How to get money to pay
for judicial pay raises

To all the disappointed judges who believe justice is best served by forcing everyone in their freezing courtrooms to wear ski jackets so judges can tower above them looking regal in black robes:

Adjust the air conditioners so the majority can sit without shivering in your courtrooms and buy small fans to circulate air at your feet.

By the end of the year, taxpayers will have saved enough money to pay for your salary increases!

Rico Leffanta

Kealoha is a good kid
who has suffered enough

Auwe, Diane Chang! Shame on her! She herself has made a judgment without facts (June 20, "Kealoha should serve his full sentence")!

Miller was a drunk who stopped to pick a fight with a good kid driving too slow in the fast lane, or so the drunk felt. He never called into police dispatch to say that he was apprehending a lawbreaker. He never showed his badge or identified himself as an officer.

I know Gabriel very well. He is not perfect, but is a fine young person. I have taught thousands, some really bad seeds, but Gabe was not even close to being a bad kid. He has spent eight months in hell already.

Witnesses came forward with a wide variety of perceptions of what actually took place. The judge and prosecutor chose to believe those against Gabe, not those for him! Why was that?

Miller was hardly a good policeman. There was a restraining order against him by his ex-wife. He had a record of abusiveness toward teen boys he called punks. There is just so very much the public doesn't know.

Chang should write to Gabriel's mother and to Gabriel himself, and apologize for any harm of reputation she has engendered.

M.E. Welte

Wendy's bites the dust
because of city's greed

A good example of Hawaii's unfriendliness to business is in the recent closure of Wendy's in Chinatown. It is my understanding that the fast-food restaurant had to close when the city would not agree to a lower rent.

Inasmuch as the office space next door to Wendy's has been vacant ever since the building was completed, wouldn't it make more sense to agree to Wendy's terms and keep at least some of the space rented in the building?

Even if another tenant is found, one willing to pay the city's price, how many months will it take to make up the many months of rent lost since the space has been vacant?

How sad to lose one of the few respectable businesses left in that area of Chinatown. The city needs to learn the time-tested lesson that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Ray Graham

Customer service is either
too touchy-feely or lacking

As a professional Caucasian woman doctor residing in Honolulu and conducting business transactions during the past 10 months, I frequently have experienced being ignored while waiting at a counter to make a purchase or to request a service. There is no recognition of me as a customer, either verbal ("I'll be with you in a moment") or visual, by eye contact.

I wait patiently, only to be insulted by the employee ignoring me and providing service to an Asian, a tourist or a male standing behind me, despite my being in line to be next served.

Also, what's with all the touching? Whoever told store employees that female customers love to be touched by strangers needs to be retrained.

Touching is a very powerful and personal means of communication. As a customer, I do not touch the sales clerk, the salesman, the waitress or the waiter. It is manipulative and inappropriate.

Business owners in Honolulu, give us a break.

G. McCann

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Same-sex archive

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