Editorials
Thursday, March 26, 1998IT'S Catch-22 on the restoration of the Waikiki Natatorium. In order to deal with concerns, including those expressed by the state Health Department, about the quality of the water in the swimming pool, the proposed design calls for construction of two groins. Extending from the makai Ewa and Diamond Head corners of the pool, the groins would be designed to take advantage of the currents to increase water flow and circulation in the pool and thereby improve water quality. Waikiki Natatorium
must be restoredBut a staff report from the land division of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources recommends that its board reject the city's special-permit application to build the groins. Reasons offered include potential destabilization of the sand resource for Sans Souci beach, adjoining the Natatorium, degradation of water quality outside the pool, damage to the reef and impairment of scenic views.
The city will ask the board to defer action on its permit application when it meets tomorrow to give the city time to address those concerns with the DLNR staff. Randall Fujiki, director of the city Building Department, said his staff thinks all of the concerns can be satisfied. "Our consultants have assured us the project is buildable and operable," he said. We think so, too.
It's imperative that the restoration of the Natatorium proceed. The current condition of the memorial is an eyesore and a disgrace to the war veterans in whose honor it was built. Demolition would destroy the memorial and betray the memory of those veterans. The opposition mainly comes from people who use Sans Souci beach and don't want to share the area with Natatorium visitors.
If the groins are essential to the project, as they seem to be, the drawbacks described may be an acceptable tradeoff. There are plenty of other groins in Waikiki and elsewhere on Oahu that were approved without having such an important purpose as restoring this memorial to Hawaii's World War I dead.
Moreover, it has been argued that the alternative proposal -- demolition of the Natatorium -- could affect the San Souci beach sand because the existing Diamond Head wall of the Natatorium pool, which would be removed, serves as a protective groin for the beach. It would be the final irony if the opponents of the Natatorium restoration succeeded in getting it demolished only to have the sand at Sans Souci washed away.
RESPONDING to criticism that he was acting arbitrarily, Mayor Harris has backed off from his proposal to merge the semi-autonomous Board of Water Supply with the Department of Wastewater Management in a new Department of Environmental Services. Now he's going along with Councilman John Henry Felix's proposal to have a study made of the financial effects of the merger. He still wants a question on the water board to go on the November ballot, but now says it should ask the voters to leave it to the board members to determine the agency's future. Water board status
Felix takes the more sensible view that the study should come first and that any question about a charter amendment for the water board should be deferred until the 2000 election.
If a question eventually goes on the ballot, it should not be about letting the water board determine its own status. Either the city should leave the board in its present position, in which case no charter change would be needed, or it should ask the voters to approve a change.
The board was made semi-autonomous decades ago in an attempt to keep politics out of water policy decisions. Before any changes are made in the name of economy and efficiency, safeguards are needed to ensure that the integrity of water decisions is not compromised.
NO tragedy is worse than one in which children are victims. When children also are the perpetrators, the calamity is compounded. That was the case in Jonesboro, Ark., where schoolboys aged 11 and 13 allegedly opened fire on classmates, killing five girls and a teacher and wounding 11 others. While mourning, townspeople also are in the process of trying to determine how such a tragedy could have been prevented. Youthful violence
Television violence and the availability of firearms almost certainly were factors. The boys donned camouflaged clothing and staged the ambush outside the school building after setting off a fire alarm. As many as 27 shots were fired from the boys' handguns and rifles. More guns and ammunition were found in a van they were running to when caught.
Little is expected to change in the amount of violence on TV, even programs aimed at children, or the dissemination of firearms. But parents can control what their children watch. If they are gun owners, they should take measures to secure firearms in the home, or better yet get rid of their weapons. In addition, parents, teachers and classmates need to be sensitive to indications that a child's behavior could erupt with the tragic results that the lethal combination of guns and TV violence makes possible.
In this case, the older boy, who had boasted about being involved with a gang, warned a schoolmate "he had a lot of killing to do" after being jilted by a girl, who was among those wounded. Another classmate said the boy "told us that tomorrow you will find out if you live or die." Yet another said the boy told him he was "going to come to school tomorrow and shoot" all those "who broke up with him."
"I thought he was just kidding around," one classmate said. That is understandable, even for children reared in a television culture where violent retaliation, with guns blazing, is the norm on the screen. Distinguishing real threats from mere tough talk is increasingly difficult in such a society.
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
