I am writing as a citizen and not as vice chairman of the city’s Ethics Commission.

For at least the last 15 years, the commission has, through its executive director, Chuck Totto, instructed city boards and the City Council that any votes made without disclosing a conflict renders that vote null and void.

My recent public comments confirmed that when reasonable grounds exist to question the validity of votes cast, it is incumbent on the convening authority — in this case, the City Council — to review the matter to determine whether corrective action should be taken.

It is gratifying to learn that the Council apparently has decided to do just that (“Suit filed over votes on rail says Council has to vote anew,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 9). That action is vital to ensure that the public has full confidence that our government operates at the highest levels of honesty and integrity.

Michael A. Lilly
Pacific Heights

Express Yourself

» Write us: We welcome letters up to 150 words, and guest columns of 500-600 words. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Include your name, address and daytime telephone number.

» Mail: Letters to the Editor
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
7 Waterfront Plaza, 500 Ala Moana, Suite 210
Honolulu, HI 96813

» E-mail: letters@staradvertiser.com
» Fax: 529-4750
» Phone: 529-4831

OTEC power plants on net are positive

Regarding ocean thermal energy conversion: OTEC power plants use warm and cold seawater to generate stable renewable power, and then return the seawater to the ocean without altering its chemistry (“Deep ocean water should stay there?” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Sept. 7).

The net effect is that the seawater is cooled very slightly.

The warm and cold seawater flows leaving an OTEC plant are mixed and returned at a depth where its temperature is close to the ambient seawater. Studies suggest that effects on local temperatures are too small to measure, even a short distance from the plant.

Seawater air conditioning cools buildings using cold seawater. Unlike conventional AC, which uses energy to reject heat to the atmosphere, it uses a natural cold reservoir for cooling. This process uses up to 80 percent less electricity for a given AC load and thus causes less heat (and carbon from burning fossil fuels) to be released into the environment.

Like OTEC, the seawater chemistry is not altered and, after use, it is returned to the ocean at an intermediate depth where it naturally disperses.

Duke Hartman
Makai Ocean Engineering Inc.
Waimanalo

Cartoon treated storms too lightly

I found the “Trouble in Paradise” comic strip by Dave Swann very insensitive (Star-Advertiser, Sept. 6). He drew 10 years of hurricane warnings as boring.

Does he live in Hawaii?

A direct hit with 100-plus mph wind is not the only scary part of a hurricane.

I doubt that those wading through thigh-high water or merchants sweeping water out of their businesses and assessing their damages were sleeping, as the last panel depicted.

The cars that were ruined are real. The mold that will grow in buildings is real. Nine named storms in three months is real. Three more months of this is unnerving.

His style isn’t for everybody — I get that — but his lack of compassion for this stressful hurricane season is beyond me.

I guess he will be excited if we get hit directly. Oh, imagine the drawings.

Leslie Graham
Mililani

Hawaii churches have been helping

Gary Dubrall’s letter, “Churches could do more to help poor,” (Star-Advertiser, Sept. 8) suggests that local churches “develop and implement concrete solutions to help the poor in Hawaii.”

The good news is that they have and continue to do so.

More than 30 years ago, four churches — St. Andrew’s Episcopal, First United Methodist, Aldersgate United Methodist, and the United Church of Christ, Judd Street — created with their own resources, along with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, God’s help and innumerable volunteer hours, a senior housing complex called Keola Hoonanea on Aala Street that now houses 175 low-income residents (and thousands over the years).

With faith and visioning, these churches have provided long-term affordable housing that is safe and well-maintained and with beautiful gardens.

I invite the city and state powers-that-be to see what is possible, and to know that churches have, indeed, developed and implemented a very concrete solution to help the poor in Hawaii.

Libby Yee
Manoa

U.S. children victims of inner city decline

The picture of a drowned 3-year-old boy was heart-rending (“Toddler’s death made tragedy tangible,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 5).

But we don’t need more refugees in the United States.

We have refugees of our own, refugees that we are not taking care of. These refugees are the millions of children who live in cities that have gone to hell in the last 30 or 40 years.

While our own U.S.-born children are without decent schools, food and care, we are bringing to the United States millions of people from Africa, Mexico and the Middle East.

Our U.S. kids are refugees from politicians mismanaging and wasting the money that should go to resurrecting our inner cities.

They are also refugees from the lousy trade agreements that have been made, starting with NAFTA.

Sandra Gray
Hawi, Hawaii island

Be more specific about corruption

The state attorney general blames Ciber, Inc., which “used lobbyists and exercised inappropriate political influence,” but doesn’t even hint of any pursuit of the corrupt politicians who kept paying the invoices despite Ciber’s non-performance (“Firm fraudulent, state says,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 3).

And the Star-Advertiser seems to have no interest in who the politicians are and what laws they broke, either — a very symbiotic relationship in a one-party state.

Kenneth Stewart
Kailua