Let Alakai step in to offer competition

Aloha Airlines is currently not flying and bankrupt due in part to many reasons, including competition. Competition came in and offered better prices and in my opinion friendlier service. Not to rub it in, but Aloha was lacking what their name implied.

Less competition means the remaining carriers will most logically raise their fares. Without competition it is the consumer who is going to feel rate increases.

Remember the Alakai, the alternative method of interisland travel that so many protested? Ironically the name Alakai means "by the sea," implying we might all need alternative means of transportation, not just by the air.

The Superferry is now in dry dock going through maintenance and repairs. I highly recommend we welcome her back with open arms, since without Aloha Airlines and with the Superferry not running it will be a holiday for go! and Hawaiian airlines.

Please welcome back with open arms the voluptuous Alakai Superferry, for without competition it is the consumer who loses in the long run.

Demise of Aloha brings many memories

A sad day for Hawaii to see the closing of Aloha Airlines. Practically everyone has family and friends working for Aloha Airlines. In the early 1960s, while living in the old Navy housing adjacent to the Honolulu Airport, I still remember seeing the vintage Aloha Airlines propeller plane arriving and departing during the time filming of "Hawaii Five-0" was taking place on Aloha and Hawaiian airlines' parking tarmac. Yes, the good old days of the 1960s and '70s is a time when the airline industry was strong, gasoline was less than 10 cents a gallon, with a strong tourism industry and an economic strong safety net of the sugar and pineapple industries to protect Hawaii's economy.

It was only in the late 1950s when the airline started using their new company's name "Aloha Airlines." I only remembered this since it's the same year I was born. All of Hawaii will surely miss Aloha Airlines. Farewell and aloha.

If they feel underpaid, they can quit

The Star-Bulletin's March 29 story on pay raises for top city officials included comments by City Council Chairwoman Barbara Marshall saying she thinks she deserves this raise because she works hard at her job.

I would like to remind Marshall and any other elected official that no one has forced them to take their jobs. They sought election to those positions knowing full well what pay and benefits the position would bring.

Marshall's comments are especially bothersome because her position is considered a part-time position under the City Charter. If she feels that she isn't being adequately compensated, then she should resign. That option is also available to any other elected official who feels as Marshall does.

It is also disturbing that the Salary Commission continues to play so loosely with taxpayer money. Maybe we need more fiscally responsible people setting on this commission or perhaps the whole concept of having a salary commission should be done away with.

Let's simplify process for voting absentee

For two years running the Legislature (mainly the House) and the Office of Elections have not been willing to work together to make the changes needed to implement permanent absentee ballots, even though this process is very discriminatory towards our kupuna and wasteful almost beyond belief. Just the paper consumption alone is an embarrassment.

Senate Bill 2562 like SB 156 last year remain in legislative limbo.

But every two years 100,000-plus voters, mostly elderly voters and voters with physical challenges, spend more than $41,000 in postage and have to take at least 15 minutes of their time to find, print out, fill out and mail in completely unnecessary duplicate absentee ballot applications in order to vote.

The post office has to deliver all these 100,000-plus applications to the four county clerks where county workers waste at least a couple thousand hours processing and verifying these redundant applications. Probably much more!

Does anyone wonder why Hawaii voter turnout is among the lowest in the nation?

Tell the House Finance Committee (808-586-6200) and the Hawaii Office of Elections (808-453-8683) they need to work together and stop this wasteful insanity right now!

Experience shows trains aren't that noisy

I wish to strenuously object to the notion that rail is inherently more noisy than highway. Recently I stayed for a week, with windows open, about a hundred yards from an active suburban rail line in Berlin, Germany, and was hardly aware of the passing of trains -- and I'm very noise sensitive. If there had been a freeway there, there would have been a constant roar of traffic.