Ward complex needs an overhead crosswalk

We need to put an overhead walkway between Ward 16 Theater and the parking lot across the street. When is the city transit department going to do something about it? After someone gets hit?

The pedestrians are not using the crosswalk a little further down the street, so traffic builds up as drivers wait for pedestrians to cross the road. The problem is even worse at night.

Installing an overhead pass will decrease the number of pedestrians getting hit like "road kill."

Erica Yamaguchi
Mililani

Use hurricane fund for other emergency

If I bought insurance last year and had no event that needed coverage, I wouldn't expect to get my premium back. Why do some insist that the hurricane fund be returned? People were insured for the period paid for; they received the benefit they paid for. Fortunately, there was no hurricane.

However, what happened on Sept. 11 was very much like a hurricane, especially for Hawaii.

Even before it happened we all agreed that public education was in dire straits. Why is the Legislature willing to further weaken this important public service with more cuts, when it should be making up for the past? Everyone talks about how important education is for our economic future, yet some lawmakers want to place it in more jeopardy.

We are lucky to have a hurricane fund. We need to use it for the emergency we face.

Jean Yamasaki Toyama

Governor's budget is huge increase

The March 21 story, "House sends $3.5 billion budget to Senate," tells less than half the story. The referenced House Bill 1800 actually proposes to spend $7.4 billion of public money. This error is serious. Many elected leaders are working hard to keep the facts of state spending obscure, and your under-reporting of our budget adds to that obscurity.

Our state operating budget -- or the executive budget -- has grown from $5.3 billion in 1995 (Governor Waihee's last budget) to $7.4 billion today (the governor's last budget) -- a phenomenal increase of 39 percent in eight years. This increase exceeds any reasonable financial measure such as inflation or gross domestic product.

This growth in spending -- and taking -- public money is especially troublesome since our economy has been lackluster during this time, and there is no doubt that the phenomenal growth of the state budget has contributed to our economy's poor performance.

Your article stated that the general fund budget is about $3.5 billion a year. This is less than half of our total budget, which includes hundreds of special funds that add spending to every department. Thousands of state workers and many important programs are financed through these special funds. Your readers are the source of many excellent ideas for our community. To be effective, they need a foundation of facts and the whole story.

Rep. Chris Halford
R-11th District, Makena, Ulupalakua, Kula, Pulehu, Kihei

[Quotables] "Only the funds would be borrowed. The hurricane program as is on the book would stay intact." D.G. "Andy" Anderson Gubernatorial candidate, on borrowing money from the Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund to balance the budget, with the intent of paying the loans back with interest. "The abuse was not caused by the diocese, nor was the diocese in any way party to it." Catholic diocese of Hawaii, which is named in a lawsuit concerning a former parish worker's admitted sexual abuse of an altar boy, after filing a counter motion seeking to have the boy's mother reimburse the church for financial costs arising from the case.

Senator lets religion block worthwhile bill

The fish symbol is back on my senator's office door. Sen. David Matsuura took it down while the heat was on, but now he's flexing his fundamentalist muscles again. He's just managed to single-handedly block a popular five-year effort to pass death-with-dignity legislation in Hawaii.

Never mind polls showing the large majority of Hawaii's residents want physician-assisted suicide. Ignore or distort the recommendations of the governor's blue-ribbon panel. Who cares if the House just passed the legislation 30 to 20. Forget legislative process. Pretend it's too complicated an issue to hold a hearing. Don't worry about reason or integrity. Who needs them when the senator has religion?

This isn't just about physician-assisted suicide, either. There is more at stake here than how we die. When we consider our born-again senator's recent victory in terms of American democracy, we should be worried. And the senator should be held accountable.

Diana Lynn
Pahoa, Hawaii

Special-needs children need Loveland therapy

What the state Health Department is doing in suspending referrals to Loveland Academy is sabotaging a program that has helped more children than any school in the Department of Education ("Therapy or threat?" Star-Bulletin, March 14).

