Keep dangerous inmates out of Hawaii
There has been a lot of talk about establishing a violent criminal or murderer registry in Hawaii. Sens. Will Espero and Norman Sakamoto have been vocal about creating such a registry to improve safety in our community.
These same legislators helped override the governor's veto and push through a law that would require Hawaii to bring back all the criminals incarcerated on the mainland, starting with an immediate return of all prisoners with a year or less left on their sentences.
There is wide concern for the public's safety if Hawaii is forced to prematurely bring back violent criminals from the mainland, especially in light of recent violent crimes committed by two convicted murderers.
The state attorney general issued an opinion that the new law's one-year rule should not be interpreted as mandatory and that each prisoner can be considered on a case-by-case basis. Espero disagreed. Does Espero really think that it is OK to rush dangerous criminals out of prison back into the communities as long as he lets everyone know where they live?
Christopher Wong
Honolulu
Kailua looking like Southern California
Regarding
Bill Dunn's Aug. 14 letter, "Don't clutter Kailua with extraneous 'Town,'" I am bothered by a couple of other things. Kailua has been Californicated to death. It looks like a transplanted SoCal enclave, and feels like it. Kailua "town" used to be a place that you knew your neighbor. I know change is inevitable, but change as it stands now is destroying all that was good about Kailua. It was a wonderful place to be a kid, but it is not a place I want to be as an adult. I've left, and so have many others. I hope that some of what made Kailua unique can survive. It may not be too late.
Louie Vierra
Haiku, Maui
Store says so long to hardware's MacGyver
You ever walked into a store and there's that one associate who can pretty much help you with anything? Well, there's one guy I know of and his name is Mike Malette. He's also an employee of Hardware Hawaii. He's the guy you can take a pile of mess to and he'll put it back together. He's the guy who'll answer your frantic call because your toilet won't stop overflowing, and he'll walk you through stopping the flood. He's also the guy you can go to with a hardware problem and even though he might not have the exact part to sell you, he'll "MacGyver" it and you'll go home with a solution.
You don't find many guys like Mike around. He might seem like that grouchy old man who doesn't have the time of day to listen to your problem, but he's the opposite. He'll help you though pretty much any hardware problem or lend an ear when you just want to kill time and talk story.
Recently I found out Mike and his wife will be leaving the island soon. Hawaii is losing a good man, and his coworkers and customers will miss him. Your shoes will be hard to fill, Mike, but your work ethics and your faithful customers will never let us forget you. Take care and God bless.
Tasha Dela Cruz
Assistant manager
Hardware Hawaii Kaneohe
Take rail money, buy thousands of buses
Regarding the
Aug. 13 letter to the editor from Melvin Kaku, director of the city Department of Transportation Services: The first line of his letter, "The opponents of a mass transit system for Honolulu are at it again," just struck me bad, and it got worse from there.
Honolulu already has a mass transit system. It's called TheBus. TheBus has about 500 functioning buses and covers the entire island of Oahu, moving an incredible number of people each day. That brings me to the word "system," as in "mass transit system." A system is many working parts together to perform a single function. A single 20-mile strip of train track is not in any way a "system," especially when comparing it to the bus.
Rail transit will cost something in line of $3-6 billion. Does anyone, especially the people in charge, really grasp the concept of that number and its impact?
The average cost of a city bus is about $300,000. For $3 billion, we could purchase 10,000 city buses. If we buy only 2,000 additional buses, then we can provide every man, woman and child in Honolulu, roughly 700,000 people, a free annual bus pass for the next 15 years. If the $3 billion were invested properly up front, free bus passes for everyone would be perpetual.
That ... is a "system."
Curtis J. Kropar
Waikiki
Do we need another Felix for special ed?
Bravo, John Mussack (
Education Matters, Star-Bulletin, Aug. 12), for looking below the surface! Indeed, the picture looks dismal for Hawaii's students with special needs. Now that Felix oversight has gone, the Department of Education is going back to the same-old same-old practices that got it in trouble in the first place. Maybe it's time for Felix II.
Irene Newhouse
Kihei, Maui