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Bid process to buy Star-Bulletin is a sham

I hope U.S. Magistrate Barry Kurren will see through the sham bid process to sell the Star-Bulletin being handled by broker Dirks Van Essen & Murray ("Prospective buyer knocks Star-Bulletin offering book," Star-Bulletin, June 10).

The "prospective buyer," Mike McKenna, a well-established local entrepreneur, said, "I've talked to other people who have seen the (bid) book, and everybody thinks it's a joke."

Philip Murray of Dirks/Murray acknowledged the offering book's lack of financial data about the Star-Bulletin, but said the "sensitive" numbers will be given serious contenders after the June 19 deadline for buyers to express interest in submitting a bid.

"I would not expect anyone to be able to tell me what they would pay for the Star-Bulletin based on the information that's available," he said.

But the broker has said the offers to buy the paper will be judged on formal documents to include nonbinding offers, financial plans, nondisclosure agreements and other information.

How can "indications of interest" and formal documents be offered by any competent businessman or entity without any financial information to base it upon?

Yet if bidders don't submit "financial plans" they won't qualify to get financial information about what they are interested in buying.

How can the employee group of the Star-Bulletin seriously raise funds and support for purchasing the paper without any financials? Yet only when such a bid is made will Dirks/Murray release information.

This is a uniquely unenthusiastic seller's attitude. I hope that opinion is shared when this case goes to the U.S. District Court. Just how arrogant are the minds at work here?

David Miho

Bulletin closing archive

Sovereignty could lead to ethnic divide

Congratulations on last Saturday's Insight section, especially the two articles about Fiji.

Those who think the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, if it succeeds, won't affect their businesses, jobs, families and lives, should read "Fiji, A profile in bigotry." The subhead tells the story: "Ethnic unrest shatters economy, wrecks lives and threatens future of democracy."

It is time for the voice of the silent majority to be heard in Hawaii. Tell the politicians we do not want to be partitioned along racial lines or to secede from the union. Hawaii is a multi-ethnic democracy, perhaps the best there ever was.

This is incomparably the best time to be living on Earth. The state of Hawaii, if we don't tear ourselves apart, can once again become, incomparably, the best place on Earth to live.

H. William Burgess

Quotables "I'm no better than other men. A lot of it is fantasy, but people need some of that in their lives." Mike Mabuni NEW YORK MODEL AND AIEA HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE On Cosmopolitan magazine choosing him as Hawaii's most eligible bachelor "We have only one flag; we have only one constitution; we have only one government. We are one nation and our only land is the Philippines. This can never be compromised." Joseph Estrada PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT In his Independence Day speech, as the Philippine military bombarded four villages occupied by Muslim separatist rebels

Motorists held hostage by traffic maintenance

During a mid-morning commute the other day, we came to a screeching halt. Somehow we ended up in the largest parking lot on Oahu, the H-1. It has come to pass that not only does H-1 resemble a parking lot during early morning hours, it can become a parking lot any time of the day when the road crews are busy.

Those famous orange cones and flashing arrows can show up any time. The state must have been given a super discount on the cones because they appear miles ahead of any road maintenance. Sometimes, the cones have a life of their own and appear without any work whatsoever. It's just miles of orange cones closing off traffic lanes. Really mysterious!

It would be wonderful if the state could take classes in moderation when it comes to using cones and planning. The new community of Kapolei has recently become a hostage. The H-1 near Waipahu, Diamond Head side, is narrowed down to two lanes. At times it appears that someone decided not to let us out of the area.

Carolyn Martinez Golojuch
Makakilo

Why depend on bungler to count votes again?

It's typical state thinking. Election Systems and Software -- the company that admittedly bungled our last election as well as those in Mississippi, Virginia, West Virginia and Venezuela -- will be counting our votes again, perhaps for the next eight years!

One would not see this shibai in the private sector, where incompetence is not rewarded and Chief Election Officer Dwayne Yoshina would have been fired forthwith.

Two other companies were interested in this contract, but pulled out due to an inability to meet the specifications, which one of these contractors described as "ridiculous." One must ask:

1. What exactly are these specs?

2. Why don't other election companies want to even try to get the contract to run Hawaii elections?

3. Why is Yoshina so hell-bent to get an incompetent outfit like ES&S to run the show? Again?

I would put more trust in a drunken chimpanzee with a glass eye to count our votes.

Roy Frank Westlake

Blood quantums were imposed on Hawaiians

Paul de Silva (Letters, June 2) has a problem with Sen. Daniel Akaka's view that a Hawaiian for the purposes of federal recognition can have a blood quantum level as low as 1 percent.

He should realize that the Department of the Interior, the main agency responsible to grant official recognition to the 300-plus tribal members in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) does not employ a minimum or maximum blood-quantum requirement as a measure of "nativeness". The BIA allows each tribe to establish membership for themselves. Some tribes even extend membership to members who are not Indian at all, as long as the members observe tribal practices.

The Hawaiian homestead commission act of 1920 and the Hawaii Admission Act of 1959 both define native Hawaiians as those with 50 percent blood. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs constitutional amendment of 1978 and Public Law 103-150 of 1993 state any amount. The only commonality to all of these definitions is that they were decided by others and forced upon us. Never in our history were we allowed to determine for ourselves, what a "Hawaiian" is.

Since our Native American brethren decide their own blood-quantum, why can't we Hawaiians have the opportunity to do likewise?

Damon Senaha
San Diego

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