Another sign that state
is unfriendly to business

We have read that 400 Hawaii businesses closed last year, an increase of 47 percent over the year before. Every day we ask ourselves whether we will become part of that statistic.

Recently we were notified that our business sign was in violation of some city ordinance. This was difficult to believe since there has been a sign of the same size and in the same location since the '40s. Nevertheless, because the business name has changed, it was no longer a legal location and would have to come down.

From the moment we were notified, we were willing to comply. All we asked was that during the complicated permitting process for a new sign we be allowed to keep the old sign in place. This was denied and we were threatened with a $100 fine per day.

The sign is down and we are hurriedly trying to get the new one up. In the meantime, receipts are also down as customers assume the vacant sign means we were one more casualty of Hawaii's bad business climate.

It seems compromise is a difficult concept for the government to embrace, but is a necessity if officials are going to give more than just lip service to supporting small business.

Liz Perry, Conne Sutherland
Co-owners, Old Waialae Road Cafe

State must find way
to cut taxes and OHA payments

As a 32-year resident, I am concerned about the economic future of Hawaii. Overgrown government and government spending, with the heavy burden of taxation that has accompanied them, has made it almost impossible for the economy to grow.

I firmly believe that it is absolutely essential that the Legislature actually reduce taxes and free up more private money to jump-start the economy. For this to happen, the Legislature and administration also must reduce government spending.

These are basic benchmarks of performance which will affect how I vote in the next election. Others are saying the same thing.

One of the most fundamental corrections in current government spending should be a significant change in the legislatively-arrived-at practice of giving the Office of Hawaiian Affairs 20 percent of the gross income from ceded lands.

I doubt that you can change the figure retroactively, but you certainly can and must drop the percentage to a reasonable level and carefully define the base figure to which the percentage applies.

Raymond Engle

There's more to the story
of State Farm political ads

As the attorney who represented State Farm Insurance Companies in 1995, when then Insurance Commissioner Wayne Metcalf attempted to prevent State Farm from exercising its First Amendment rights, I wish to address the inaccuracies in Sen. Metcalf's March 15 letter:

Contrary to his contention, his hearing officer determined after an administrative hearing that State Farm's political ads were neither untrue nor deceptive.

Metcalf suggests that State Farm's silence and decision not to contest the matter further in 1995 somehow amounted to an admission of wrongdoing. He states "there was no objection by State Farm to the dismissal of the matter as moot."

The matter became moot for one reason only: The Legislature did not override the governor's veto of the no-fault bill, as State Farm's political speech had urged.

Finally, Metcalf's letter gives the inaccurate impression that the federal court "dismissed" State Farm's First Amendment claims regarding his order prohibiting State Farm from continuing its political speech.

Quite the contrary: The federal court merely abstained from addressing the free speech issue because it felt that, as a regulated industry, State Farm must first have its complaint heard at an administrative level.

After the charges were dismissed following the administrative hearing, State Farm chose not to proceed further on the issue because it concluded that additional litigation and protracted regulatory procedures would not be in the best interests of its policyholders.

David J. Dezzani

Public should be outraged
at Metcalf . . . maybe

If Sen. Wayne Metcalf, when he was the state insurance commissioner, sought to unlawfully quash political speech by seeking sanctions against a company placing political advertisements in the newspapers, we should all be outraged.

If he is defending such an action by stating that redress could have been found in a different branch of government, we should be further repulsed.

Of course, for the record, Metcalf should know that I am not saying he did any of these things.

Brian C. Buckley
(Via the Internet)

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