CITY NEEDS TO DO MORE TO HELP OUT

The city is up to it again! Wanting to push homeless folks from one place, then to the next. They offer little alternative, except overflowing shelters. They offer no sites to set up tent camps with health and safety in mind, with proper sanitary restrooms, showers, trash pickup, security, social help, etc. Where are these poor folks suppose to live? Last I heard, we all need to sleep. Sleep is vital to our survival, "life." How can that sleep of "life" be denied? The right to sleep equals the right to "life." Sounds like the most basic human right. So, that means, a tent + sleep= "life," anew for one more day! And, oh yes, a cart donation fund for these very poor folks who have no homes but still try to have a "life" would be most appreciated!

DAVID B. CANNELL | Waipahu

RAIL

OTHER IDEAS WERE CONSTANTLY IGNORED

Thank you, Jerry Burris, for pointing out that "Aesthetics must still be part of rail debate" (Feb. 3). Like many others, you say the architects questioned, "albeit at a fairly late date," the wisdom of the all-elevated rail project.

Many times at the Jan. 15 forum, the architects said all attempts to present their ideas about rail were always met with "You're too early. You'll get a chance later." This was immediately followed by, "You're too late."

There never was a time when any ideas other than heavy rail on elevated tracks were listened to.

PEARL JOHNSON | Pālolo

CIVIL UNIONS

LAWMAKERS DON'T DESERVE RE-ELECTION

My anonymous vote won't be for any House member's re-election. If no election were scheduled, I'd work for impeachment. I urge all voters to defeat every incumbent who went with the cowardly, selfish decision to conceal views on civil unions. That, apparently, is all of them. They drastically miscalculated if they think they defused controversy. We won't re-elect people who don't stand by their positions — or even reveal what they are. Some would have disagreed, whatever the vote's outcome, but all of us are enraged by this refusal to be accountable.

Never again berate us for low voter turnout. Our government is so misguided that the current crop is not worth our votes. As for Lingle's statement — "something so divisive at the beginning of the session wouldn't be a good thing" — the division is now unimaginably huge, and it's not between citizens. It's between citizens and their government, and may now have widened beyond repair. Nonetheless, it's incumbent upon the House to try — if they want to remain incumbent.

As for there being "more important" issues than civil rights — can they walk and chew gum at the same time? We can.

HOLLY HENDERSON | Honolulu

DEMOCRATS EXHIBIT COWARDLY BEHAVIOR

If you need an example of how cowardly politicians can be, you need look no further than Calvin Say, his fellow Democrats at the Hawaii State Capitol and their failure to pass HB444. They would rather do what is popular than what is right to keep their jobs and maintain their statuses of do-nothing Democrats. Maybe Hawaii needs a Scott Brown-style shake up at the Capitol to remind the Democrats that they are indeed Democrats and not Republicans donning blue paint.

BRADDOC DECAIRES | Honolulu