TOURISM

STOP USING BEACHES FOR COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY

So the O'ahu Visitors Bureau hosted 44 travel agents to a five-day "familiarization" tour to encourage more tourists to visit the residential neighborhood of Lanikai to rent kayaks, take a lesson and paddle out to the Mokuluas (and probably, also, to Flat Island, which is a bird sanctuary) and to stay in North Shore vacation tourist rental beach houses.

Who provided the kayaks? Where were the kayaks delivered or picked up? If delivered, where did the kayak provider park the vehicle?

Was the kayaking lesson free? Who paid and where was the transaction completed?

If the lesson was a paid activity, then the paddling lesson was an illegal commercial use of a public beach.

As for the North Shore beach houses — do these properties have non-conforming use permits to operate as short-term rentals?

It is past time for us to draw a line in the sand of our public beaches, it is past time to stop the proliferation of illegal tourist rentals in residential neighborhoods and it is time to stop selling O'ahu off to the highest bidders.

PUBLIC EDUCATION

GREAT PROGRESS SEEN AT DOLE, KALAKAUA SCHOOLS

I read your editorial ("Teacher evaluations key to improving instruction," May 12) with much interest, and I want to thank you for bringing this subject to light.

After sitting on the Board of Education these past four years, I wanted to see how teachers and students were doing in two middle schools, Dole and Kalakaua, that have implementing the Edison and America's Choice programs.

I was amazed at the progress these schools have made. Morale was up 100 percent at both Dole and Kalakaua.

Struggling teachers who needed help a year earlier went through training with both Edison and America's Choice and blossomed. This was evident in the faces of the students they were instructing.

I commend Dole Principal Myron Monte and Kalakaua Principal Robert Ginlack for their leadership skills, which have made both campuses a delight for students and teachers.

Mahalo, and may your campuses be models for us as we go forward to work together in helping our public schools.

LAZY STUDENTS SHOULD BE A GROWING CONCERN

In response to your timely editorial on May 12 ("Teacher evaluations key to improving instruction"), I agree that it is ridiculously hard for school administrations to dismiss entrenched teachers who are incompetent or even chronically abusive to kids.

It's a disgrace that should be fixed. However, changing our evaluation timetable isn't going to change this basic problem. Teachers who don't track well are already evaluated on a yearly basis. Just because we teach kids doesn't mean that we deserve to be tested, prodded, poked and pinched because newspapers choose to whip up opinion and sell more papers.

Everyone who went to school thinks that that alone is enough to qualify them as an expert in education. Be careful about responding to test scores with punitive countermeasures against teachers. You'll drive the best teachers away from the schools that really need them.

Instructors deserve some of the blame for poor test scores. However, there is no direct connection between the HSA tests and a child's grade, so where's the incentive for students to try hard on the tests that make or break our schools?

Let's face it: Student laziness should be a growing concern. Many parents never read to kids at night or review their schoolwork.

Please offer teachers the same professional respect received by other occupations.

ONE-CHILD POLICY

CHINA ARTICLE FAILED TO REPORT THE FULL STORY

China's earthquake is devastating, particularly regarding the children ("Most everyone is losing an only child," May 13).

The story described the collapsed Juyan Middle School. "Most everyone is losing an only child. This community will live with this pain for years, decades." But the story never addresses why these families had an only child.

The Chinese government introduced the one-child policy to alleviate the social and environmental problems of China in 1979.

It is working in "alleviating" China's problems, but has continued to be criticized by its implementation. China has been meeting its population requirements through bribery, coercion, forced sterilization, forced abortion and possibly infanticide

I have noticed that many stories on local TV, radio and in print media leave out some very important portions of the news. TV and radio news may have a time restraint, but the print media has a larger opportunity to give the "full story," but very often fall short in the "full story" as this story did in why these families had an only child.

HONOLULU POLICE

MUST BE CONSISTENT WITH TRAFFIC SCOFFLAWS

I commend the Honolulu Police Department for being dedicated to the Click It Or Ticket campaign.

However, it's about time HPD focused its efforts toward redlight runners and single-occupant HOV riders.

Red-light runners are on a rampage, and a message needs to ring out for all our safety (Run It and Ticket, perhaps).

The number of single-occupant vehicles in the HOV lane is staggering.

Economically, the city is sleeping on an untapped oil field of fines that could support these programs.

Safety is paramount, and HPD must be consistent in sending a message of zero tolerance.

50TH ANNIVERSARY

TIME OBAMA VISIT FOR STATEHOOD CELEBRATION

Amid the speculation of a Barack Obama visit here in August, how about an Obama visit next year instead?

Hawai'i celebrates the 50th anniversary of statehood on Aug. 21, 2009. How cool would it be for a locally born president to make that the date of his triumphant homecoming?

On that date a half-century ago the biggest party in the history of the territory took place in old Honolulu Stadium. The show was free. There were performers ranging from Sterling Mossman to the Bob Crosby Orchestra playing for the jubilant mob. The emcees were Tom Moffatt, Eddie Sherman, the late Ed Sheehan and yours truly.

Hopefully Uncle Tom, Eddie and I will be around to do it again. Can you imagine the crowd in Aloha Stadium, especially with President Obama on hand?

STIMULUS CHECK

'FAIR TAX' WOULD HELP U.S. ECONOMY MORE

A funny thing happened on the way to deposit my stimulus check at the bank. I realized it would be the only help Americans would get in the attempt to kick-start our economy nationally. Far too little and much too late.

A more energetic proposal now being considered in Congress is the "fair tax" consumption tax system. This would replace the withholding and payroll tax system now in effect and eliminate the IRS altogether.

Wage earners would take home all the money they make each week and fund the government, Social Security and Medicare through a tax levied each time a purchase is made. This tax is about equal to amounts currently withheld from paychecks.

Now, here's the funny part, every month of the year the government would send every head of household wage earner a "prebate" check based on his number of family members. A "stimulus check" every month! This prebate check is actually meant to offset taxes paid for life's essentials and is based on the national poverty level.

None of our people in Washington, D.C., is in favor of the fair tax and it makes one wonder why. We need to make our concerns known to our senators and representatives and get the fair tax enacted.