Need workers on Hilton Head? Pay a livable wage

Affordable housing is a partial solution for the Hilton Head Island workforce that also requires a solution: subsidizing it.

The restaurateur quoted in your paper could solve some his problem by raising wages. Pay $15 per hour to start and he’ll attract workers. Go European: build the tip into the bill and he’ll attract wait staff who will make more money. He could lobby Town Council to establish a Hilton Head minimum wage of $15 per hour, something Charleston is considering.

He could object to the Chamber of Commerce’s lobbying against unionization and for suppressing wages. The Hilton Head-Bluffton Chamber’s 17-point legislative agenda includes supporting South Carolina’s right-to-work status and “tempering minimum-wage increases.” Clearly, its “pro-business advocacy” would be against a $15-per-hour minimum wage.

The Chamber could institute an organization tax on members to raise money for the Chamber to build affordable housing for members’ workers.

Town Council could raise the tourism tax and designate the increased monies to build affordable housing.

The law of supply and demand is at work here. That should be driving up wages and benefits of service workers.

That it is not suggests that the service/tourism industry either is not able or not willing to support itself. It also raises the question of how wise it is to continue to expand an industry for which there are not enough workers and which does not generate enough money to pay workers a living wage.

Dr. Jeanne Audet opened our eyes to wonder

During this season of wonder and joy, I’d like to pause and remember Dr. Jeanne Audet of Hilton Head Island, who inspired all she touched to live, in Einstein’s words, in a state of “holy curiosity.”

I met Jeanne about 25 years ago at a meeting of her newly-formed Astronomy Club. Stargazers of all ages gathered in her yard to observe in amazement through binoculars and telescopes as she introduced us to the glory of the night sky. I signed up right away to receive her “Eye on the Sky” monthly newsletter, which encouraged subscribers from all over the country to look deeply into the mysteries of the universe.

I was surprised to later discover that Jeanne was a pediatrician. She was, in fact, one of the founding physicians of Volunteers in Medicine. I had figured she was a physicist because she was so passionate about astronomy. She was, after all, giving “Starry Night” lectures, she was the “Star Lady” on a local radio show, and she was a Solar System Ambassador for NASA. Many affectionately called her “Docstar.” After she turned 90, Jeanne continued to share her vast knowledge through Lifelong Learning lectures and her astronomy newsletter.

How is it some people have a special power to inspire and encourage? I hear Jeanne’s voice in a line from poet Mary Oliver:

Tell me, what is it you want to do

with your one wild and precious life?

During the busy holiday season, it’s easy to let the world slip through our fingers. The lives of those rare people like Jeanne remind us to make time to look up at the stars, to marvel at creation, and to live our one precious life with an awakened mind, an open heart, and a spirit of “holy curiosity.” Thanks, Docstar.

Paper ballot in Beaufort County would end lines

I voted this year and what I see is a voting system that is really a mess.

There are three pieces to the voting timeline: Pre-vote verification, ballot casting and vote counting. We have the emphasis all wrong.

Expensive voting machines facilitate the vote counting by replacing the paper ballot. This creates long lines in the pre-vote phase. In addition, the inability to validate what went into the machine has caused in many elections a need for the machine to produce a validating paper copy.

When I showed up to vote, there was no line waiting to be validated. It took maybe 3 minutes. I was then handed a plastic card and I stood in line for 45 minutes to use a voting machine. It then took maybe 5 minutes for me to cast a ballot.

This process could be improved with the return of the paper ballot and junking the expensive voting machines. I could have been handed a paper ballot, directed to any number of tables and thereby avoided the stand-in-line segment of the process. Instead of just six voters at a time, 30 or 40 or 50 or so could be voting at the same time.

We would shift the time burden to the counting of the ballots. This is not a real problem in that there are lots of us retired folks who would gladly volunteer for the job (cheaper than the machines), and really, instant gratification of who won isn’t essential to the voting process.

Proud to be from our ‘nation’

It seems to me that those who are in a snit over the words “nationalism,” “national,” and the root word “nation,” and are engaged in a cacophony of righteous indignation, thus calling for the expunging of these words from our national vocabulary, might wish to ponder the extent of their lunacy.

Should we consider rewording our “national anthem” or perhaps our Pledge of Alliance — “one nation under God”?

Continuing this unreasonable reasoning let’s explore:

▪  Hebrew National salami.

▪  The National Football League.

▪  Baseball’s National League.

▪  The National Biscuit Company — “Nabisco.”

▪  “National Shredded Wheat Day.” Oh my, what does one do for breakfast?

▪  The National Rifle Association.

▪  And last but not least — the bully pulpit for the left elitists and their spokesman, oops “spokesperson,” the National Broadcasting Corporation, NBC.

And to add further fodder to the mix, why not eliminate the word “America”?

Change the wording of “God Bless America.” Remember Kate Smith?

However, as Gertrude Stein has said, “A rose, is a rose, is a rose, is an onion.”

For me, I served and I still get a lump in my throat and tears do flow when I hear our “national anthem.” And, yes, I do still salute our national flag and my blood still runs red, white and blue with “One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”

As Tiny Tim said, “God bless us every one.”

P.S. However, I do kneel every Sunday in God’s sanctuary.

Immigrants crucial to SC

I find it hard to even begin responding to a recent letter, “Can S.C. afford immigrants?”

My answer is clear: South Carolina depends much on immigrants. I hazard to say that immigration is a net positive for this state and the nation.

The writer’s notion that we don’t need immigrants fails on multiple fronts.

A massive part of the Lowcountry economy is dependent on labor from immigrant populations, and has for decades. Businesses — such as restaurants, contractors, landscaping, agriculture, resorts, retail trades and health care assistance — are filled with immigrant laborers by the hundreds of thousands. Should those individuals be deported from South Carolina, the state would lose $1.8 billion in economic activity, $783 million in gross state product, and over 12,000 jobs; jobs the letter writer’s grandchildren surely will not take.

By and large, despite his claims, immigrants are not able to collect welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, SCHIP or SSI, except in limited cases for children who are American citizens according to the 14th Amendment. The chief actuary of the Social Security Administration estimates, nationally, that undocumented immigrants may pay up to $180 billion into the Social Security fund over a 10-year span — probably supporting a system to the writer’s benefit.

Finally, children, regardless of documentation, are entitled to school services in accord with the 1982 Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe.

Get the facts. Immigrants are critical to the lifeblood of our Lowcountry and the state. Period!