I pay my one employee $25 an hour. When I had a larger staff, before 2009, I paid all my employees $10 an hour when the minimum wage was around $7.

The government has not done one thing to keep rents low. Landlords have been able to quadruple rents. Airbnb is ruining the rental market.

Yet they hold wages down. How are people to ever own homes?

Unable to afford to buy anything but a tiny apartment on Oahu all these years, we rented a small house. We bought our first home on Hawaii island recently.

We need a two-tier system to help small businesses — trainee and regular wage. No one who has worked more than a year and is over 18 years of age should be paid less than $15.

Some employers deliberately hire workers for less than 20 hours per week to control costs.

And we worry about the homeless?

Diane Murray Wernet

Kapahulu

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Fire employee who sent out missile alert

Regarding the false alert issued out to the entire state, and the impact it had on all residents and visitors, I cannot believe the person responsible has not been automatically fired.

This employee held a position of trust and I can only assume had the proper training to carry out his duties.

The cause-and-effect of his actions is at a level where dismissal is required.

Scott Schneider

Maunaloa, Molokai

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Let’s learn from our lack of preparedness

Twelve minutes. Forty-eight hours. Fourteen days. That’s the approximate key timeline for nuclear disaster preparedness.

Twelve minutes to get to safety after public notification. Forty-eight hours staying put in an enclosed shelter while radiation breaks down. Fourteen days to shelter-in-place during rescue and recovery efforts.

For other disasters like hurricanes or tsunamis, we’ve been asked to have a 14-day supply of food and other necessities.

The state has robustly been trying to engage the public to be prepared by using public service announcements, flyers and community meetings.

Last Saturday we found out how few have paid attention or heeded the advice. Let’s move forward, with the focus on safety and preparedness instead of on blaming, grandstanding or punishing.

The investigations are in progress. No one needs to be fired. We all need to be ready. Public safety is as much our responsibility as the government’s. Be prepared.

Claire P. Santos

Punchbowl

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City can’t identify illegal rentals

Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the density of “monster houses” destroys the character of residential neighborhoods. Don’t the thousands of illegal short-term rentals do the same?

We have no enforcement laws to identify these units. According to the city lawmakers, if an ad is placed offering a short-term rental without a permit, that cannot be used as proof that it is operating as an illegal rental, even with accompanying complaints.

The Oahu Real Property Tax Advisory Commission proposed a new tax category for short-term rentals (“Property tax panel proposes changes for fairness,” Star-Advertiser, Jan. 7).

To designate a house a short-term rental, the city must have a method to confirm it. Will they use that method to stop the illegal short-term rentals?

All elected officials take an oath to support our laws. How much money and moral integrity is it actually costing us to allow this illegal activity to continue?

Vern Hinsvark

Kailua

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Green House model helps ALS patients

Most nursing homes provide the care that is enough to sustain life, and not much more.

The Green House model of care, described in your reprint of a New York Times article, is a loud protest against care currently dispensed to our elderly and disabled in most nursing homes (“A Better Kind of Nursing Home,” Star-Advertiser, Jan. 7). They deserve care that focuses on a meaningful life that respects human growth and development, even as we grow old or become disabled.

While the Green House model was initially meant to revolutionize elder care, it has also been shown to work well with disabled ALS patients in the three ALS residences in the country.

Contrary to expectations, ALS paralyzes people but leaves higher brain functions intact. Current ALS care in most nursing homes ignores this fact. People with ALS in nursing homes live the rest of their lives staring at ceilings with little hope for meaningful interactions with their environments.

Divina Telan Robillard

President, ALS Foundation of Hawaii

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America’s actions threaten the world

Neil Frazer hit the nail on the head, and begs further comment (“Others live in fear of U.S. drone strikes,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Jan. 16).

Since World War II, America protected regimes far worse than Kim Jong Un. To name a few: Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier in Haiti; Augusto Pinochet in Chile; death squads in El Salvador; and Fulgencio Batista in Cuba.

America was the ringleader in the deaths of government leaders, most recently Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. Our CIA engaged in torture in Central America and Iraq.

We endanger the world with at least 6,800 nuclear bombs, ICBMS, nuclear bomb-carrying submarines, war games and invasion exercises.

These are a few examples why North Korean President Kim Jong Un is terrified of America. He warned us to stop the war “games” directed at his country, but we did the opposite.

Meanwhile, millions of civilians are at risk wherever U.S. military bases are — South Korea, Japan, Guam, Hawaii, etc. — and which the current errors in Hawaii and Japan portended.

Caroll Han

Punchbowl