Your Views for May 8

Why I was absent

I would like to clarify Nancy Cook Lauer’s article, “Attendance records improve” (Tribune-Herald, May 4).

I mentioned to Nancy some of my missing votes were because I attended a conference in October, and also because I had a planned vacation in March. But this was not mentioned in the article.

These three meeting days (Oct. 1-2 and March 7) resulted in me missing 12 votes on resolutions and 25 votes on bills.

I asked for the October 1-2 committee and council meetings to be rescheduled so I could attend, but that was denied.

Dennis Onishi

County Council member

More raises?

Here’s an unusual idea, Mr. Mayor (Billy Kenoi). Try finding something other than salary hikes and bigger government to spend our property tax increase/surplus and hotel tax revenue on.

Lifeguards and rescue Jet Skis at our beach parks are great. How about some decent bathroom facilities and some security for our vehicles and belongings while we enjoy using them?

Ever think about saving some of these funds for the proverbial rainy day?

There’s another idea.

Ted Orssten

Pahoa

Overpaid bureaucrats

Your article on May 6 noting Mayor Billy Kenoi was targeting “more than $20 million of a $$22 million increase (in tax revenues) for employee raises and benefits” was very disturbing.

This same article also reported department chiefs requested many new or expanded programs, few of which were funded.

It has been widely reported, in several recent mainstream magazine articles, that state and local government employees in the United States are paid more, and in some cases up to twice as much, as comparable private sector workers.

This being the case, it is a poor use of public resources to further overpay Hawaii County’s bureaucrats at the expense of necessary and useful programs, or a decrease in property taxes.

David Hudson

Hilo