Opinions on Campaign 2002

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Haunted building won't be occupied for long

I live in Honuakaha Affordable Housing, just ewa of the Kakaako Fire Station and overlooking the memorial park for victims of the 19th-century smallpox epidemic. Yes, there are ghosts (Star-Bulletin, Aug. 18), but my experience of them has been -- except for once -- that of benevolent mischief. (They move things.)

The ghosts started visiting me when I moved in, much to my confusion until other residents explained the Honuakaha smallpox cemetery.

The victims of the epidemic were mostly recent Hawaiian migrants from rural areas of Oahu. Considering the horrible way they died and the worse way their bodies were disposed of, it seems likely they might not feel kindly.

It's extremely stupid of the city to build a department headquarters and museum on this location unless there is a prominent notice at the site that the buildings are haunted.

Do I think this will happen? It doesn't sound very bureaucratic. Instead, they will spend the taxpayers' money, and then close the buildings after a year or so because of all the complaints from important people.

Dorothy I. Cornell

Church still can't face abuse problem

The Catholic church's first solution to the molestation of young boys was to ship the offenders off to another location, hoping the abuse would not happen again.

Then the bishops took a stand short of zero tolerance.

Then they refused to pay fines from judgments against the church.

Now the Hawaii Catholic Diocese is shifting blame to the abused children and their parents ("Church holds child partly at fault," Star-Bulletin, Aug. 22). It appears that church officials are digging a deeper and deeper hole to bury themselves in and the hole is not towards the sky.

The only stand the church should take is one of zero tolerance. I would think that for every victim who has come for- ward, there are at least 10 who quietly suffer while the church refuses to address this problem correctly and speedily.

Frank Maxwell

Waianae

WTC site should send message of humanity

I am confused about why there is so much controversy over what should become of the 16 acres where the World Trade Center stood. There have been six proposals of what to put there, and all six have been rejected. If someone would have proposed a waterfront community to be built in Pearl Harbor in 1942, I think there would have been outrage.

New Yorkers should look to Oklahoma City or Pearl Harbor for a solution about what they should do with that land. It is true that that land is valuable. But is it worth more than the lives of those who died there?

Rebuilding won't send a message to Osama Bin Laden that what he did didn't affect us. I was affected by what happened and millions more were, too. Leaving that area -- all 16 acres -- as a park and memorial would send a message that we put human lives above human greed.

Ted Obringer

U.S. support of Israel aids terrorism

We must stop terrorism in its tracks. Terrorism, like all diseases, has a cause and a cure. It is the cause that must be eliminated if terrorism is to be stopped. The cause of the terrorism that is hitting the United States is the unnatural preference the U.S. government gives to Israel.

U.S. taxpayers give the state of Israel about $3.5 billion to $5 billion every year, which averages out to about $6,900 for every Israeli citizen. And Americans thought it was great to get $300 back in a tax refund!

If we did not give tanks, attack helicopters, machine guns, ammunition, fighter jets and bombs to Israel to make it easier for them to slaughter their Palestinian neighbors, and if we had not smashed Israel's biggest military rival in the region, Iraq, the attacks of Sept. 11 never would have happened.

The United States needs to put America's interests before the interests of Israel. The values of Judaism are opposed to Israel's apartheid regime.

Todd Wetmore
Kaimuki

State must do more than collect our money

How will Hawaii prosper? Basically, it's about jobs and taxes.

The government is the state's largest employer and the manager of our industry through legislation. The government operates with tax revenue, from a resident population of less than 2 million.

We will be prosperous when residents can be employed with a living wage.

We will prosper when the state taxes its working residents less.

We will prosper when the state thinks outside of the box and begins to establish state-controlled enterprises to fund resident programs.

We will prosper when the our state government does more than raise and collect taxes.

Craig Furubayashi

Native people merit special treatment

In his July 31 letter, John W. Goemens criticized the legal analysis offered by myself and my colleague Randall W. Roth on the Kamehameha Schools' admissions policies. Goemens, an attorney for Freddie Rice, has worked with others who oppose affirmative action programs and have challenged the trusts established to benefit Hawaiians. He criticized Roth and me for not mentioning the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case of Runyon vs. McCrary in our explanations.

In the Runyon case, the court interpreted the 1866 Civil Rights Act to prohibit an all-white private school from excluding African-American students. Goemens apparently believes that this decision automatically means that the Kamehameha Schools cannot exclude those who are not of Hawaiian ancestry. But a closer look at the 1866 statute and the Runyan decision reveals problems with his theory.

