULTY SENATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Dissatisfied with the leadership of the University of Hawaii president

Flea market dictates when tailgaters enter

On the Aloha Stadium Web site (http://www.alohafame.com), the following mission statement is proclaimed: "Aloha Stadium is the state of Hawaii's largest outdoor arena. Our mission is to meet the challenge of providing a first-class arena where the dreams of our young people can be realized through participation in sporting and other special events; where the spirit of achievement can be nourished by the thrill of competition; where families can gather to share their cultural diversity with pride and a feeling of aloha."

Unfortunately, we have yet to see the rest of that statement: "...and that will happen only after the flea market is pau."

If there is a person out there who really feels that 50,000 people who purchased UH-USC tickets should be kept out of Aloha Stadium until the flea market finishes peddling, please step forward and state your case.

Ray Sweeney
Via the Internet

If Bows have good season, will luck rub off?

If the University of Hawaii football team has a winning season, do you think the accreditation team will give UH a better accreditation status? And maybe the School of Public Health could be saved?

It might help, huh?

Ted Gugelyk
Via the Internet

UH is becoming third-rate school

The other day a friend of mine asked, "With all that's going on up at the university these days, aren't you professors afraid that the UH will slip back to being a second-rate school?"

"Second-rate?" I answered. "We should only do so well! We're slipping from second-rate to third-rate!"

I meant it as hyperbole, but the new ratings are out and what I had hoped was only rhetoric has proven to be true. Worse, Hawaii now leads the nation in cutting back on higher education.

While every state in the country is upping its university budgets, only Hawaii and Texas have cut theirs. While Texas has lost just 1 percent (from one of the richest public universities in the world), poor old Hawaii has lost a whopping 9 percent.

Everybody knows that education is the only road to being economically competitive in the 21st century. Yet Hawaii, with its low-paying, one-track economy and appalling literacy rates, is committing suicide in public.

So the governor is mad at the UH because the faculty union wouldn't support him in the last election, and his current attorney general has little love for the UH Lab School. But, auwe, can't they see what they're doing to Hawaii's future?

Stephen O'Harrow
Professor
Department of Hawaiian & Indo-Pacific Languages
University of Hawaii
Via the Internet

http://www.kaleo.org

Comparison of city data may not be valid

In his Aug. 20 letter, Fred Mariconda makes some comparisons between statistical data for Honolulu and Portland, and shows the problem inherent in such comparisons. Before drawing conclusions from raw data, the information must be comparable. In this case, it is not.

For example, in Honolulu, trash is collected by city employees. In Portland, it is not. Thus, Honolulu would have more city employees and more city expenses.

The total cost to residents is the real indicator of relative budget effectiveness.

Since I don't have this information, I cannot say whether Honolulu or Portland is better managed. Without this relevant info, neither can Mariconda.

Lanny Williams
Via the Internet

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UH student news Ka Leo O Hawaii

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