EXECUTIVE SALARIES

UH PAY RAISES WRONG DURING THIS ECONOMY

I was watching the news while reading your newspaper Thursday morning.

Just as the news came on about hotels, Sea Life Park, your paper and many other businesses laying off their employees because of the bad economy, I read the front page. Salaries of $414,096 and $363,024 for the University of Hawai'i president and UH-Manoa chancellor, respectively — how outrageous.

People are suffering and struggling just to have roofs over their heads and food on the table, and David McClain and Virginia Hinshaw get thousands of dollars added to the hundreds of thousands of dollars they already make.

Shame on you! That is ridiculous. Next, we'll read about the tuition and fees going up at the University of Hawai'i.

CANDIDATES

DEMS, ELECTIONS OFFICE MANIPULATED SYSTEM

The Office of Elections appears to have broken the "three-day law" concerning replacement of Kirk Caldwell in House District 24. Instead of obeying the law, the Office of Elections has allowed the Democratic Party to substitute a new candidate, Isaac Choy, four days after withdrawal by Caldwell.

In addition, they allowed the candidate to file by e-mail just prior to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 26, and will let him follow up later with the paperwork.

The Office of Elections claims that Caldwell withdrew on Wednesday, not Tuesday. If this is the case, it would mean that Caldwell had filed for both a state and a county office at the same time, which is against the law.

This is a conscious effort by the Office of Elections, in cooperation with the Democratic Party, to ignore the law and manipulate the system through political gamesmanship.

We believe that Republican Jerilyn Jeffryes is the only candidate who is properly filed and certified to run for the seat as House District 24 representative.

HONU CONSERVATION

DEATH OF HONEY GIRL SHOULD TROUBLE ALL OF US

Honey Girl, one of Laniakea Beach's beloved honu, is dead. Whoever butchered this sea turtle took advantage of the trust built up from the hundreds of positive interactions with residents and visitors alike who behaved respectfully at Laniakea over the years.

Honey Girl, and another 20 or so honu who bask regularly on the beach at Laniakea, have habituated to our presence. They have benefited from legal protections under the Endangered Species Act. When they drag themselves onto the beach, and volunteers position a low barrier rope to help visitors maintain a safe distance, these basking honu seem unconcerned about all the fuss.

But the volunteers with Malamana Honu cannot be at the beach every minute. And, sadly, all those who visit Laniakea don't share the same set of values when it comes to honu conservation.

Why should we be troubled by the death of Honey Girl? After all, there are thousands of honu in Hawaiian waters. The local population is growing at a steady rate. It may be that the Hawaiian green sea turtle genetic stock will be the first population in the United States taken off the federal endangered species list.

But the case with Honey Girl is different. She trusted humans. What we do now determines whether the other honu basking on this beach should continue to trust us.

VISITOR ACCESS

SACRED FALLS DRAFT PLAN NEEDS TO BE SIMPLIFIED

I have read the Sacred Falls draft plan, and the alternatives describe a bureaucratic nightmare. You need to go back to the drawing board and simplify everything.

It is obvious that one intent was to defeat the active alternative by adding so many unnecessary features to make it impractical from a cost and operational standpoint. Even the moderate plan has too much unnecessary baggage.

I have been visiting Sacred Falls since the 1930s. It was a delightful wilderness experience and should remain so. We need to go back to the way it was before the rockfall. Access to the falls and pool should be restored.

The liability concerns can be satisfied by installing proper signing and controlling entry to have every visitor sign a liability waiver. This would probably require a permit system, but that would be a small price to pay for the public to experience this natural wonder.

We don't need picnic areas, camping, interpretive center, taro/sugar cane demonstrations, electrical system, lighted parking lot, ridge trails and special viewing areas.

Please give Sacred Falls back to the people.

RAIL DEBATE

EXPERTS RECOMMENDED RAIL, WE SHOULD LISTEN

James L. Tumblin (Letters, July 26) describes a horrendous traffic problem at the terminal of a rail expressway in Portland, Ore. That's from picking up the hordes of passengers descending from the train. He blames that on the expressway being rail, but the same thing would happen if it were a busway instead of a railway. The city traffic planners didn't expect so much ridership and didn't plan for it.

People will ride either one. Both provide comfort and convenience, with slight differences.

A very large factor, among others to consider, is cost. In the long run, maintenance costs exceed building costs. It is beyond the ability of anyone here to investigate the multitude of factors involved, cost being a major one, to make an experience-based and unbiased engineering decision in selecting a busway or a railway.

Therefore, an outside prestigious engineering consulting firm was hired to do that hard job for us. Its recommendation to have a railway is not something to be lightly cast aside.

It seems we are doing that just because we don't know anything about rail but know all about buses, making a choice based simply on emotion, not on cold, hard engineering facts.