As in O'ahu county, taxpayers statewide should call, write letters and petitions, and vote for those candidates who will listen and believe in fiscal responsibility and not overtaxing state and county homeowners and renters.

CLEAN, SAFE

NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS A SOLUTION FOR HAWAI'I

The governor is missing an important opportunity to propose a solution to O'ahu's energy crisis and increasingly expensive dependency on imported oil: nuclear power.

Nuclear power has advanced far from the ugly cooling towers and nuclear meltdown fears of the 1970s. Modern nuclear power plants (mostly European designed) are small, efficient, extremely safe and discreet. They provide cheap, steady sources of electricity without causing harmful greenhouse emissions.

True, storing the spent nuclear fuel is still an environmental liability, but not as much as continuing to import and burn foreign oil in the face of rising prices caused by "peak oil" (the theory that oil is only going to get increasingly hard to find) and geopolitical instability.

It is not unforeseeable that the entire world will someday turn to nuclear power as the most efficient alternative to exhausted fossil fuels (China, for instance, is planning dozens of new reactors in the next decade).

Because of the stigma attached to nuclear power, it will take enormous political courage, but the governor has a golden opportunity to set Hawai'i on the path to clean, cheap power for generations.

LEGISLATURE SHOULD TARGET THE INCOMPETENT TEACHERS

Editor's note: This is another in a series of letters from previous Advertiser Community Editorial Board members on the 2006 Legislature.

In 2006, the state Legislature should focus on improving the public education system for our children because they will be the leaders of tomorrow.

One way of ensuring a good public education is by having competent teachers in our classrooms.

Tenure is a policy whereby a teacher has seniority over other teachers, calculated by the number of years they have taught. A competent untenured teacher should not be replaced by a tenured teacher. An incompetent tenured teacher should be fired. The union rules make it difficult to fire incompetent tenured teachers.

There are many excellent teachers in the state school system. However, there are also incompetent tenured teachers who get passed from school to school because they can't be fired.

The teachers' union allows for untenured teachers to be replaced by incompetent tenured teachers in the system. The union looks at how many years a teacher has been teaching instead of how competent he or she is.

The union view is that a teacher with more years in the classroom will be better than one with less experience. That is not always true. A teacher with less experience can be more competent. The teachers' union should focus on a merit system instead of a seniority system.

Unions were formed to protect workers from abuse, and now they are protecting incompetent teachers instead of our children. I would like to see the Legislature fix this problem with the union and ensure competent teachers in the classroom.

PROPERTY TAXES

CITY BEING TIGHT WITH YOUR MONEY

Robbie Dingeman in a Jan. 15 article reported on the effects rising property values have had on several taxpayers. In all the cases, the effects have been negative; and this issue is one that the Hannemann administration takes seriously.

The article implied that the sole reason for the jump in property taxes has been the result of increasing property values. However, further examination would have revealed that property taxes are also affected by other factors, such as thousands of dollars in home improvements that increase the value of a property, which was the case with at least two of the homes Dingeman mentioned. (Building permit information is available publicly online.)

In addition, the story failed to note that the Hannemann administration agrees with the need for relief from that added burden and has proposed relinquishing $40 million of those additional taxes beginning in August. Of the remaining $85 million, $65 million is needed for added costs that the city is obligated to pay, for arbitrated pay increases, fuel costs and debt service.

In addition, the remaining $20 million is absolutely needed for a fiscal stability reserve fund that really should be at least $50 million. As columnist Jerry Burris pointed out in the same issue of your newspaper, local and state governments nationwide are facing a huge budget crisis because of a change in government accounting requirements that will require them to start reporting future healthcare benefits in two years.

The fiscal stability reserve would help us weather that change and be available for natural disasters or economic downturns. The experts say both are likely to occur. Failure to have a reserve will likely cost taxpayers even more money.

In addition to forgoing $40 million in added taxes, we're proposing to create a new tax class that would lower tax rates for homeowners, something that the Neighbor Island counties already have. Should the City Council concur, that law would take effect in the 2008 fiscal year.

How best to spare taxpayers the additional $40 million next fiscal year is something we will work out with the City Council. Councilman Gary Okino's proposal to give homeowners an additional $80,000 exemption works out to $60 million islandwide. Obviously, that begs the question of where these additional dollars are going to be found. As we have pointed out, the Hannemann administration has put forth a tremendous effort to cut unnecessary spending and foster more public-private partnerships.

We constantly hear demands for additional city services: more police, smoother roads, cleaner parks, more buses, more driver licensing examiners and facilities, longer hours at satellite city halls, and on and on. Those things all cost money, and real property taxes are the city's largest single source of revenue.

No one, including us, likes to pay higher taxes. The Hannemann administration is doing all it can to hold taxes down, cut foolish spending and responsibly ensure that the city provides needed services at the lowest possible cost to taxpayers.