Sunday’s paper had two interesting articles. David Shapiro’s column brought up the City Council pay raises and Councilmember Val Okimoto’s efforts to have the city Salary Commission approve future raises with no option for Council members to reject the raises as they can now, and as some did (“Okimoto pushes for less scrutiny of new pay hikes,” Star-Advertiser, Aug. 27).

An article on the next page, “8 states let all kids access free meals at school,” said that several other states are considering similar programs. There is a national program that provides free meals to students, based on family finances, but Hawaii has no statewide program to fill the gap for students whose financial needs don’t meet the national requirements.

House Bill 540 was proposed to meet this need but was deferred by the Senate Committee on Education due to costs. We should be embarrassed that people who run for office, knowing what the salary will be, get elected, then decide they want more money in their pockets while children are going to school on empty stomachs.

Carol Schmus

Mililani

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