Letter: City officials need to tackle problems, not pay

The recent controversy regarding the Honolulu Salary Commission helping its elected and appointed buddies increase their salaries by more than 60% is absurd.

Let’s consider the litany of problems they don’t tackle: massive homelessness, increase in crime and shootings, overbudgeted rail transit, dilapidated transportation infrastructure, illegal fireworks, criminal enterprises at the Department of Planning and Permitting, failure to recover the $250,000 taxpayer-funded pension of former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, and most important, the out-of-court settlements that are costing taxpayers millions of dollars. That’s only a short list of issues that officials have failed to address.

The city government is corrupt to the core. I would like to thank them for using the recent increase in property tax revenues for their raises. All they did was “stick da finga” at the voters, telling them we do what we like in our interest.

Jackie L. Grambusch Jr.

Kapolei

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