If Harris can't balance budget, he should resign

The city faces another budget shortfall. As usual, it looks to the taxpayer, property owner, bus rider, car owners and those who use water and put garbage out on the curb to bail it out.

It looks everywhere but inside its own hallowed halls. But I would like to see a plan whereby the city considers rolling back the salaries of those in the administration, the City Council and others.

We are all suffering through this lousy economy. Many of us make less than we used to because of the economic downturn. We live with it the best way we can. We too are all "being asked to produce more and more with fewer people and resources."

It's time for those in the city to feel the same anxiety and pain. If the mayor and his administration cannot run county government like a real business, he and the others responsible should resign or be fired, just like out here in the real world.

Robert "Rabbett" Abbett
Kailua

City administrators should be fired for ineptness

For Managing Director Ben Lee and Budget Director Malcolm Tom to blame a decline in property tax revenues and "noncontrollable cost" (payments on borrowed money) for the city budget shortfall is both myopic and arrogant.

They and our equally unqualified Mayor Harris should stop making foolish fiscal decisions such as a sports complex at Waiola, the proposed restoration of the Waikiki Natatorium, the Ewa Beach relocation scandal, purchase of 94 acres of vacant land in Aina Haina and Haleiwa and subsidizing $70 million annually for our bus system, just to name a few.

If these clowns made the same losing decisions in the private sector, they would be quickly replaced. For Harris to rudely affront us taxpayers with the idea of running for governor has got to be the biggest joke of the year.

Martin Halsey Grubb
Pearl City

Former gang members are now responsible citizens

I am fortunate to have a job that affords me the opportunity to experience, up close, the best that our youth can be. Recently, I had two such experiences.

The first occurred on Nov. 27. Eugene Bonilla, a former gang member, after he had received the 1998 Youth of the Year Award from Adult Friends for Youth (AFY), presented a sensitive and thoughtful talk on what it was like for him to grow up. He taught all of us a lot about overcoming adversity.

It was chicken-skin time, made all the more poignant because he was introduced by Malakai Maumalanga, a former rival who has since become his friend.

The second wonderful experience took place a week later, on Dec. 4. Hawaii Chief Elections Officer Dwayne Yoshina announced that AFY's West Side Islanders youth group, while conducting the Wikiwiki drive-up voter registration at the state Capitol (one of seven sites statewide), accounted for 3,554 primary and general voter registrations over a five-day period -- 45 percent of the state total.

AFY is very proud of Eugene and the West Side Islanders, not only for struggling through some big-time issues but for becoming socially responsible citizens while doing it.

Sidney M. Rosen
Chief Executive Officer
Adult Friends for Youth

Weather showed need for underground power lines

Recently, the high winds played havoc with Hawaii's electricity system. If our power lines were underground, there would have been no outages from fallen poles, no shorts from lines blowing to touch each other, no lost business from loss of power, no lost employee time and no danger to residents from downed lines. And we would have the additional benefit of a land unscarred by towers and wires.

Beauty, safety and economics all agree -- undergrounding power lines is the right investment for the future.

Christen Mitchell
Coordinator
Safe Power Action Network

Lawrence Zenker was epitome of great lawyers

We were shocked and saddened to learn of the death of attorney Lawrence "Larry" Zenker. We are each attorneys in private practice who have known Larry since the early 1970s. We have written this letter to pay tribute to a man who spent his career as a dedicated public servant. He was greatly admired and respected.

Larry's style was to work away from the public limelight, even though he worked on many highly publicized cases. He served as both a deputy prosecuting attorney for the city and as a deputy attorney general.

He was the embodiment of all that is noble about the practice of law. He was smart but never arrogant, as tough as any trial lawyer needs to be but never rude or abrasive. His tactical judgment was superb.

In a profession where everyone works long hours, Larry worked the longest of hours. Most importantly, he always put his client's interests ahead of his own and never let his ego or the need "to prove a point" get in the way of what he believed to be best for the taxpayers.

Our profession has lost a great lawyer and Hawaii has lost a fine man. Larry, we will miss you but we will never forget you.

John S. Edmunds
James E. Duffy Jr.
David W. Hall
Brook Hart
William S. Hunt
James T. Leavitt Jr.
Paul Maki
Richard Turbin

Cayetano didn't hear message of voters

Governor Cayetano failed to heed voters on the same-sex marriage issue. The voters clearly indicated that they did not want same-sex marriage legalized in Hawaii.

Seventy percent understood the question on the ballot and voted correctly; the other 30 percent presumably did not understand such a convoluted question and voted "no" believing that the question was, "Do you approve of same-sex marriage in this state?"

The author of the question should have posed the query in a simple, concise manner instead of trying to confuse the issue at hand. It appears that the "yes" answers on the ballot also have the governor confused!

Toshio Chinen
Pearl City

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