Noise law pleas fall on deaf ears

Honolulu is a noisy city. In some neighborhoods, noise starts very early in the morning seven days a week with trash pickup and continues throughout the day as motorcycles, leaf blowers, boom radios, loud car mufflers, construction equipment and inconsiderate neighbors expose citizens to unhealthy noise.

It seems as if the city and state do not care to protect citizens from this health hazard. The Legislature recently gutted a bill that protected citizens from noisy, unhealthy leaf blowers. State regulations that could have protected citizens from early trash pickup noise were repealed. Violations of city regulations that do exist are not cited.

Neighbors, some of whom are lawmakers, who live in single-family homes might not hear and understand the extent of the problem, especially from early trash pickup. But neighbors who live in densely populated condominium communities are all too familiar with crashing trash bins at 4 or 5 o'clock Saturday and holiday mornings.

Citizens are helpless and pleading for relief, but their pleas fall on deaf ears. The city and state have a responsibility to protect citizens' well-being. New, enforceable noise regulations must be enacted, and existing regulations must be enforced.

Attack on Higa a shoddy tactic

Three cheers to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin for having the chutzpah to question Gov. Linda Lingle's handling of state finances. Let's thank state Auditor Marion Higa who challenged the governor to a lie detector duel, so we can see who is being honest with us.

Apparently Higa questioned if Lingle violated the law concerning managing the budget and the governor responding by calling the audit false and defamatory - not unlike when Dick Cheney said that accusations that intelligence was manipulated to justify the Iraq war were made by opportunists peddling falsehoods to gain a political advantage.

Lingle may have used a similar technique to attempt to quiet her critics, like when she ignored the environmental impact study law for the Superferry.

Gambling fears are unwarranted

Maybe if we had gambling like Las Vegas, we wouldn't have school furlough days, rising property taxes and personal state income taxes.

And don't talk about crime; Honolulu's crime rate is about the same as most cities its size that have some sort of gambling.

Sure, Vegas' housing market has tanked, caused by speculators, greedy mortgage companies and huge areas of cheap land. But let's see what happens to our housing values when more than 30,000 homes in the Ewa/Kapolei area that are already approved for development are built in the near future. Where are we going to get the tax revenues to pay for the associated costs such as schools and teachers, parks, roads and utility maintenance, police, fire and ambulance services, etc.?

And yes, Nevada's unemployment rate is at 13 percent, but most of that is from the transient construction workers left over from the construction boom.

I agree that gambling may not be a good idea on the outer islands, but in Waikiki and Ko Olina it would be great for tourism and our economy, and would put our unemployed back to work. Gambling working hand in hand with tourism is our only means to provide much-needed tax revenues and jobs.