Hawaii homeless must be helped

Are we the problem or part of the solution?

As a caring community, we need to provide for the needs of the increasing number of vulnerable. Surely we can provide services for the 6,000 homeless, of which 778 are considered chronically homeless citizens.

Instead of blame, we need a statewide community approach that brings the state, city and private foundations together to lead the discussion about priorities and resources.

We need to lobby our state as well as city representatives. We need to introduce and fund a planning process to provide an effective continuum of care. We need the plan and the service infrastructure before we build a $15 million “;Housing First”; building.

Divide DOE into smaller pieces

While commenting on her tenure as superintendent of education, Pat Hamamoto suggested how to improve Hawaii's public education system with little additional cost. Regarding the management of Hawaii's centralized school system, she said, “;It's like putting together a 15,000-piece puzzle”; (”;School's out,”; Star-Bulletin, Jan. 4). Anyone who has done jigsaw puzzles knows that putting together even the first two pieces of such a large puzzle would take a very long time.

The huge organizational puzzle that is Hawaii's centralized public education system should be divided into smaller units. The creation of 15 independent school districts, for example, would reduce each district to a puzzle of only 1,000 pieces, a much more manageable size.

Fireworks unsafe in big population

As a recently retired police officer, I agree with most of the concerns about fireworks expressed in the various letters to the editor. Public safety concerns have been long expressed by police, fire and emergency medical services. Noise, injury, property damage and health considerations are all part of the effects of fireworks. Those who think that the police can address fireworks complaints with any level of success are mistaken. Officers have to witness the event before they are able to issue a citation or make an arrest.

Very few witnesses want to come forward and identify those who are using illegal fireworks, and we can see the results with the number of frustrated citizens growing each year. Police do their very best to seize illegal fireworks from sellers before the fact, but it is very apparent that our community is overwhelmed with fireworks.

Perhaps now is the time for a complete ban; our community is too densely populated to survive this much longer.

Tax on fireworks would cut usage

Institute a fireworks tax, just like what we have on cigarettes and alcohol, so eventually it'll cut the amount of permits purchased. If you cut the neighborhoods off from street displays and discourage use, maybe then families would go to the public areas for viewing displays put on by the professionals.

It's sad to see an individual purchase up to $1,000 in legal fireworks—and yet notice that the keiki waiting on dad with excitement and anticipation have no slippers on. Maybe they have no food, no slippers or phone—but they have plenty of money for firecrackers.

Place a tax on fireworks for the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve and prioritize—feed and bus our keiki to schools.