During the five years that my son was in a public school, he had been physically hurt by a teacher and manhandled by so-called "trained personnel." I had to pull him out of the public school system because of their inability to work with him without hurting him.

My son has been a student there for 10 months, and to our surprise has learned to speak in sentences. His behavior has improved and we can understand him better.

If it weren't for the expertise of Dr. Patricia J. Dukes, Dr. Maggie Koven and all of the patient, hard-working, caring staff at Loveland, my son probably would have ended up in a therapeutic foster home. Taking Loveland away from our children who need one-on-one attention, intensive behavioral teaching, therapeutic and educational services and, most of all, a loving environment will set them back more than anyone can imagine.

If parents aren't happy with the services their child is getting, they can remove him from the school at any time. Instead of knocking Loveland Academy, one of the few places where the people genuinely want to work with our special-needs children, we should get rid of the people in the DOE special education department who are there because they have nowhere else to work and are there for themselves, not our children.

Babette Porter

Botanical gardens should be preserved

During a recent visit to Hawaii, I was lucky enough to visit to the botanical gardens and arboretum at Waimea on Oahu's North Shore. With its vast number of regionally threatened and endangered species, combined with its collection of equally at-risk specimens from around the globe, this facility is, indeed, a world-class center for conservation and education in the area of species protection and species preservation. It is a center of which Honolulu, Hawaii and the United States should be proud.

Just as I was impressed by this facility, so was I dismayed to learn that there is some possibility that it will not be able in the future to continue to provide the valuable service that it currently offers.

I hope that the citizens of Hawaii appreciate this valuable facility. Further, I hope they urge their representatives to do everything possible to ensure its continued existence and prosperity.

Alan R.P. Journet
Professor of Biology, Southeast Missouri State University
Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Care fund will tempt future legislatures

In listening to the debate over the pros and cons of the proposed long-term care program being discussed in the news media, I have yet to hear anyone address the situation of people in their late 50s.

The plan requires 10 years of payments in order to be vested. People in their late 50s will retire before they have their 10 years completed to reach vesting. Are these folks going to be required to pay and not receive any benefit? If so, why should we pay? This is not socialism, you know.

The other thing that lingers in my mind is that although language can be put into the bill telling lawmakers to keep their hands off the fund, we all know that laws can be changed. It won't take long for this fund to reach staggering numbers so some politician will soon be tempted to dip into it for other purposes.

If this bill becomes law, no one will be vested until 10 years from now. Think how big this fund will have grown by then.

Bill Nelson
Haleiwa

Long-term care bill punishes the young

I am surprised that our younger workers aren't up in arms over the proposed long-term care plan. Every long-term care insurance plan that I have seen adjusts the premium by age -- but not this one.

Without figuring in inflation adjustments, a 55-year-old who plans to retire at 65 will pay in for only 10 years -- $1,200 -- and be eligible for $25,550 in benefits. A 25-year-old who also retires at 65 will pay in for 40 years -- $4,800 -- and be eligible for the same benefits. The premium -- a tax, really -- will inevitably go up with inflation and as the elderly require care and draw from the fund. And if the now-25-year-old isn't financially able to retire at 65 the increased premium will help require him to keep working.

Arthur Sprague

CarePlus plan is not a 'reckless gamble'

Rep. Charles Djou's March 24 attack on the CarePlus plan in the Star-Bulletin labeling it as a "scam" is nauseating. He does not prove his assertion that it is a "reckless gamble."

CarePlus is the result of years of study and research by scores of people in the long-term care field, state agencies, and many many consumer groups and volunteers and now a actuarial report. They have been aware since at least the early '90s that the financial costs to residents, as well as state Medicaid funds, plus the psychological costs paid by those in need of long-term care services and their families, were fast outpacing the state's available resources.

Funds were finally made available by the Legislature for a careful actuarial study prepared by national experts. This was the missing element necessary to any findings for a solution.

