Airline plan leaves shareholders in cold

Much has been said about the proposal by Corporate Recovery Group LLC and Boeing Capital Corp., to reorganize Hawaiian Airlines except how insulting it is. Their notion that stock in the parent company, Hawaiian Holdings, has no value borders on ludicrous.

As an institutional broker, I have been closely involved with Hawaiian Airlines for years. I have encouraged my customers to purchase the stock based on my belief that the market value did not accurately reflect the true intrinsic value of the shares. Now Boeing and the Wyoming investors have concocted a self-serving scheme to cancel the stock and leave thousands of people holding the bag. The victims will include many Hawaiian Airlines employees who own more than $5 million in stock, and whose dedicated hard work has led to one of the most profitable years in Hawaiian's history.

Boeing's refusal to renegotiate leases on its airplanes shoved Hawaiian into bank-ruptcy, now it claims to have the magic formula to lead the company to the Promised Land. Boeing might be the big dog, but it should not be allowed to sit anywhere it wants.

Norm Caris
Anahola, Kauai

State highway patrol could halt speeders

There has been too much talk and not enough action by our Legislature to stop speeding and racing on our streets and highways. The police cannot be expected to be all things to all people.

Many states have highway patrol officers whose primary mission is to catch traffic violators as they patrol highways in marked or unmarked cars.

I asked the governor and some of our legislators for a commitment to accomplish something positive along these lines in the next year or two.

I urge others to do the same.

Ronald H. Yasui
Honolulu

Raising beer tax won't stop drug use

While we live in what many would consider paradise, we have a problem with illegal drug use that poses a serious threat to our future.

Unfortunately, the concern about how to deal with our serious drug problem has led to some knee-jerk reactions among policy makers. One of the proposed solutions is to raise beer taxes to address the illegal drug problem.

If drinking beer were the first step toward hard drug use, then America would be overrun with drug addicts because more than 90 million adults drink beer.

Beer drinkers already pay a heavy tax burden. According to industry information, 44 percent of the price that beer drinkers pay goes to the government in taxes, and Hawaii imposes among the highest taxes on beer of any state.

Instead, we need to come together as a community to find an effective way to address our illegal drug problem. This won't be easy, but we should not try to take the easy way out and simply raise beer taxes when this issue demands a far more thoughtful solution.

John K. Nugent
Vice president/general manager
Anheuser-Busch Sales of Hawaii

Gay marriage isn't government's business

In the Feb. 24 Star-Bulletin, columnist Charles Memminger expressed the sensible opinion that government should stay out of the marriage issue. And so should President Bush. There are more important issues in this state and country than who marries whom, and none of us should have the right to legislate who can marry whom. Let's shift the focus to fair and equal treatment of all of America's citizens.

Pat Blair
Kailua

City did not block biotech at Aiea Mill

Richard Rowland of the Grassroots Institute of Hawaii is off base once again ("City has discouraged biotech development," Letters, Feb. 7). In attacking me and chastising the city for discouraging biotech development, Rowland weaves together false information to support his faulty thesis.

The facts are as follows:

>> In acquiring the Aiea Mill site, the city actually helped Crazy Shirts by purchasing the property at the company's asking price. The city's offer was the best available at the time.

>> Had the city not purchased the property, the entire site would have been open to industrial development, an inappropriate use of the site.

>> City acquisition of the site was not the result of just "a few activists." There was broad, community-wide support to create a town center.

>> Biotech was never a viable potential at that site. HARC already has difficulty keeping its building fully occupied, and the High Technology Development Corp., is now championing the Kakaako area for biotech.

Rowland's fails to recognize the fact that supporting a community's quality of life is one of the best things government can do to assist business.

Gary H. Okino

Honolulu City Council member

Legislators treat public like children

Merits or problems of local school boards aside, the Democratic Party's display of complete disrespect for the abilities and desire of people to decide how our schools should be controlled dumbfounds me.

How can they deny us a chance to decide? Is this plantation mentality at work? Are they afraid kids might learn something, become successful and vote Republican? Is it donations from special interests?

Any number of reasons, I guess, but bottom line: The Democrats think we are not only too stupid to make the decisions on how our schools will be ran, but also so stupid we'll re-elect them.The sad part is they are probably right.

John Tisue
Kapolei

Taking drivers' photos will slow them down

Target speeders where it hurts most -- high fines!

Germany successfully places stationary radar-camera-boxeson crucial roadside locations. These boxes take photos of the driver and record the license plate number and the speed. The boxes are randomly activated. Everyone knows their locations and slows down.

Dieter Thate
Honolulu

Let's even the score for Hawaii workers

Rep. Bud Stonebraker's Feb. 24 letter was misguided and lacked understanding of the inherently unequal bargaining power that employers have over workers. Why shouldn't the employer be penalized if the employees' good-faith offer to avoid a strike and resolve the dispute through arbitration or mediation is refused?

Why shouldn't the employer have to prove that a work stoppage was not precipitated by a labor dispute in order to prevent the striking worker from receiving unemployment benefits?

Why shouldn't the employer be prohibited from hiring nonresidents to permanently replace local workers involved in the expression of a worker's rights during a strike?

House Democrats understand that no one wins in a strike. That is why we support measures that are intended to "level the playing field" between labor and management, ensure the people's right to collective bargaining and promote forthright negotiations between the employer and employees.

Rep. Marcus R. Oshiro
Chairman, House Committee on Labor and Public Employment

State workers could use a pay raise, too

The Executive Salary Commission is proposing a 18 percent pay raise for the governor and other government heads. Why is this being proposed when the states' workers were offered zero the first year and only 1 percent the second year? Perhaps next time the commission should handle the employees' negotiations. Workers deserve decent raises as well.

Doris A. Lee
Mililani

Liberation date is POW's lucky number

The Star-Bulletin on Feb. 17 ran a feature about the rescue of 2,100 starving people in a Japanese internment camp near Los Banos on Luzon on Feb. 23, 1945.

In 1947, Joaquin Fernandez, a fellow classmate at the University of Michigan, and I hitchhiked from Ann Arbor to San Francisco. Joaquin was one of those rescued that day.

On reaching Reno, we entered Harold's Club and wandered to the roulette table. We decided to put down $15. Fernandez suggested 23, his lucky number, the day he was liberated by the American Army.

We had our money out ready, slow, uncertain amateurs, as the man pulled the wheel before we could get the wager down. Up came 23. We put our money away and walked out.

Lyle Nelson
Honolulu