Dear Councilmember Djou:

The ACLU has been troubled by the patently false and misleading public statements that you have made, in your official capacity as a Councilmember, about the cause of homelessness in Hawaii. We are writing you to correct the record.

Repeatedly, you have publicly and mistakenly claimed that the City and County of Honolulu's camping ordinance was invalidated as a result of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii (ACLU). Your statements suggest that the ACLU is to blame for the increase in the number of homeless individuals and families in City and County parks.

It is disturbing when a public official makes assertions without even the most basic of fact-checks. Furthermore, your false accusations that the ACLU is somehow to blame for the homelessness epidemic do nothing to address the root causes of homelessness.

First, as to your public misstatements: in your official capacity as a Councilmember, you have made statements - available on the County's website¹ - that the ACLU was involved in a civil lawsuit concerning the Hawaii's Supreme Court’s invalidation of the County’s camping ordinances. This is not true. In fact, the Hawaii Supreme Court invalidated the ordinance upon review of an appeal from a criminal conviction. [State v. Beltran, 116 Hawai'i 146, 172 P.3d 458 (2007).] As prominently noted at the beginning of the opinion, the Appellant-Defendant, Ms. Beltran, was represented in the matter by the Public Defender’s office and not by the ACLU of Hawaii. Indeed, the ACLU of Hawaii had no role in this case at all.

Your press release, as well as your November 1 journal article in the East Oahu Sun, Fixing Honolulu’s Illegal Camping Problem,² appear to conflate the Beltran case with two lawsuits brought by the ACLU of Hawaii. The first lawsuit concerned advocates who were unlawfully arrested while exercising their First Amendment rights, peacefully protesting at City Hall. The second lawsuit (filed on behalf of Reverend Bob Nakata, Reverend Sam Cox and The Interfaith Alliance Hawaii) charged that the County acted unconstitutionally by attempting to restrict the First Amendment rights of one group of people (those people experiencing homelessness and their advocates) more severely than other members of the public. The County promptly settled the cases - a fact of which you are surely aware given that the terms of the settlement were approved by the City Council (of which you were a member at the time). Indeed, the County and the ACLU issued a joint press release setting forth the details of the settlement.

The ACLU filed these two lawsuits in 2006 because the County was violating the First Amendment rights of its citizens. These lawsuits had nothing to do with camping ordinances. As an elected public official, it is incumbent upon you to discharge your duties honestly and truthfully. Therefore, we request that you retract and/or clarify your statements accordingly, and these inaccurate statements should be removed immediately from the County’s website.

Rather than waste precious county taxpayer resources erroneously blaming the ACLU for the homeless crisis, we urge you to focus your efforts instead on helping this most vulnerable population. Regrettably, too often it requires a community advocate like the ACLU to remind government officials of their legal responsibilities towards its neediest citizens.³

In sum, the ACLU requests that you issue an appropriate retraction or clarification of your recent statements. But more importantly, we hope that you will get back to the work of improving the lives of all Hawaii's people. In the meantime, the ACLU will continue to fulfill its mission of protecting fundamental rights for all people, and I and look forward to working with you and with the rest of the County Council in furthering this goal.

Lois K. Perrin, Legal Director

Asking Sam Slom and Gene Ward for their views on how to revive the economy is like asking the captain of the Titanic for boating safety tips. Predictable to the point of monotony, Slom and Ward both argue that lower taxes will save the day. Make Bush's tax cuts to the wealthy permanent! Support corporate subsidies! That's the ticket! Get government out of the way and all will be great!

If this sounds too good to be true, it is. Both anti-tax, non-regulatory free-marketers, Slom and Ward fail to acknowledge that these very views helped produce the current economic mess. Remember, while lamenting a lost job or low wages or the lack of job opportunities or high gas prices or the high costs of medical care or a diminished stock portfolio, it was Bush, the self-anointed "CEO President," and his free-market buddies who led us into this grim economic state. Slom and Ward may decry the present economic mess, but in the end they argue, without a hint of self-doubt or ingenuity, for the same policies that helped create it in the first place.

Todd Shelly, Hawaii Kai

The East Oahu Sun welcomes your letters, photos, comments and other editorial content. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of the East Oahu Sun. "Letters to the Editor" are subject to editing and should be no longer than 300 words. The East Oahu Sun reserves the right to accept, reject or edit any submission. For verification purposes please include your name, address and phone number. Anonymous submissions will not be accepted. The East Oahu Sun does not return letters, photos, poems or any other type of editorial content. Submissions should be mailed to the East Oahu Sun at P.O. Box 25130, Honolulu, HI, 96825, faxed to (808) 395-1998, or e-mailed to info@eastoahusun.com.

In 2010, the nursery leases of Kamilo Nui Valley are up for lease rent negotiation with landowner Kamehameha Schools. I can only hope the farmers' new annual rent will not be too inflated, as their leases don't expire until 2025 and all efforts should be made to uphold agreements dated back to Henry J. Kaiser days, when Hawaii Kai was taking shape. But what seems to be of greater concern is the vision of some people to transform the nurseries into Gentlemen Estates, thus displacing our local farmers and killing any chance of increasing the amount of produce the valley can supply. Local Nurseries vs. Gentlemen Estates? The answer for Kamilo Nui Valley lies with the landowner as they have the ultimate power to welcome true farmers and encourage diversified agriculture or hold hands with the non-farming community. Time will tell where truth lies, as 2010 is just around the corner.

Sara Yacuk, Hawaii Kai

When you said "build it and they will come," you hit the nail on the head. The park has been so well received and so constantly in use, it's amazing. Sometimes our volunteers count dogs out of curiosity, and have counted anywhere from 50 to 100 dogs during the busier evenings. We get emails from thankful dog owners, and park users often take the time to stop and thank the volunteers for helping with the park.

We have a lot of first-time dog park users. One of the challenges for our volunteers is encouraging people to read the dog park rules before they enter the park. Dog parks are not like other City parks; they have their own special rules and regulations that are part of the City's ordinances. Things will go more smoothly for all park users once people are more aware of the City's regulations as well as common "dog park etiquette." The volunteers have a temporary handout of etiquette tips; we are working on a brochure that will be available in the park.

The park is open every day from dawn to dusk, except for Tuesday mornings when the Department of Parks and Recreation will be mowing the lawn and doing other maintenance from 7 A.M. to 12 noon.

The new "Hawai'i Kai Dog Park" page has been posted on our website. It includes a link to the park rules/regulations as well as an etiquette page. The page is still under construction, but I had to go live with what I had. Check it out! www.hui-ilio.org.

Elaine Dobashi, President of Hui 'Ilio Hawai'i