Cheap movies will be missed

After losing the Superferry and The Boat at the end of this month, now we are losing the $1 movies at Restaurant Row. The theaters are clean and well-run and we could see some pretty good movies at an affordable price. The price charged at the other theaters in these times is way too high for some junk movies.

Losing this theater will be a hardship to many families in our community and will put many good people out of work — just what we don't need.

Honolulu traffic flow in need of serious fix

Professor Panos Prevedouros makes some good points in his commentary on the rail system (”;Council poised to go off the rail,”; Star-Bulletin, June 9), especially in regard to pumping in loads of money before the environmental approvals are assured. One would hope that city and county leaders could learn from the Superferry debacle.

But I suggest that he could make a much greater contribution to our transportation problems if he would apply his transportation engineering expertise to Honolulu's deplorable surface traffic control system. In many places traffic lights are placed much too closely together. Further, almost none of the lights are synchronized in any rational sequence. Software already exists to do this for large networks such as Honolulu's surface streets. Applying such analyses to our traffic grid will not only improve the flow of traffic, but will also improve flow on freeways by reducing backups at exit ramps.

Please, Honolulu Hale and Professor Prevedouros, stop bickering and do something real to help Honolulu.

Take a closer look at public works projects

It is amazing to see our fearless leaders struggling to find every penny they can because of a lack of revenues. At the same time, we see city and state projects going over budget such as the HPD shooting range in Waipahu ($6 million over for a building that was supposed to cost us $5 million and is three years behind schedule for a ventilation problem). Also, the Kuhio Gardens housing complex that looks like the Natatorium; the money was there to fix the units, but the people involved in the renovation project don't know what happened to it.

My advice to our elected leaders is to hire a czar auditor to audit all those “;auditors”; who are supposed to check on where the taxpayers' money goes and then replace them with more competent people. There are plenty available right now.

Just stop raising our taxes.

Non-politicians make better politicians

Our family still struggles with the loss of employment with Aloha Airlines and higher gas prices for one person, and a 20 percent decrease in wages and benefits and bus-pass price increases for another. Plus, fees for parking, shipping, food, goods and taxes are up for both. We are unable to find any more places to cut spending.

We already bring home lunch to work; do not entertain, go out to movies, dinners or concerts, or buy new clothes or make home improvements; and live in a modest townhouse with maintenance fees increasing every year.

We shake our heads at some of the huge fiscal decisions our governor and mayor are making, impacting all of us long after they are gone.

We need non-politicians, preferably fiscal managers, to make those decisions, those who know when to say no. It doesn't take an accountant to figure this out.

Our state and city are already running at huge deficits, and we cannot take care of what we have now; building a rail system won't get us out of this mess, only deeper in debt.

This is akin to a family without enough food on the table going out and buying a Hummer.

None of the extreme, “;emergency”; measures taken now will ever bring about fiscal balance in the future unless we stop taking on new projects.

Malama the status quo.

Bloated tourism budget could use a hefty cut

I don't know how Gov. Linda Lingle can justify the Hawaii Tourism Authority's $71 million budget, which makes up over one-third of the $185 million state budget shortfall. The grandiose ideas HTA is promoting will have little if any impact on potential visitors in this recessionary economy.

Hawaii is already out there in people's imagination. If they can make the journey to paradise they will do what everyone does: go on the Internet to get the best deals. Most likely they will never see or hear about HTA's touted schemes to influence their decision. It's money down the drain.