• Realtor’s helping hand • Soldier’s photo • Wars • Hawaiian symposium • Property taxes • Windpower • Bike path costs Realtor’s helping hand In regards to “Realtor helps family get off the beach” in Friday’s paper: Great mothers day
• Realtor’s helping hand
• Soldier’s photo
• Wars
• Hawaiian symposium
• Property taxes
• Windpower
• Bike path costs
Realtor’s helping hand
In regards to “Realtor helps family get off the beach” in Friday’s paper: Great mothers day for this family. We know firsthand how John Bandmann and Prosser Realty are. During our recent sale and purchase as we down scaled from a large condo to a smaller one the reason we turned to Prosser Realty and John is because they are honest hard working professionals who treat you and me no matter who we are rich or poor with the utmost respect and go the extra mile. The best part is John and everyone at Prosser still have the aloha and ‘ohana spirit from the heart. Prosser Realty and John are truly what Kaua‘i use to be. They deserve a mahalo nui loa from all of us who have had the unique pleasure of dealing or working with them.
- Eileen & Danny Hendrix
Lihu‘e
Soldier’s photo
Picture the American soldier, Major Mark Bieger, with the dying Iraqi child in his arms as presented in the headline news.
If we had not attacked Iraq, if our troops were not in Iraq, that child would still be alive, I feel an incredible sadness, compassion, for the Major, and all the rest of you, who must at one time or another accept that truth.
Wars
Regarding Vietnam and North Korea, if we had stayed the course until we won the peace and freedom in those two counties we would not be in the mess we are in now.
North and South Korea would be one successful country and The Vietnamese would be free and probably a democratic country.
But the peace activists caused us to waste all of those military lives that were lost. What a shame. I sure hope it doesn’t happen again with Iraq.
- Gordon “Doc” Smith
Kapa‘a
Hawaiian symposium
At the Symposium of the Hawaiian Society of Law and Politics held April 16 at UH Manoa Hawai‘i Imin International Conference Center, I felt the mutual respect that emanated between those on stage at the podium and the 300 people seated in the audience.
It was abundantly worth my trip from Kaua‘i to O‘ahu to be there. The formality of the occasion in which topics such as the continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom were presented by professionals in the field of law, history and political science did not detract from the human warmth that also enlivened the sessions.
Questions from the response panelists as well as the presentations themselves helped me to make the distinctions in my mind that I wanted to make, so as to be better able to interpret Hawai‘i’s legal and historical footing of the past to the present.
Posted on http.//www2.hawaji,edu/~hdp is information concerning the symposium and other features describing the work of the Hawaiian Society of Law and Politics.
Property taxes
A quick response to Juan Wilson’s most accurate and timely article on “Property taxes.” The dilemma of being taxed out of one’s home that Mr. Wilson describes has already been addressed, a solution found, and submitted to the voters of Kaua‘i for a vote. It passed with an assumption of a correction. This “correction” is called the Ohana Kauai Property Tax Relief Charter amendment that was placed on last November’s general election ballot and passed by a huge majority, 13,000 in favor to 8,000 opposed.
Unfortunately, although the large majority of voters on Kaua‘i are for property tax relief, our elected officials, the County Council and the administration, are against it. Instead of respecting a legal vote and adopting this victorious amendment in the time designated by our County Charter, our elected law makers decided not to obey the law. They chose rather to challenge the people’s will in the courts. They chose to sue the county (the voters) with county (taxpayers’) tax dollars. Kaua‘i’s law makers decreed that they would rather sue than serve, defer than decide, reign rather than resolve. Isn’t that reckless behavior for elected servants with an election next year? Or do they already know their reign is destined for no end? If so, let’s save money and forget election 2006.
Windpower
Maui is adding a $65 million, 30-megawatt (MW) wind farm due to begin producing 9 percent of their needs early next year. The project uses just 20 GE turbines with prop heights of 280 feet visible from few homes.
According to Maui Electric’s President Ed Reinhardt, the purchased power will cost 8 cts/KWhr and save as much as 168,000 barrels of diesel in 2006. ($13 million at KIUC’s purchase price). Mr. Reinhardt is quoted as saying “It’s going to be good for us here. We want to get more renewable energy on Maui.” Kaua‘i residents paid 30 cts/KWhr in April, of which 15-18 cts/KWhr was fuel, double what Maui will pay for this renewable energy.
The Star Bulletin also reports that the Big Island is building a 10 MW wind farm at Hawi and adding 12.5 MW to the existing 7.0 KW South Point facility. Seems the “mixed results” our editor refers to in The Garden Island have lead to quadrupling the size of the Big Island wind farming. Maybe the wind blows differently on other islands, or maybe from a different direction, politically speaking.
And perhaps Kaua‘i residents prefer to pay twice as much to look at smoke-stacks rather than the four to six windmills we’d need to match Maui’s 10 percent of usage. Perhaps not. Have KIUC and local business really presented a side-by-side proposal to us? Or are we overpaying to maintain the status quo?
Bike path costs
I can’t believe it ! Twelve million for a coastal bike path that very few locals will be able to use. We’ll be working our two (three?) jobs to pay for it, or else we’ll be stuck in gridlock traffic trying to get to one of those jobs.
For Pete’s sake…fix our traffic problems first!
- Kay Obloy
Wailua Homesteads
