Lawmakers shouldn’t need outside jobs

The Honolulu City Council should promulgate rules placing clear limits on outside employment by elected officials and senior staff. Former Mayor Kirk Caldwell made hundreds of thousands of dollars as a bank director while in office, which rightfully raised concerns about the potential for ethical lapses in the conduct of public business.

The appearance of impropriety should be enough for City Councilman Augie Tulba to suspend the airing of television commercials that feature him (“Honolulu Councilman Augie Tulba’s role in TV commercial raises ethics questions,” Star-Advertiser, Jan. 3). As a council member, Tulba makes $68,904 a year. That figure is not luxurious, but it is almost twice Hawaii’s median individual income of $35,515.

A county of Honolulu’s size should have a full-time Council with members paid enough to forestall the need for outside employment. Hawaii’s Legislature also should become a full-time, professional body with salaries and staffing sufficient to conduct responsive and ethical government. The ongoing pandemic has highlighted the deficiencies of maintaining a part-time legislature.

Nikos Leverenz

Aliamanu

Spate of sickness by teachers suspicious

About 800 state Department of Education teachers were absent due to sickness (“Staff shortages hit schools with 800 teachers out sick,” Star-Advertiser, Jan. 6).

Perhaps I’m cynical, but if most were out because of COVID-19, that would have accounted for about one-third of the approximately 2,600 total state cases registered that day.

Are you kidding me? School had not been in session the prior two weeks due to winter break, so those teachers could not have contracted the virus through exposure to students. Did private schools experience a similar teacher absentee situation?

I am wondering if those teachers were attempting to make a statement that would not be valid. Private schools do not seem to have similar statistics for their educators, or at least it’s not made public. It’s too bad we all can’t afford to send our children to private schools.

I absolutely believe in-person learning is more beneficial to students than online and should be continued.

Linda Teruya

Makiki

Red Hill tanks are outdated, risky

It is imperative that fuel storage on Red Hill be relocated away from nearby residential facilities, military and otherwise. Let us leave behind 1941, when the hysteria of war was on our backs. Let us use 2022 to find a storage facility that won’t pose the danger of contaminating our pure drinking water.

Wars back then were fought with naval ships requiring an abundance of fuel. Today, wars are fought with guided missiles that use little fuel in comparison to naval ships.

Needed fuel can be stored at West Coast fuel-dispensing facilities with little or no difference in readiness for the Pacific naval fleet. Surely we can find the akamai way to do away with the fuel storage tanks on Red Hill, and permanently preclude future drinking-water contamination for the military community as well as the entire population of Oahu.

James Kataoka

Mililani

Some Navy official willing to sacrifice us

We are in a situation worthy of Stanley Kubrick’s film, “Dr. Strangelove.”

Somewhere in the Navy, or the Department of Defense, or the White House, there must be the one person who believes that the mission of defending our Pacific sphere of influence is worth poisoning our own people. Otherwise this person would surely see the Red Hill fuel leak situation for what it is. It is an Orwellian scenario where more than 30,000 families are being held hostage to a method of fighting the last war.

If real lives were not affected, it would be a wonderful vehicle for a Bill Murray or Charlie Sheen very black military comedy.

Beverly Kai

Kakaako

Navy behaves like a sovereign nation

Traditionally when a Navy skipper runs his vessel aground or hits another vessel, he is summarily relieved of command. But when the Navy through its years-long procrastination threatens the drinking water of as many as 400,000 Hawaii residents, all we get is a summary rejection of the state’s order to shut down Red Hill and insulting words from the Navy’s assistant secretary (“Navy apologizes after top official said tainted water from Red Hill facility is ‘not a crisis’,” Star-Advertiser, Dec. 28).

This brings a whole new meaning to the old joke, “What is the U.S. Navy?” Answer: A sovereign nation homeported in the United States. It seems that the Navy believes this.

Peter C. Oleson

Kailua

Unvaccinated raise insurance costs

Why don’t insurance companies get more involved and revoke and deny medical insurance to those who are not vaccinated?

Insurance companies are spending millions to care for unvaccinated COVID-19 patients, and these costs are being passed to us all. We are paying more for medical insurance because of the minority of people refusing vaccinations, and many ending up in hospitals and ICUs for months at a enormous cost.

Insurance companies need to weigh in on this growing problem. COVID-19 will be with us for a long time, we need to live with it — smartly.

Clif Johnson

Ala Moana

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