The 1866 statute granted nonwhites -- specifically the recently freed slaves -- the same right to make and enforce contracts "as is enjoyed by white citizens." In other words, this statute was an affirmative action statute, designed to provide benefits to nonwhites that they had been long denied. By its terms, it granted nothing at all to white citizens, because their existing rights provided the measure of what was to be provided. Unless one distorts the plain meaning of the statute, one cannot convert it into a vehicle for protecting or promoting the rights of Caucasians.

The other possible flaw in Goemens' reasoning concerns recent Supreme Court decisions that uphold the rights of private associations to discriminate because of the values we place -- as a society -- on protecting private associational choices. The Supreme Court continues to uphold the fundamental premise that natives are entitled to be treated as separate, quasi-sovereign peoples under the U.S. Constitution, and it would appear that maintaining a private Hawaiians-only school is consistent with promoting the self-determination of the Hawaiian people.

Jon M. Van Dyke
Professor of Law
University of Hawaii-Manoa
Consultant for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs

Phone relay services should be improved

Dr. Bob Segalman's comments criticizing the way Verizon operates the relay service in Hawaii opened our eyes and ears at last ("Island phone system for disabled criticized," Star-Bulletin, Aug. 15). We saw his demonstration of the speech-to-speech relay system, which he developed, and experienced frustration that Verizon fails to operate the way it should.

As a relay-service user and a frequent flier to the mainland, I am very much impressed with the relay services in states where consumer-based advisory groups report users' feedback and recommendations about the services directly to the public utilities commissions. Why doesn't the Public Utilities Commission in Hawaii have such a system to assure better quality of relay services here ?

Relay services help provide independence to deaf, hard-of-hearing, deaf-blind and people with speech disabilities by enabling them to communicate with hearing people. The state, local and federal government agencies and private companies should comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act by providing reasonable accommodations by using the relay services, instead of telling us "phone communication skills required." Please throw away the old job descriptions about the phone communication skills requirement and start rewriting them by using the relay services more effectively and efficiently.

It is time for the PUC to establish the consumer advisory board to improve the quality of relay services in Hawaii.

Francine Kenyon

Senate should move quickly on welfare bill

Aug. 22 was the sixth anniversary of the signing of the legislation that ended welfare as we knew it. This anniversary should be given some media attention. The current recession is hurting a growing number of welfare-to-work families.

Congress must reauthorize the legislation this year and make sure these families are not gravely harmed due to the lay-offs of so many workers and their difficulty in finding other work.

The U.S. House has passed a welfare reauthorization bill, and it's time for the Senate to follow suit. The well-being of many low-income families is at stake. This is especially true because state budget crises are threatening work-support programs designed to help millions of low-income families get and keep good jobs.

The bipartisan welfare reauthorization legislation awaiting Senate action makes significant improvements to the welfare system by expanding opportunities for education and training, restoring benefits to legal immigrants and providing help to low-wage workers and children. The Senate should act favorably on this legislation as soon as it returns from recess.

John Witeck

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Opinions on Campaign 2002

Lingle, Tanonaka have good plans for state

Though I'm a life-long Democrat, I attended a political rally for Republican lieutenant governor candidate Dalton Tanonaka. I was surprised to see so many people show up to listen to a Republican.

I did not know much about Tanonaka, but was impressed enough that I plan to switch my ballot so I can vote for him and gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle, who also attended the rally. Lingle and Tanonaka appeared determined to do whatever it takes to create better jobs for people like me. Lingle praised Tanonaka's ideas to bring new businesses here, and said she would be happy to have him work alongside her for the next four years.

I'm tired of getting nowhere in such a wonderful place as Hawaii. I was born and raised here and want more opportunities for me and my family. I see no Democrat with plans like those of Lingle and Tanonaka. I hope other Democrats join me in switching to the Republican Party this election.

Peter Yamaguchi
Nuuanu

If she's right, Lingle should defend her plan

I, like many other voters, am amused by Linda Lingle's reaction regarding criticism of her plan for Hawaii. I guess she thinks voters are stupid enough to believe her "New Beginnings" plan can be funded with new math. As they say, the devil is in the details, and her plan just makes no economic sense.

She adopted a duck-and-deflect strategy to try to refocus the discussion when Governor Cayetano pointed out that Lingle's plan is flawed.

Come on, if it's such a good plan, then she should defend it. If the "state budget is unknowable to us," as she was quoted in the Star-Bulletin, then what is she doing running for governor? What has she been doing for the last four years, if not learning how the state budget works?