The public should be made aware of how our Medicaid costs continue to be over budget, with no relief in sight, especially with the rapidly expanding needs of baby boomers. The fund for CarePlus is to be in a special trust fund administered by non-government trustees, who would have the fiscal responsibility to oversee administrative costs, audits and oversight to keep the trust fund viable.

Djou stated that the elderly should just buy long-term care insurance, but no coverage is available at these low rates -- or even close this low cost. Unfortunately, many did buy policies in the past and were forced to drop their policies due to escalating rate increases as high as $6,000 yearly. No insurance companies offered "rebates" to these people.

Those of us working so many years to solve these issues are deeply grateful that Vicky Cayetano has joined this crusade.

We know the expression regarding "death and taxes." Another sure thing, supported by statistics, is that the longer we live, or the older we become, our chances for needing of long-term care services increase tremendously.

Ruth Dias Willenborg
Kailua

Harris could have saved Sunset Beach

Randall Fujiki's March 17 letter about Mayor Jeremy Harris's agricultural land proposal was misleading and deserves a response.

The mayor's proposal to require a two-thirds vote of the City Council when rezoning "important" ag land really isn't new at all. In fact, it is in the state Constitution, Article XI, Sec. 3, but has never been followed by the city. That is one of our major points in our Save Sunset Beach vs. City case, now on appeal.

The Harris administration has pretended all along that the city could ignore that requirement since the Legislature never designated "important" ag lands. However, those lands already had been designated by the Department of Agriculture before the Constitution was enacted in 1978 pursuant to a broad statutory delegation of authority from the Legislature. The historical record of Con-Con debates shows that the delegates were well aware of that designation and were intending to protect those very lands when they drafted this important constitutional provision.

One of the corporation counsel deputies responsible for formulating the mayor's position on this admitted to me that the city attorneys had never even read the Con-Con historical record before claiming the city could ignore the two-thirds majority vote requirement.

In the Save Sunset case, the City Council's vote to rezone the designated "important agricultural land" was 5-4. Despite the fact that this was clearly prime ag land, Harris supported the rezoning, which allowed an upscale residential subdivision on that land. For Fujiki to now claim the mayor has long tried to prevent developer speculation on ag land is false. Harris could have protected the hundreds of acres of pristine lands above Sunset Beach in 1995 with a single stroke of his veto pen. Instead, he chose development of luxury housing over protecting ag lands.

William W. Saunders Jr.
Attorney for
Save Sunset Beach Coalition
and Life of the Land

Soccer complex will pay off soon

The story regarding the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Complex ("Waipio soccer operations under fire," Star-Bulletin, March 15) failed to mention the positive things that have resulted from the opening of the soccer complex. The soccer community, through self-promotion, has secured three high-profile events that will bring tens of millions of dollars into Hawaii's economy.

The Hawaii Youth Soccer Association will host 250 youth teams in the U.S. Youth Soccer Region IV Championships in June 2003. The Hawaii Soccer Association will host the Veteran's Cup in August 2003 with 100 adult teams and the American Youth Soccer Association will host the AYSO National Games in July with 200 youth teams.

This is not cash flowing directly into the city's coffers, but the positive economic effect these tournaments will have on Hawaii surely can't be overlooked. The HYSA- and AYSO- sponsored events will have an estimated economic impact of nearly $10 million each.

In the meantime, the City and County of Honolulu has provided nearly 30,000 youth and adult soccer players and their families a premier playing facility, which in turn has opened up other park spaces to non-soccer activity.

I believe the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Complex has been a positive development for all, and benefits our community. City Council members should think about this when discussing the budget.

Scott Keopuhiwa
President
Hawaii Youth Soccer Association

Fix budget by cutting government fat

The hurricane relief money is a fund for hurricane relief, not state budget relief. What will we use when the next hurricane hits? And it will; it's only a waiting game.

The state budget problem is caused by a top-heavy government that needs to feed itself. This state has more government workers per capita than any other state, doesn't it?

I say chop the dead wood and let them get jobs in the private sector. Privatize some government services and make others into a user-pays system -- you want it, you must pay for it.

Kathryn Kane

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