Trouble in the HPD

Public won't tolerate officers' misconduct

How much more shame are our city officials going to bring upon us? Look at our City Council -- Jon Yoshimura, Andy Mirikitani, Rene Mansho and John Henry Felix, all of whom are in trouble, involved with some controversy or both.

Now we learn that Police Chief Lee Donohue's two right-hand men have been indicted by a grand jury for alleged misuse of taxpayers' money in a food scam. How can Donohue not know anything about this? How can he be so inept? For goodness sakes, these two men are his assistants.

I don't believe for one second that Donohoe had absolutely no knowledge that these types of actions were going on. If Donohue cannot be on top of things in the Honolulu Police Department then maybe he shouldn't be police chief. We need someone who can run a tight ship. How much more proof do we need, as in the case with Clyde Arakawa and now this food scam?

I'm sick and tired of hearing about these city officials using our hard-earned tax money for their own crooked reasons.

Leighton Ito

Officer accountable for official wrongdoing

The Honolulu Police Department has a majority of wonderful, honest and hard-working officers and employees dedicated to their jobs and the community. Rafael Fajardo Jr. isn't and hasn't been in that category. He has cost taxpayers more than $250,000 in legal fees from prior misbehaviors.

Fajardo has conducted himself in a very unprofessional manner for many years. However, he has been protected and awarded by the very individuals that are now saddened that he finally received a very small dose of justice. He has been promoted instead to one of the department's highest positions of responsibility; he was also entered as city manager of the year.

Fajardo and his supporters should be thankful that was all he was caught for doing. I hope that this is a sign of the times for those few who conduct themselves badly. They will be held accountable for their actions not if but when -- no more double standards.

Dustin Black

Did indicted policemen get special treatment?

How come no bail was set after the grand jury indictments of Assistant Police Chief Fajardo and Major Owens of the Honolulu Police Department? Is it common practice for these men of high rank to be exempt from the law? My family member was issued a grand jury warrant and had to post bail. so why did these two men of high-ranking positions have special treatment?

L. Keola

[Quotables] "If you don't know where it came from, you're naive; you shouldn't be in command. If you do know what happened or where it came from, you should not be in command. Either way, he should step down until this is clear, or he should just go on his merry way and retire." Alex Garcia, Chairman of the Oahu chapter of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, calling for the resignation of Police Chief Lee Donohue following the indictment of two high-ranking police officers accused of diverting funds to pay for food to be eaten by officers, including Donohue. "If you don't know how to read by the end of Grade 3, you start to go downhill, and you cannot begin to read to learn...It has a lifelong impact." Francine Grudzias, Educational administrative services director for the state Department of Education, upon receiving an $18.7 million federal grand for a program aimed at making Hawaii schoolchildren proficient readers by the third grade.

Military personnel don't hate 'this rock'

David M.K. Inciong II's statement that most military personnel hate "this rock and can't wait to get out of here" is utterly false (Letters, Aug. 22).

If he had done his homework, he would know that the number of military families in Hawaii is increasing and many members are choosing to stay after they leave the services.

Maybe Inciong should leave if he doesn't like the military presence because we are not going anywhere.

Bill McCoy

Partnership was key to robotics success

Waialua High and Intermediate School appreciates the news articles published this past school year in the Star-Bulletin about our participation in the national 2001 FIRST Robotics Competition. Following the initial seeding matches, the Waialua FIRST Robotics Team No. 359 became a partner of the championship alliance that won the Silicon Valley Regional held in San Jose, Calif.

Our students enjoyed an exciting learning experience at the Silicon Valley Regional where they practiced the competition's theme of collaboration and partnership. During the regional's seeding matches, which randomly partnered four teams for temporary alliances for each match, our students learned to make quick collaborative decisions with their newly designated partner teams on the best use of each robot's capabilites.

Given its dependability, our Waialua robot participated in every elimination and championship match of its alliance. The coach of the No. 1-seeded team remarked, "Waialua's robot performed exactly the way we required." This year's Robotics Competition challenge underscored the meaning of partnership for our students -- that each partner has a job and is relied upon by the other partners to do that job as successfully as possible.

We are grateful for your reporting on preparations for and results of the 2001 FIRST Robotics Competition and our winning Waialua Robotics Team. Mahalo nui loa.

Aloha Coleman
Principal, Waialua High and Intermediate School

Politics won't solve special ed problem

Your editorials often repeat the need to be in compliance with federal law. The very heart of the court case is never written about. How far beyond federal law are service testing and the principles and standards of the Felix consent decree?

The Individual with Disabilities Education Act looks for "progress" in the Individualized Education Program. This is the federal law and everyone agrees that progress has been made. Students with mental-health needs are field tested for compliance. However, federal Judge David Ezra has accepted 85 percent passing on an assessment tool. This service testing tool includes parameters like responsible behavior, emotional well-being and parent support of students who have mental health needs.

It's a credit to the school system that almost two-thirds of the school complexes have passed this extremely high standard and court-controlled mandate. The difficulty of rural communities with fewer resources in meeting that standard is why we are still in noncompliance in service testing. This should be ground for appealing to a higher court.

Teachers, administrators and parents at the school level care about the system and want success. Lawyers, techies and non-school-level administrators who are disconnected from the workers in the field continue to make decisions driven by Ezra's ruling. More threats and politics are not going to help.

Jim Wolfe
Pearl Harbor Kai Elementary School

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