Either she chose not to do the math (uh-oh!), or she did it and chose not to share it, apparently betting that ordinary citizens do not have the expertise to do their own calculations.

Fred Rainville
Kapaa, Kauai

Lingle talks sense about economy

Hawaii needs a fresh start. That is why I hope Linda Lingle will be the new governor.

I'm a non-partisan, Ewa-born, California resident hoping to retire in Hilo. I follow Hawaii's politics and business closely. From my California perspective, Hawaii has been drifting at sea for decades. Big sugar and big unions are history. Applying those norms to today's reality is a fantasy. Hawaii has been continually rated close to last in most small-business climate surveys for this reason.

Dismissing these ratings as right-wing is akin to sticking your head in the sand. Business is business, and lack of investment is a show-stopper. The state's typical response to this evaluation is "Hawaii values employees more than other states." I guess so -- all the way into bankruptcy.

While I understand the Star-Bulletin's concern regarding balanced budgets, I was thrilled to read a prospective Hawaii governor say: "I know over time changing our reputation is the most important thing that we can do" and "Right now, no one wants to invest here because they don't think they'll be treated fairly."

That's a no-brainer. The rest of the country, and the world, will wait for a sea change in the Hawaii government before significant investment returns to the Islands. Linda Lingle just might be able to supply that.

Russ Underwood
Redwood City, Calif.

Take the time to study all candidates

Voters often go to the polls without a clear idea of the candidates they will vote for once they get in the door. This is a critical election and we should make the effort to select the candidates we think would best represent us.

Hawaii is going nowhere fast, but we can turn this around by electing strong leaders. Both Linda Lingle and Dalton Tanonaka have detailed plans and goals to return Hawaii to its glory days.

I'm going to vote for Lingle and Tanonaka. You might prefer to vote for someone else. That's OK. But please, make an informed decision.

Let's not go to the polls undecided and vote for the first name on the ballot or the first name we recognize. Instead, let's go armed with information and insight on the candidates and their platforms.

Kay Brennan

Adler didn't measure up to Green platform

"It's not easy being Green," Kermit the Frog used to sing. When Charles Memminger noted in his Aug. 14 column that the Green Party of Hawaii had rejected marijuana advocate Jonathan Adler's bid to run for governor under the Green Party label, we thought he was going to congratulate us for taking the high road.

He instead chose to bad-mouth the Greens. He never asked why the Greens went to so much effort to reject Adler this year, "Buck" Wheat in 2000, and Bu La'ia in 1998, as candidates, except to allude that Adler was "too pro-pot" even for us.

The Green Party platform contains no endorsement for legalizing marijuana, and no Green candidates or office holders in Hawaii have been pro-pot. Perhaps Memminger was confusing the Greens with the Democrats, who passed the medical-marijuana bill, or the Republican representative who pushed through the hemp study bill in the Legislature.

Adler, like four others, were rejected because they had little of substance to say about building a more self-reliant economy, opening up government to its citizens and fashioning a sustainable, rather than overdeveloped, Hawaii. The Greens have gone to court four times to decertify rogue candidates who did not support the core principles of the party. When someone runs as a Green, voters know what he truly stands for.

Ira Rohter and Kathy Dorn
State Co-chairpersons
Green Party

Cayetano is ruining Democrats' chances

A big mahalo to Governor Cayetano for downsizing gubernatorial candidate Ed Case ("Cayetano says Case plan lacks specifics," Aug. 22). Case was the only one in the Democratic Party who could carry the torch. He was the only one who might have made a difference standing up against the GOP stampede. Not anymore. And Mazie Hirono and the rest won't stand a chance.

Thank you, Ben -- "It's Time For A New Beginning"!

Dieter Thate
Kailua

Where's the evidence pranksters were GOP?

Regarding Nancy Bey Little's Aug. 18 letter implying that Republicans were behind the hoax played on Mazie Hirono's Web site and littering with her campaign literature: I am not a Republican, but how does Little know that "they" were responsible for the Internet hoax?

Personally, I thought the Web site hoax was a rude, no-class prank, but who's to blame?

As to the canvassers attaching campaign brochures to doorknobs, while jogging in the Liliha area recently I also saw canvassers putting brochures on doorknobs. Some were attached securely; many were haphazardly done and ended up on the ground or flying around. Seeing that, I wondered how candidates can be sure their canvassers are not being detrimental to their campaigns.

Brian Lee

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