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Senate should not
delay Akaka bill

THE ISSUE The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has sent the Hawaiian recognition bill to the Senate floor for a full vote.

A U.S. Senate committee's approval of the Hawaiian recognition bill and agreement by opponents to release their stranglehold on the measure brings it a step closer to enactment. The bill, which has languished in Congress for too many years, should be passed by both chambers and sent to President Bush for his signature without further delay.

The Indian Affairs Committee approved the measure by a voice vote only a week after Governor Lingle and other officials testified in its favor. It was the fourth time the committee has approved the bill sponsored by Senator Akaka, but this time the road to the Senate floor is unencumbered.

Sen. John Kyl had put a hold on the Akaka bill in the last session of Congress. Kyl and other Republican leaders finally agreed last year to allow a Senate vote on the bill no later than Aug. 7 of this year after Senators Akaka and Inouye agreed to drop it as an amendment to a bill favored by Kyl.

Kyl's fellow Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, the committee chairman, expressed his opposition to the Hawaiian recognition bill in January. Hawaii's two senators joined with McCain in changing the bill to clarify that Hawaiians would not be automatically eligible for federal programs targeted for American Indians.

McCain's amendment might actually strengthen the bill, providing assurance to members of Congress that entitlements to American Indians will not be put at risk. The change should not affect the myriad programs that specifically include Hawaiians along with Indians and native Alaskans as benefactors.

A poll taken by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in 2003 showed that 86 percent of Hawaiians and 78 percent of non-Hawaiians favor the Akaka bill. That overwhelming support should not have precluded oral testimony by opponents before McCain's committee, but Kai'opua Fyfe, director of the Koani Foundation on Kauai, said he and other dissidents were refused permission to testify.

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Sewer fee exemption
should be rejected

THE ISSUE Councilman Romy Cachola is asking that residents in his district be excused from paying a proposed fee increase.

A CITY Councilman is telling Mayor Hannemann that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Romy Cachola, who represents the Council district that includes Sand Island where a city sewage treatment plant sits, wants his constituents relieved of paying a proposed increase in sewer fees to compensate them for accommodating the unattractive facility.

Cachola got the idea for compensation from Hannemann's offer of a "benefits package" to Leeward residents unhappy with having to put up with expansion of a landfill in the region, but the councilman's proposal goes too far.

Almost every neighborhood could then demand restitution for one unpleasant facility or another, or for a service each perceives it lacks when compared to others.

For example, Hawaii Kai could claim lower property tax rates because it has no police station close by. Haleiwa could protest because it has no public golf course while Kapahulu does.

While city services should be distributed as evenly as possible, some areas are likely to benefit more directly than others. Still, taxes and fees go to general welfare of the entire city. Pegging fees and taxes to individual localities will create a fiscal muddle and pit citizen against citizen.

Cachola contends that expansion of the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant places an undue burden on his district, where a number of other undesirable facilities, such as a jail, are located. But the plant is separated from residential areas by a channel, harbors and industrial zones, and many of the facilities considered objectionable were installed at a time when the area was outside population centers.

Cachola's district is not alone in housing the ugly necessities of civilization. His plea for special remedy should not be approved.