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Ala Wai golf course is too lucrative to close

Close down the Ala Wai Golf Course and build a park? Well, Mr. Mayor, why would you want to close the biggest money-maker in the state to build a park within walking distance of one of the biggest parks in the city?

How will the lost revenues be made up? Or, after the Ala Wai is closed, will green fees at other municipal golf courses then be raised?

Oh, this is going to make Jeremy Harris VERY popular with taxpayers.

Erick Leong
Via the Internet

Sierra Club's lawsuit will protect tourism

I am surprised at the narrow vision of your Jan. 14 editorial. The Sierra Club is filing its lawsuit to protect Hawaii tourism.

According to comparative figures on travel trends to the major islands, Kauai has the highest percentage in rise of visitor arrivals. The reason is simple: typical American and European travelers are sophisticated enough to know that Kauai is the only island that hasn't been badly trashed by growth.

Tourists don't want a place cluttered with condo timeshares, bumper-to-bumper traffic and T-shirt stands. That pristine environment is the golden goose that lays the eggs powering our economy.

Rapid growth, while yielding immediate short-terms profits, is like killing the goose to get more golden eggs immediately. The Sierra Club is trying to protect the goose.

Raymond L. Chuan
Hanalei, Kauai
Via the Internet

Environmental group's premise is valid

The point of the Sierra Club lawsuit is this: If tourism is a viable industry, why does it need to have taxpayers pay its marketing costs? There are other businesses in Hawaii, and taxpayers don't pay their marketing costs.

Neil Frazer
Kailua
Via the Internet

Quotables "(My husband) knows I gave birth and that we're all OK, but we didn't tell him anything else. We'll save that for later." Malia Amina-Panui Who gave birth shorty after being involved in a multiple-vehicle crash on H-1 freeway On what she'll tell her husband, Daniel Morte, who is attending school in Oregon "I'm looking forward to a change, a chance to be an advocate rather than an adjudicator." Robert G. Klein Hawaii supreme court associate justice Leaving the high court with two years remaining on his term to join the law firm of McCorriston Miho Miller and Mukai

Democrats still have same values

I commend Roy M. Iwamoto for his support of Daniel Inouye and for taking umbrage at Mililani Trask's outrageous remarks about the honorable senator (Letters, Dec. 20). Iwamoto was also correct in stating that Trask does not speak for "our Hawaiian brothers."

However, I parted company with Iwamoto when he described Trask as a part of a "changed" Democratic Party responsible for all the woes that have beset our state.

Trask has never claimed to speak for the Democratic Party or even acknowledges membership in the party. If her remarks were intended by her to be on behalf of the party, then as its chairman I specifically disavow them.

The Democratic Party has not changed. It still believes in the dignity of the individual, and the right of that individual to share in all of the benefits that society bestows on every other individual. It also believes in protecting our environment and workers' rights against exploitation, and that government has an important role to play in assuring that important values are preserved.

Walter M. Heen
Chairman Democratic Party of Hawaii

State knew about danger at Sacred Falls

We represent the families of some of the deceased and injury victims who have filed suit against the state of Hawaii as a result of the May 9, 1999, rock fall incident at Sacred Falls State Park. We wish to respond to a Jan. 7 letter about this issue.

The rock fall was not an unforeseeable "act of God" but a phenomenon that the state knew occurred with frightening frequency at or near the base of Sacred Falls. In fact, prior to the May 9 incident, there were at least five other similiar incidents within the park involving serious injury or death.

The state was so concerned about the rock fall hazard within the park that, in 1988, it issued a memo that required the state caretaker at Sacred Falls to wear a hard hat when working in the area of the falls.

Although the state did post some signs regarding a rock fall hazard in the park, these signs were general and, in some cases, were illegible due to defacement. There is accordingly a legitimate issue as to whether the state took prudent safety measures in regard to the true nature and magnitude of the rock fall hazard.

Laurent J. Remillard Jr.
Park Park Yu & Remillard

Senators must answer to a new A.G.

How ironic. Some state senators who had dealings with the Bishop Estate denied the reappointment of Margery Bronster as attorney general. Now they and the former estate trustees must deal with a new attorney general, Earl Anzai.

He is determined to pursue tens of millions of surcharges from the ex-trustees and their insurance companies. Later, some of the senators may be found guilty of campaign spending violations.

Last year's performance of state legislators wasn't good. They failed to ban fireworks, pass strong gun control laws, enact campaign finance reform and improve our public school system.

Some must be ousted by voters. If not, we only have ourselves to blame.

How Tim Chang

Even Rocker deserves to be forgiven

Baseball player John Rocker's bigoted comments disgust many people. He obviously has very opinionated attitudes. But, honestly, don't we all?

While most of us may be smart enough not to publicly express ourselves or to express our true thoughts only in the company of line thinkers, the Bible says this nature of destruction dwells within all of us. But the Bible also says none of us is beyond forgiveness or beyond redemption.

Will any good come from Rocker's comments? Hopefully, but only if we truly desire change and resolve in our thinking that prejudice to any degree is evil, and doesn't belong in our lives or the lives of our children.

Russell Stephen Pang

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