Easygoing Rodrigues must be innocent

Due to my experience working with Shaun Rodrigues, I feel he is innocent. I was stunned and shocked when I heard of his arrest ("Deployment may delay prison term for soldier," Star-Bulletin, Aug. 22).

Shaun worked for me from August 1998 to May 2000. When he was arrested, I approached 10 of his fellow workers and asked if they thought he was capable of committing such a crime. They could not imagine him doing it because of his soft, easygoing nature.

My experience with Shaun has always been good. While he was working for me, he was a well-mannered young man and someone who was conscientious about his job. He was pleasant, dependable, courteous and respectful to his fellow workers and our customers.

After Shaun's arrest in July 2000, I knew it would be very difficult for him to be hired by anyone. Because of his previous positive job performance, I hired him back on Aug. 13, 2000. He continued to do a great job for us even under his difficult circumstances.

The fact that Shaun was found guilty for a crime I believe he is not capable of doing truly saddens me.

Aduja inquiry must be over before election

The Campaign Spending Commission should not allow any further delays by Sen. Melodie Aduja. The commission has found Aduja in violation of ethical standards in the past and should not allow her to delay until after the contested primary race.

The voters need to know now the extent of the possible criminal charges that may be brought against Aduja before the election in September. She signed all of her campaign spending reports and is responsible for all the money that her drug-addicted husband may have stolen from those public funds. Tens of thousands of dollars of public funds are not properly accounted for.

The commission should send its findings on for review by the Prosecutor's Office for possible criminal proceedings. It has much broader powers to investigate this kind of wrongdoing. Aduja should not be allowed to drag this out until after the election.

Arboretum should be reopened immediately

The University of Hawaii has closed Lyon Arboretum to the public, supposedly in response to some safety issues raised by the state Auditor ("Safety concerns close Lyon Arboretum," Star-Bulletin, Aug. 28).

My wife and I have volunteered at the arboretum for more than 25 years, and we see no basis for this decision to deprive the public of the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful botanical garden -- the only American university botanical garden in a tropical rain forest. Every month we work with a group of volunteers in the upper arboretum, doing weeding, clearing brush, pruning bushes and maintaining trails. We are not aware of anything that is a "safety" issue, any more than taking a hike on the adjacent Manoa Falls Trail is a "safety" issue.

Several old cottages located in the lower arboretum are in bad condition (the result of many years of not-so-benign neglect by the university), and those buildings should be immediately repaired. However, to arbitrarily close the entire arboretum to the public is unjustified, and appears to be a way of punishing the arboretum staff for their recent exposure (to the UH Board of Regents and the Legislature) of mismanagement of the arboretum.

University management should immediately reverse this ill-conceived action, and allow the public to enjoy the arboretum and allow the volunteers to continue to offer their services!

Letter writers are mad at the wrong regents

Judging from the volume of outraged letters to the editor about the Evan Dobelle affair, there are a lot of people out there who are upset with the University of Hawaii Board of Regents. And well they should be.

However, they should not be upset with the regents who fired Dobelle; rather they should be upset with the regents who hired him. The latter were the ones who were conned into giving extraordinarily huge amounts of money in salary and slush funds, together with perks like a year off with pay, a retirement job with a lifetime annuity, to hire this individual. They obviously did not do their background homework and agreed to the contract that allowed termination only for cause with an overly generous golden parachute as the alternative.

The present regents were stuck with a failed president and a lose-lose situation on their hands. They recognized that they had a nasty job to do in terminating him, but they did not take the easy way out by hoping it might work itself out somehow for some future regents. They saw their duty, and they did it. For that they deserve our thanks and appreciation, not our condemnation.

Regents didn't treat Dobelle fairly

The rules of fair play that we used to live by in America have been completely turned around in the case of former University of Hawaii president Evan Dobelle. When did we go astray?

It seems like the Board of Regents fired Dobelle, and then tried to find some miniscule wrong doing.

The board and Office of Information Practices don't have the authority to play court judge. That's absurd. They should release all documents and tapes of the board meetings where Dobelle's firing was discussed.

How can these people, who are supposedly highly educated, react as they did and carry on this vendetta?

I say, "Dr. Dobelle for governor! The Honorable Mazie Hirono for lieutenant governor!"