Gathering Place
Jan Becket
A UH-West Oahu campus
would kill entire systemOne can sympathize with residents of West Oahu who want their own University of Hawaii campus. I wonder, though, if it occurs to them as they crawl along the freeway that the underlying cause of their nightmarish commute is an Oahu General Plan largely written 20 years ago by large landowners and the construction industry? We are all seeing the effects of out-of-control development of agricultural lands that should have been kept as a greenbelt around Honolulu. I wonder, too, if those commuters now regret not having been more vocal in opposing the H-3 freeway, which now dumps thousands of cars in Halawa, right in their path.
Spending $350 million of our money on a West Oahu campus is a short-sighted "solution" that won't begin to cure the problem. Are we then going to fund the duplication of every other institution in town? We need a lobbyist-proof moratorium on further development in Ewa and the central plain and a meaningful transportation plan -- one that probably will include light rail.
Not only will the $350 million fail to cure the problem, but it will gut a university system already weakened by years of budget cuts under Gov. Cayetano. Remember that we all live in the same state that built a library in Kapolei and then couldn't afford to fill it with books.
Sure, we can scrape together the money to throw up some buildings, but no one has breathed a word about how we will fund maintenance and salaries for an expanded West Oahu administration and faculty. That money and those faculty positions are going to come from the existing UH system.
Residents of West Oahu need to look again at the yearly ranking of UH by US News and World Report, the major ranking of upper education in the United States. We are barely holding on to our third-tier position; West Oahu will drag us into the fourth, to join East Tennessee State University.
Advertised faculty openings all over UH are going unfilled because faculty salaries are no longer competitive. UH-Manoa at this point is a poorly maintained, underfunded, mediocre institution. If we spend the $350 million, what do we all imagine we will end up with in West Oahu?
UH regents who oppose West Oahu are acting responsibly.
Jan Becket is a 1974 graduate of the University of Hawaii. He lives in Manoa.
