Rail Cost Nears $10,000 per Inch

Dear Editor,   April 6, 2021

The long promised 20 miles of Rail at 5,280 feet per mile = 105,600 feet x 12 inches per foot = 1,267,2800 inches now divide into $12,500,000,000 = it’s actually almost $10,000 an inch!

It is also $13,116.47 per person for every citizen of Oahu: Man, Women and Child.

HART has no idea what the cost of the plinths replacement is and the purchase cost of the mauka side of Dillingham Blvd.  Rail is likely to be more than $10,000. per inch!

The Rapid Transit Rail System with a completion date now estimated at 2035, was built to provide Transit Oriented Development down the Dillingham Corridor.

We need the housing now and the condos will take years to plan, permit and build.

Just 16 condo buildings of median income housing at 126 units per building will equal 2,000 units.

Stop the bleeding at Middle Street and let the developers start building the condos now!

Rick Gray

Honolulu, Oahu

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Vaccine Passport Unconstitutional?

Dear Editor,   April 3, 2021

Hawaii’s government needs to rethink the vaccine passport. Maybe there are good intentions behind the idea, but the outcome will be devastating. Requiring citizens to show proof of their medical history by way of testing is already a very slippery slope. These vaccines are highly controversial, and the ramifications of this decision may not be known for years down the road. 

Coercing people into subjecting themselves to an experimental medical procedure and then discriminating based on their participation is not legal. This tracking technology never should have been proposed at the national level let alone locally. It is a violation of our constitutional rights and of federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) laws protecting the confidentiality of our health information. If this is allowed to happen, the state and counties will be opening themselves up to very costly litigation. 

The vaccine passport apps being implemented in other countries are creating a two-tiered society. Once the tech is in place, the discriminatory mandates as to where people are allowed to go based on the information on their smart devices quickly escalates. Unvaccinated people, including those who have had a reaction to the shot and are unable to continue receiving boosters, can be prevented from entering businesses, schools, government buildings, public transportation...they could even be confined to their homes if so mandated.

Most importantly, these vaccine passport apps are a segue into the social credit score system. The ability to integrate a person’s medical history with their credit score, banking, social media activity, and online searches is already built into the apps. This is not a conspiracy theory, it is fact. We do not want to go down this road. The vaccine passport is un-American and is not at all in line with the spirit of this community. I am asking the legislators of our state and counties, do not do this here in Hawaii. The people you represent are counting on you to protect our rights and to make wise decisions about the future of these islands. Please don’t let us down.

Aloha,

Tina Lia

Kihei, Maui 

YN: Why 'vaccine passports' could be complicated to pull off in the U.S.

YN: Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Alexis Keenan discuss travel measures amid the pandemic.

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