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RENTALS
CONDOS HAVE BYLAWS AGAINST SHORT-TERMERS
I recently asked condominium associations how pending legislation introduced by Barbara Marshall and Donovan Dela Cruz that would "repeal the (existing) prohibition against bed-and-breakfast homes" would affect them. Their response was almost unanimous: "We have bylaws against short-term rentals."
These condo associations are mini governments, and there are about 500 on O'ahu. They seem to have almost all come to the conclusion that escapes promoters of legalization: that long-term residents and vacationers do not fit together well in a residential neighborhood, be it a high-rise condo, townhouse condo or individual homes condo.
They don't fit together in my neighborhood, either. It's time for our council to stop talking about legalizing and get on with the business of enforcement of the existing code. If we have to fine-tune enforcement, let's do it.
If condos can enforce their bylaws, why can't the city enforce ours? Where there's political will, there's a way.
Larry BartleySave O'ahu's Neighborhoods; Kailua
SAFE HAVEN
STATE MUST FIX UP ALA WAI BOAT HARBOR
I applaud Roy Disney's letter regarding the Ala Wai Boat Harbor.
Question is: Where do we go from here? Privatize, allocate state funding to fix the harbors — whatever it is, something has to change.
At the first Transpac meeting, DLNR representatives stated that they did not have one empty slip in Hawai'i to move boats to to be able to empty the 500 row for the Transpac. Why? Because Ala Wai F dock no longer exists due to zero maintenance.
As Transpac Honolulu chairman, I must applaud the efforts of many groups of people involved in making Transpac happen: federal, state and city workers, volunteers, yacht clubs. But is this our best face for both the Mainland and local boating world? It is not only about Transpac but about boating in general in Hawai'i. Where are the safe havens between islands? Where are there slips to tie up to?
Boating is not about rich people with fast or expensive yachts. It is about the local fisherman, the racer, the cruiser — people who want to be out on our wonderful Hawaiian waters enjoying our Islands.
This is not about the Ala Wai but about every public harbor in Hawai'i. Let's do something — anything! King Kalakaua, the creator of Transpac, would be ashamed if he could see the dismal state of Hawai'i's harbors.
Don BrownTranspac 2005, Honolulu chair; Kailua
NO CHILD
HAWAI'I SHOULD OPT OUT OF EDUCATION FUNDING
No Child Left Behind is intrinsically flawed in that it expects students with differing strengths and weaknesses and from various socio-economic backgrounds to live up to the same standards. Also, it assumes that standardized testing is the optimal means of assessment, which is greatly contested by education experts around the country.
Perhaps we in Hawai'i should follow Utah's lead and snub President Bush's politically charged and underfunded education policy. If Utah, a solidly Republican state, can decide it is better off without No Child than it is with federal funding, why can't Hawai'i?
There is absolutely no way that all schools are going to pass 100 percent of the requirements of No Child by 2014. So maybe Hawai'i's public officials and politicians should save us the trouble of forcing our schools to be labeled failing, disregard No Child, and save the state millions of dollars that could be spent much more constructively than taking away electives and hiring "private" education consultants.
Keith MylettWaikiki
BEYOND MANOA
PAPER SHOULD SEE LARGER PICTURE FOR UH
I was disappointed to read your Aug. 8 editorial urging UH officials to consider seriously converting an existing shopping complex in Mo'ili'ili into a dorm/shopping complex.
What The Advertiser should be recommending is for the leadership of this state and UH to more seriously look at making the new campus in West O'ahu the main campus of UH and creating a true university town in Kapolei rather than to talk about some incidental/incremental improvement to the Manoa campus, however good the idea may be.
We need ideas to relieve congestion in and caused by this overcrowded land-locked campus. Convert the Manoa campus into a world-class graduate program/research center of excellence, based on such excellent programs as the Asia-Pacific-focused business school; schools of ocean and earth sciences and technology, travel industry management, tropical agriculture and others; many excellent research programs and in cooperation with such outstanding world-class institutions as the East-West Center.
That is the sort of vision we need to make our university truly world class as well as to find a long-term solution to improve traffic on O'ahu.
Tad OnoKane'ohe
PROPERTY
SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH THIS TAX PICTURE
Another real property tax story your readers or public might be interested in: I'm 77 and on a fixed income, living here in Pawa'a. I expect to die here. The house is small, over 50 years old; the lot's small, only 2,228 square feet. But the taxes:
2002-2003 $100
2004-2005 $238.13
2005-2006 $840.38
I'm not senile yet, but I think something is wrong here.
Solomon KamPawa'a
EDUCATION
BARRING NON-HAWAIIANS FROM SCHOOL NOT RIGHT
I'm all in favor of Native Hawaiians getting what is rightly owed to them. However, I must draw the line on the topic of education.
I'm appalled at the thought that only "true" Hawaiians are privileged to the best campus, teachers and curriculum available in the Islands, while those who are non-Hawaiian, or not Hawaiian enough, are forced to wallow in the mediocrity of what can only be described as an abysmal public school system.
Some private schools are no better, and certainly not affordable for most people.
If I were to found a private school here, but say it was only open to non-Hawaiians, it would surely be considered discrimination, and the public outcry for equality would no doubt be enormous. Why should the converse not also be true?
Jenny BeasleyAliamanu
'NEVER SURRENDER'
HAWAIIANS HAVE BEEN AT WAR FOR DECADES
I hope Rebecca Breyer's front-page photograph of the protest marchers is nominated for a Pulitzer Prize (Aug. 7). It conveys the agony and pride of the crowd reminiscent of the Pulitzer winners of the World War II and Vietnam eras.
