Take a stand against shipping Oahu's trash

I was dismayed to read in the Seattle Times on Tuesday that Honolulu is considering shipping garbage to Washington. While Washington does have the landfill space and the fee for your garbage would be appreciated, I would much rather you put that same payment into developing more environmentally friendly policies and practices.

I grew up in Hawaii and learned to love the land from being around beauty. Hawaii is in a unique spot both geographically and commercially. People respect Hawaii's natural beauty and want to help preserve it. Take a stand and tell companies that you don't want their excessive packaging. Pass laws banning nonrecyclable packaging (plastics, Styrofoam, etc.); because you live on an island, you can control what comes in and leaves. Be a leader in recycling and waste management.

This doesn't have to be painful. Change will take adjustment but in the end we all win. It will take leadership and I challenge you to be a leading protector of what makes Hawaii unique.

Late coach's family appreciates kindness

On behalf of my family, I would like to thank all of you who honored my late husband, Mel Seki, with your kind thoughts and sentiment expressed in the sports pages of our newspapers, in "Letters to the Editor," in blogs and at Mel's memorial services. We found much comfort in your words and felt a sense of pride in Mel's accomplishments.

We thank our families, Pearl City High School, and the Leilehua High School State Baseball Champions of 1962 for the beautiful floral arrangements sent to the memorial service. Thank you, Island Pacific Academy, for the bouquet of white roses. We didn't realize that Mel had touched so many lives. He was a modest man who downplayed whatever accolades came his way. How lucky we were to have had him as husband, father, grandfather, teacher, coach and friend!

Clerk should've spoken sooner about ballot

I think it is absolutely outrageous that City Clerk Denise De Costa did not speak out earlier and advise everyone that the City Charter prohibits a special initiative issue from being placed on the ballot within 180 days of an election.

Of course time is not of the essence when it comes to government. She did a disservice to the taxpayers of the city.

Let us see those license plates

The license plate number is ID to let people identify vehicles. Therefore, it's absurd to spot a car on the street with its license plate covered by transparent or brownish plexiglass. Nevertheless, there are many vehicles with covered license plates hitting the roads today. To read those blurred license numbers is way harder than normal plate numbers. The brownish cover makes it impossible to read license numbers at nighttime because light reflection is reduced completely. I can't help thinking that the driver of a plate-covered car is ready to rob a bank or commit a hit-and-run accident; otherwise, why do they cover their cars' public ID?

You can dress up your car in ways you like, but don't cover your license plate while you are on the road, buddy, people want to see you clearly.

Embryos no longer needed for research

Joe Gedan's poem indicates his ignorance of the amazing breakthrough in stem cell research announced late last year ("Right to what life?" According to Joe, Star-Bulletin, July 11). Scientists have found a way to produce genetically matched stem cells without using embryos. It takes only four injected genes to turn an adult skin cell into one that can become any body part. The controversy is, therefore, over. Research facilities need to leave the human embryo alone.

Middle Street merge causes a big squeeze

The freeway system that goes through the center of Honolulu was built in the 1960s. It was designed to handle half the number of cars that we have on Oahu today. It still has three lanes going either way.

As the population grew to Central and West Oahu, the H-1 was extended with the airport viaduct (number of lanes expanded to four or five going all the way out to Kapolei).

The congestion problem in the morning is caused by the fact that we have four or five lanes coming into town (expanded to seven or eight lanes if you add the Moanalua Freeway) converging at Middle Street (three lanes). No wonder we have a major back-up every morning. Shouldn't the hub of any freeway system be larger (wider) to accommodate the sum of the lanes coming into the city center, rather than the opposite?

To take the pressure off this situation, we need to continue the H-1 airport viaduct over Nimitz Highway and eliminate the option of going mauka from H-1 to the Middle Street merge. Bring the elevated Nimitz H-1 down to ground level at Iwilei. Additionally, widen the short connection from H-1 to Moanalua from the existing two lanes to three.

This would take much of the pressure off the commute in (and out) for everyone who lives in Central and West Oahu, and might eliminate the need for a fixed-rail system.