Beware Parking On Private Roads
One sign on a 10-car space no one will see | Bob Jones photo
So why don’t the parking meters on that short Kaheka Street extension between Ala Moana Hotel and the shopping center honor handicap parking?
Carol Egan wants to know, because she has a disability placard and didn’t feed the meter and her car was hauled away by Tow Jams. She had to find a way to Puuhale Road and was charged $138 cash. Not the $65 the city tower charges, and no ATM, as the city would require.
Seems Ala Moana Hotel owns that strip of roadway and gave parking rights to Ampco System Parking, which doesn’t recognize handicap placards.
An un-signed public-access street should be under city rules. Or else the Ala Moana Hotel should block it off or have a big sign “You Are Entering A Private Road.”
Carol Egan deserves her money back. My on-site investigation concludes that she was lured into the belief that she was on a city street and at a city parking meter.
* I’m often one of the most liberal, give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death guys in MidWeek. But not always.
Let’s look at Obamacare, Social Security and Medicare – the tripod of social safety nets. The first is taking on water – you have to agree with that. Social Security has no means testing, so Bill Gates will get about $3,500 a month at age 67. Medicare has no means testing, so Warren Buffet gets it.
You might be an aged billionaire, but you’ll not pay a cent into Social Security after $110,000 of your income. You’ll just draw out. You qualify by age for Medicare. Not by need.
Other non-social-welfare issues where I seem to diverge from the “hey, he’s a liberal” tag:
Spying on allies. We spy on them. They spy on us. What’s the big deal? I want to know what those who claim to be our friends are doing behind our backs. If Angela Merkel doesn’t want her phone calls intercepted, she should get better-encrypted phones.
Drone strikes. The truth seems to be that Pakistan and Yemen know about those and approve them silently and now make noise just to pacify the voters. We only target REALLY bad guys who kill us. Innocent civilians would be wise not to ride in cars with them or have them for dinner guests.
Global warming and GMOs. Who knows what causes global warming? But it’s happening. Isn’t it good sense to assume some human causation and cut back our carbon footprint in case? And since not a scintilla of evidence indicates human hurt from ingesting GMO crops or the pesticides on them, doesn’t it make sense to keep advancing GMO science?
If a whole bunch of people said they suspect talking and singing damages the vocal chords, would we suggest we stop talking and singing?
* Last week, I listed Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz among the likely “no” votes on same-gender marriage. He voted “yes” on the final roll call Oct. 30.