Make no mistake, this, too, is a war: Since the 19th century, the rights of the Hawaiian nation have been trampled, in some cases by armed troops as when the queen was deposed, and in some cases by unarmed troops (i.e. carpetbaggers) overwhelming the Islands and voting in statehood and myriad other destructive policies that have left Hawaiians disenfranchised.
My middle name means "stone eater," the label given to Hawaiians whose faces were literally ground into the dirt and forced to eat stones by their haole oppressors. Hawaiians are still being trampled, and this is the time to take a stand and say "No more!" As Corey Hart's song (which could be a new anthem) says: "Never Surrender!"
Paki 'Ai Pohaku MyersOcean View, Hawai'i
KAMEHAMEHA ENOUGH OF RACIAL PREFERENCES
History quiz: What state governor denounced a federal court decision requiring elimination of racial preference in school admissions, vowed to appeal the decision or to find a way to subvert the law, and declared that the legal action leading to the decision was the work of outsiders who failed to appreciate the impact of equal-rights admissions on the local culture by diluting the racial purity of the student body, thereby destroying time-honored customs, and indeed an entire way of life, forever?
Where were Hawaiians during the civil rights struggles of the late 1950s and '60s? Were they too busy celebrating long-awaited statehood that they failed to notice the sacrifices other Americans were making to ensure that discrimination based on genetic happenstance was eliminated? Did they think the resulting civil rights legislation did not apply if it contradicted local custom?
What would be the present-day response if any privately endowed school in the United States were to maintain a racial preference admissions policy on grounds that its founders had not contemplated the ethnic diversity that might emerge after a century or more of social change? Would any public official be applauded for promising to formulate a "Plan B" to conform to the letter of the law, while blatantly subverting its spirit?
There would certainly be protest marchers in the streets, but one could scarcely imagine that the protesters in any state but Hawai'i would be demonstrating in favor of maintaining racial preferences. Is it time for latter-day Freedom Riders to come into our state from Mississippi and Alabama to show us how to integrate schools?
The admissions policies of the Kamehameha Schools have metastasized in such a way as to be scarcely recognizable as the intentions of a great and generous princess. The focus of the schools is no longer "the support and education of orphans, and others in indigent circumstances," as provided for by Princess Pauahi's will. It is instead directed principally at those who can afford to avoid substandard public schools by attending the private primary schools that are more likely to qualify them for competitive admission into Kamehameha.
Why can't the vast resources of the Kamehameha Schools Trust (reportedly $6 billion) be redirected toward a 21st-century goal of providing cultural enrichment programs for the public schools? Wouldn't more Hawaiian children benefit from classes in language, history and Hawaiian culture if it were offered as part of their regular curriculum?
Dare we even ask what benefits might accrue if non-Hawaiian students gained new knowledge and consequent respect for traditional customs and practices?
What might happen if haole parents (read "voters") were to gain perspective on Hawaiian issues as they helped their children with their social studies and language homework?
The decision of the 9th Circuit Court offers the trustees and Gov. Lingle an opportunity to get back to the original intent of Princess Pauahi's endowment. It's time to bring the trust into the 21st century and start serving the greatest possible number of Hawaiians. Unfortunately, the emotionalism stirred up by OHA, monarchist and separatist movements of various stripes and a few radical UH professors promises that this issue will be bathed in more heat than light. If our leaders miss this opportunity, the residents of this state will be the worse off for it as history records the answer to the original quiz question as (d) All of the above."
Kapolei
STATE AUDIT
POOR FOSTER CARE RECORDS DON'T PUT CHILDREN AT RISK
Contrary to what is being reported by state Auditor Marion Higa ("Poor foster care records put kids at risk," Aug. 9), the Department of Human Services is making significant strides to ensure the safety and security of all children, especially those in foster care.
In fact, during the first year of the federally approved Program Improvement Plan (PIP), the number of children abused or neglected in foster care dropped below the national standard.
There are 52 benchmarks that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, uses to measure the safety and protection of children. A foster board payment system is not one of those standards, contrary to the legislative audit's claims.
The legislative audit was about payments that we make to foster parents, not child safety. The audit correctly acknowledged the improvement that we have made in foster board payments, citing that "the Department of Human Services is better managing the Foster Board Payment Program. Program administrators are paying more attention to budgeting and financial requirements and constraints of the payment program." Additionally, in the past two years, DHS has more than doubled our use of federal monies for foster care from $12 million in 1997-1998 to $26 million in 2003-2004.
Unfortunately, the legislative audit incorrectly assumed that 45 foster children, out of 2,700 foster children at any given time, could not be identified because DHS does not have their Social Security cards. The fact is, we are not required to have Social Security cards for our foster children; however, we do have birth certificates verifying the identity of every child in our system.
The PIP that we began implementing in July 2004 is addressing many safety and protection issues by increasing worker visitation with families and boosting the availability of counseling and case management services to these families. A progress report in July 2005, which The Advertiser covered, showed that we have already met or exceeded safety standards set by the federal government.
We fully recognize the need for a child payment system that is accurate and reliable, which is why the department is working diligently to address issues raised by the state auditor's report. However, a lack of accounting data does not put a child at risk. The department's efforts, under the leadership of the Lingle-Aiona administration, stretch beyond documents with names and numbers. Our focus is on the face-to-face contact with children and families, where we are making a difference and obtaining the results needed ensure the safety and well-being of all children.
Director, Department of Human Services
