Letters for Friday, December 5, 2008

• Open up, council chair

• Is anyone paying attention?

• Speeding on bridge

• Police don’t determine law’s validity

Open up, council chair

Honorable Kaipo Asing, it worries me and it seems many others, to witness a “leadership” style of predetermined back-room decisions and a publicly declared consensus molding not consensus building philosophy.

This is George Bushian logic and we see what a mess our outgoing president has caused with this autocratic view of leadership. Mr. Asing, you are one-seventh of the council but orchestrating as if you are all of it. The council committee assignments, which were meant for discussion were instead carefully pre-set and gerrymandered to not allow any “progressive” council members a majority on any committee.

This goes against the purpose of a council. 

What is your fear, sir? This is power grabbing, non-Sunshine Law behavior. At inauguration, you quoted Martin Luther King Jr., but King spoke to moral character, equality and openness. Your recent actions are not MLK-like.

I am aware past councils behind the scenes operated not necessarily for the public good, but in personal vote trading for each other’s pet projects. Know this is seen and goes against the community you serve.

I ask you to generate from openness a higher standard, Mr. Asing. Open your mind and heart to opinions outside of your perceptions.

Or, you can be like President Bush with the lowest approval rating of any president, saying, “I stuck by my principles” even though had he been open, and not stubborn, this country likely would not be in the mess it’s in. It takes a true leader to be genuinely open.

• John Cragg, Anahola

Is anyone paying attention?

The congressional hearings on the auto industry bail out make me a little ill. You should know the politicians are going to give them the money or they would not have asked for a plan. The hearing is just shibai to sell the public on the idea that it’s justified.

Believe it or not, at this point in time, the real total to date for all these bailouts is around $8.5 trillion. Not $700 billion that the media expound upon. It’s 12 times the $700 billion.

If one calculates the cost of this $8.5 trillion for each U.S. taxpayer it amounts to just over $61,200 per U.S. taxpayer.

If the auto industry bailout is $34 billion, then we can add $245 to the $61,200 per taxpayer.  Hey, that’s only 0.4 percent more. Chump change.

Makes one wonder if anyone is keeping track of all this money or even cares. Don’t you think, as I do, that we should have some kind of financial accounting for all this money? But then again, those spending it don’t seem to be worrying about accounting for it, so why should I?

• Don Gerbig, Lahaina, Maui

Speeding on bridge

I applaud the finishing of the Kilauea Bridge in record time and ahead of schedule.

Seems all went smooth as planned. Several problems do exist however. The speed limit is not being followed at all. Folks are racing across.

This is only the second day, but this has also been a problem in the past. It seems to have picked up right where it let off.

Also the landscaping, although nice, blocks the view from turning left from Liliuokalani onto Kolo Bridge area. Mix that with the speeders and you have a dangerous recipe. This is a school-zone area and a hazard to children as well as pedestrians.  

Please monitor this area too, Tammy Mori of the Department of Transportation. Too bad about the possibility of losing the signal at the intersection of Kuhio Highway and Kolo Road.  

I, for one, was enjoying turning left onto Kuhio Highway without waiting forever or having a near miss from speeding traffic. 

A near hit is more like it.

* Tomilyn Clark, Kilauea

Police don’t determine  law’s validity

This week Jay Kimura, Hawai‘i County prosecuting attorney, was quoted about a Big Island voter-approved law setting enforcement priorities for the police. He purportedly said, “They (the police) are also bound by the constitution to prosecute all laws, if they’re valid laws.” 

If Kimura meant that police should be the determiners whether a law is valid, he erred.

Let me emphasize that my comments are general in nature and are not directed as criticism to any specific police or law enforcement agency.

The Supreme Courts of Hawai‘i and the U.S. determine if a law is constitutional or not.  Until they rule, a law is enforceable. Determining a law’s validity is not the responsibility or function of the police. The police have tough jobs enough without burdening them with judicial responsibility.

Regarding police enforcement priorities, police managers set and use priorities. They establish enforcement priorities because of staff shortages, budget limits, or community preferences. A murder case, for example, naturally gets a higher priority than a littering complaint. In some jurisdictions police prioritize certain laws such as relocating vagrants or noisy individuals elsewhere due to pressure from business or civic groups.

The setting of law enforcement priorities already is established practice. Whether it is constitutional for voters, in addition to police and others, to set enforcement priorities is an interesting question. It remains to be judged by the courts whether voters in a community can set police priorities.

Voters should have this power.

• Donald Bodine, Anahola