I’ve known Dawn Morais Webster for nearly a decade in community and spiritual spheres (“Do legislators feel ‘fierce urgency of now’?,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Oct. 2).

She is a tireless advocate for a just society. Dawn has good sense, experience and both feet on the ground. She has operated small businesses here in Honolulu and in Singapore and Malaysia. She understands the stresses and rewards of meeting payroll, rent, overhead, taxes.

Dawn’s private-sector endeavors validate the reasonable position that a competent, caring owner or manager should focus first on those at the lower end of the company payroll. They, after all, make the business a real team effort. They, after all, have commuting costs, have to eat, have to feed and clothe their families, have to pay their own taxes, making the venture “whole.”

A living wage is crucial to that concept. Legislators, step up!

Robert H. Stiver

Pearl City

Click here to read more Letters to the Editor.