Parishioners prayed for Pali Highway victim

Our Sunday service was shattered by the cry: "Call 911! A woman's been hit!" Members with medical training slipped silently out the side door. There have been accidents before, but this time there was no crash of metal and glass. "Dear God, not a pedestrian," flashed through my mind.

Hesitantly, we resumed our service. The siren drew closer and then fell silent. Another siren was heard. I listened with one ear to the rise and fall of the minister's voice. I heard the steady beat of my own heart, saw the traffic backing up on the Pali Highway, the flashing blue lights of the patrol car.

Then came the screams of grief from the family. The sound that is wrung from us at the loss of a loved one is as universal as the baby's cry. We took a moment of silence to hold in our hearts the woman, her family, the young man who was driving.

Please. Slow down. Expect pedestrians, cyclists, mopeds on Pali Highway, Farrington, Kalanianaole, Waialae Avenue.

Realize that a moment of inattention can take a precious fragile life and change yours forever. There is nothing more important than this.

Mary MacKay
First Unitarian Church of Honolulu
Via the Internet

Council's budget fiasco turns off voters

I am not the type who normally writes his elected officials -- trusting that they will take the high road on most of my concerns. But during the last few years, career politicians, such as the members of the Honolulu City Council, have brought me to my knees in frustration.

Council members shouldn't further embarrass themselves by spinning their budget sham. It will not help. Whether they voted for or against the budget does not matter. It appears that they have continued to only represent themselves.

Backdoor, self-serving politics appears to be more important to them than the proper and successful operation of city government. They have lost my vote and the vote of everyone I can similarly convince.

In every case I will promote and vote for anyone other than those now in office. Fear of the unknown is outweighed by a fear of the known.

Peter Aiello
Via the Internet

Quotables "It's been difficult to be in two or three courts in the same building on one particular day. I think that's too much for any citizen in this state to endure." Richard Wong FORMER BISHOP ESTATE TRUSTEE After a state judge dismissed criminal charges against him in an alleged kickback scheme "Beauty contests in our country are closely identified with sexuality, and the contestants are viewed as sex objects. A beauty queen cannot be a good psychiatrist, since patients can relate to her in an inappropriate way." Nongpa-nga Limsuwan PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE IN THAILAND On Apisamai Srirangsan, Miss Thailand, beginning psychiatric training at Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital, having completed medical studies at Khon Kaen University

Trustees should resign or be removed for good

Do the temporarily removed Bishop Estate trustees really have the best interests of Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate at heart or are they self-serving?

In light of the IRS demanding the ouster of all five trustees or Bishop Estate's losing its charitable trust exemption, I say this shows that the high and mighty trustees believed they were above us all. The IRS determined that the trustees' actions have been, and would continue to be, detrimental to KS/BE.

If they don't resign, everyone connected with KS/BE should demand their permanent removal for breach of fiduciary duty.

Kalani Chock
Kamehameha Schools Class of 1971
Via the Internet

Lindsey's lawyer should forget about his fee

Lokelani Lindsey's attorney, Michael Green, is quoted in your June 11 issue saying that "there's only so much (Lindsey) can afford financially." Green plans to ask a state judge to order the insurance company to pay her legal bills.

I'm a trust and estate attorney with more than 20 years of experience practicing law in Hawaii. Whenever I decide whether to take on a new client, I must make such business decisions as to whether my client has a winnable case, whether my client can pay and if I can represent my client adequately.

Sometimes things don't turn out the way I expect. Maybe I have misjudged the application of the facts to the law or applied the wrong law or not discovered a damaging prior case. Sometimes my client's facts or the case law turns out differently after I have finished interrogatories or depositions and am well into the case. Sometimes the judge just makes (in my opinion) a bad decision.

When those things happen, my client and I take our lumps and move on.

That is why I am puzzled about Green's statements that Judge Weil's "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law" indicated that there were not just one or two problems about Lindsey's actions as trustee, but 190 pages of problems!

In all of my years as a trust attorney, I have never seen a "Findings of Fact" that was longer than 10 pages.

Perhaps Green's decision to take this case may have been hasty; perhaps he figured there were deep pockets to pay his fee. Perhaps the facts didn't turn out the way he thought they would, but certainly 190 pages of a court's "Findings of Fact" indicate that there were multiple problems with Lindsey's actions as trustee.

Mr. Green, may I offer some advice? Take your lumps and move on. Filing an appeal to compel the insurance company to pay your attorney's fee seems like a bad business decision to me.

Libby C. Ellett
Honolulu Attorney
Via the Internet

Bishop Estate Archive

Piailug is true master navigator of the Pacific

The historic or trip of the century can't possibly be the one from Hawaii to Rapa Nui. It remains, in my view, the first trip to Tahiti when my uncle, Chief Piailug, navigated the seas between Hawaii and Tahiti.

Chief Piailug remains the master navigator and all the media hoopla about the canoe sail from Hawaii to Rapa Nui is but an insult to the sole master navigator of Micronesia.

It is most appropriate that Chief Piailug's feat and accomplishment be treated with the utmost reverence and respect.

John S. DelRosario Jr.
Flores Mayo Place, Saipan
Via the Internet

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