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Letters
to the Editor

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Saturday, January 20, 2001

Teachers must perform to merit raises

The poll results on the front page of your Jan. 11 issue might be misleading. They seem to indicate that the public supports the 22 percent pay raise position of the Hawaii State Teachers Association without any contingent acceptance by that union to raise standards of certification, performance, continuing education and other professional measurements to assure member competence and accountability.

The standards of performance should NOT be a seniority issue, in which a teacher can be tenured without regard to that individual's performance. National standards exist and every indication is that further accountability along with funding is a priority of President George W. Bush.

Our children deserve no less and our Legislature should fund no less with a keen eye on federal matching funds.

David Miho

Cayetano supports Hawaii's teachers

Contrary to June Asato's Jan. 16 letter, the governor values Hawaii's teachers and their devotion to our children.

When the state economy faltered, the DOE was the only state department that did not suffer budget cuts. Teachers also received 17 percent pay raises, while some programs for the poor and needy disappeared.

The governor has repeatedly said that if the state could afford 22 percent raises for teachers, he would approve them without hesitation. Unfortunately, the money for raises and services cannot come from bonds. Bonds are used for long-term expenses, such as the building of the proposed medical school in Kakaako.

There are needs that government was created to provide for, and he wants to restore social services to help those with the least in our community.

Kim Murakawa
Press Secretary
Office of the Governor

Double standard in treatment of two valleys

U.S. military use of Makua Valley dates from the 1920s.

Forced use, martial law and executive orders have caused continual evictions, unreimbursed condemnation of kuleana land, and wholesale environmental/cultural/archaeological destruction.

This has resulted from intensive joint Army-Navy maneuvers including naval and air bombardment, helicopter strafing, mortar and artillery fire, mustard gas, napalm, open burn and open detonation of old ammunition and other wastes.

Lead and various cancer-causing toxins have been introduced into the air, land and water where thousands of residents live.

Contrast this with the gentle touch being used in a more affluent part of the island: in Manoa.

Commercial vendors operating hiking tours on Manoa Falls Trail are being given the boot as of Feb. 15 because the state has decided it cannot enforce new regulations effective 1999, which protect the trail from overuse by large groups.

Senator Inouye apparently feels it is his duty to prioritize the activities of a transient military population over the health and welfare of permanent residents of the Leeward Coast and sees fit to disregard environmental and important Hawaiian land and cultural issues.

Military readiness is important but it is not the most important factor in this issue and should not be used as a club. It is not up to the military and Inouye to decide this issue.

Responsibility for and care of our land and people belong to all of Hawaii's citizens.

Marisa M. Plemer

Cherry Ann Domingo couldn't defend herself

Last week's shooting at Ala Moana Center demonstrates the need for drastic revision of Hawaii's gun control laws. Merely obtaining a restraining order does not guarantee anyone's safety, and the police will not provide 24-hour protection.

This state's extreme permitting system allows criminals free rein to prey upon law-abiding victims, who fear for their lives but cannot obtain firearms to defend themselves.

Meanwhile, criminals and terrorists obtain any weapons they please on the streets without any trips to the police station. They don't have to endure waiting periods, background checks, photographs, fingerprinting, registration and other demeaning and time-consuming nonsense that the rest of us must go through to obtain a firearm for legitimate purposes.

Jon Hollister
Kaneohe

Clinton's legacy is one of ill repute

As Bill Clinton leaves office, he has no need to be concerned about his legacy. His record will go unbroken -- the world's longest running limbo contest in which the primary goal was to see how low the bar could be set.

Howard Driver

Opposition to Ashcroft is hypocritical

For eight years, President Clinton never had a pro-life supporter in his administration. While in office, he also vetoed Christian-value legislation banning partial-birth abortion.

To satisfy the left, Clinton sneaked in and signed a bill proclaiming gay/lesbian day.

So now that we got rid of an immoral person and elected a president who has Christian values, why all the fuss by the liberals about George W. Bush selecting former Sen. John Ashcroft as attorney general?

Is it because of Ashcroft's strong religious beliefs concerning pro-life and the sanctity marriage being between one man and one woman?

These past eight years, we have taken almighty God out of this country. Ashcroft is a threat to those who have benefited from this past administration.

Melvin Partido Sr.
Pearl City

Hui Malama story had old information

I have been involved in the Hawaiian movement for the past 30 years. I have been written about in many newspapers and was even chosen by the Star-Bulletin several years ago as one of the "10 Who Made a Difference" in Hawaii.

But I have never seen an article with so many inaccuracies and innuendos as the one in your Dec. 30 issue, "Burying the past."

For the record, a lot of the information cited was at least 10 years old. For example, in the section, "Who runs Hui Malama?," I was purported to be the treasurer of the organization when I am not. I am a board member from Maui.

It was also wrongly stated that I have worked on large government projects as a cultural protocol specialist when I have not.

Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell Sr.
Board Member
Hui Malama I Na Kupuna

Quotables "After 18 years, I pretty much know how to do the television thing and spin letters. But every day I learn something new about being a mom." Vanna White CO-STAR OF THE "WHEEL OF FORTUNE" TELEVISION GAME SHOW Who just completed taping 10 shows on the beach fronting the Hilton Hawaiian Village "I'm a public-school graduate, so I recognize the importance of empowering people through education." Blake Oshiro DEMOCRATIC FRESHMAN REPRESENTATIVE FROM LEEWARD OAHU On how education is the majority party's top priority this legislative session

Students are right to oppose UH tuition hike

I am amazed at your Jan. 17 editorial, which urged the University of Hawaii Board of Regents to "face up to its responsibilities" and approve a tuition increase.

The university has a history of not listening to its students. This history was cultivated under the leadership of President Kenneth Mortimer and was cited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges when it placed UH on probation with a three-year grace period to reconcile its problems.

Instead, UH hired a PR firm to make it appear that the university system was fine, using money it could have spent to better the campus and its services.

Raising tuition looks like a reasonable method of getting needed funding, so outspoken students who oppose the move are made to look like troublemakers and malcontents.

Yet they have a real gripe with the administration. Perhaps the community doesn't know why or care, and that may be due to the fact that students don't get invited to the same cocktail parties that editors and administrators do.

Why does your paper remember the students' anger during regent meetings and not the police dogs, armed sheriff's deputies and the lies that the administration made to regents during last year's attempt get them to raise tuition?

The students won because they had real facts, not propaganda and a PR company. The students had to get their point across, at the expense of valuable study and work time.

Winning the tuition fight last year happened because the BOR listened, although at first reluctantly, to the facts and arguments presented by students.

Meanwhile, Mortimer does what he can with as little input as he can get away with. Any company with such an inept leader would have found itself out of business long ago.

Scott Foulk

State should get out of venture capital business

It should be well known by now that the State of Hawaii's investment in Digital Island will not be as successful as once thought. This should not come as a surprise to those who have followed the bursting of the Internet bubble and currently the air being let out of the tech bubble. The fact is the only thing that is successful about Digital Island has been its IPO and the acquiring of other companies by using its overvalued stock -- unless you consider a company that even though its revenues have increasingly grown, so have its losses, a success. They have never been profitable and may never be.

The high-tech industry, and its business philosophy of growth first, profits later, is not based in reality, and the main goal of venture capitalists is just a successful IPO. They have built a house of cards that is starting to come tumbling down.

The state should get out of the venture capital business before the losses start accumulating from a falling stock market. Instead, it should fix our schools and give hard-working people the raises they so deserve and reduce taxes to businesses that are profitable.

Rick Stefanko

Cruise ship legislation looks suspicious

Auwe! Governor Cayetano's well-intentioned motives to ease us out of our recession by encouraging the emerging and burgeoning cruise ship industry have been, at least in part, thwarted by Senator Inouye.

First Inouye shoots Governor Cayetano in the foot by attaching an unrelated bill to the Labor Department's appropriation bills precluding Norwegian Cruise Line from allowing a casino on its ship while in international waters en route to a foreign country.

That all other international cruise ships passing through Hawaiian waters and all either embarking or disembarking from an American port are allowed such a privilege does not seem material.

Norwegian Cruise Line was apparently picked out specifically as it would be the first to be homeported in Hawaii and is in direct competition with American Hawaii Cruises, which is probably the main reason for the bill.

How ironic, then, that American Hawaii Cruises announced just a few days later that -- for "tax breaks" -- it is moving its home offices to Florida, the cruise capital of the world.

Never mind that American Hawaii Cruises generates no income in Florida, since the majority of income coming from its Hawaii-based operations and secondarily from New Orleans and the Mississippi River. Never mind that Hawaii, in the past, has offered the company similar tax incentives.

I wonder how much American Hawaii Cruises has contributed to the campaign coffers of Senators Inouye and Akaka, and Representatives Mink and Abercrombie.

Hopefully, Norwegian Cruise Line and other cruise ships will see through this facade and work with those representatives in Hawaii who are truly interested in helping this business become more independent from undue Washington influence that is continually imposed upon us.

Jack H. Scaff Jr.

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