• Change our RPT assessment • Want a gun? Join the military • Mahalo Kaua‘i for your help • Monk seal rebuttal Change our RPT assessment As a payer of property tax on this island for almost 30 years and
• Change our RPT assessment • Want a gun? Join the military • Mahalo Kaua‘i for your help • Monk seal rebuttal
Change our RPT assessment
As a payer of property tax on this island for almost 30 years and not wanting to whine over the built-in inequities in the system, I offer the following suggestions to our council:
1. Change the assessment method from (so-called) fair market value requiring annual assessments to one in which owners are taxed on the price paid for the property plus cost of any future improvements.
This way fair market value is absolute and will not depend on the not-so-accurate modeling methods currently used, or any cost index based on O‘ahu costs. In addition, build in an increase (or decrease) based on the consumer price index.
If the county is concerned about losing money, make the starting point whatever the assessment is for 2013. This method would save all the money currently being spent on assessing property.
In fact, most or all of the assessment division could be eliminated. It would also fix the inequity of a whole neighborhood seeing tax increases when one rich person pays too much for something nearby.
2. Require all property owners to pay the tax i.e., churches and other nonprofits should pay its fair share as well as the government itself for property it owns.
I see no reason why, using just one example, the YMCA or Catholic Church (or any other church) should be exempt from paying property tax on its vast holdings.
I urge our council to start thinking about how to simplify and stabilize our tax system so average income folks can continue to live here.
The roller coaster of the current system is not good for taxpayers or for the county.
Michael Wells
Moloa‘a
Want a gun? Join the military
As a visitor to the beautiful Garden Island, it’s sad to see the same tired old arguments against gun control exist here as on Mainland.
Will Sexton’s March 3 letter attempts to justify increasing gun control by his own personal interpretation the phrase “well regulated.” It’s patent nonsense (of course) since well regulated means exactly what it says, not some gun advocate’s interpretation of it.
While we’re at it, how about the word “militia”? Is there some alternative dictionary floating around that defines the word as something other than a military body?
Clearly, the intention of the Second Amendment was to provide for organized, lawful groups of citizens to protect themselves against the many enemies of the fledgling states.
We have the same organizations today — they’re called the Army, Air Force, Navy, National Guard and police. If you want to own a gun, join one of them.
Mr. Sexton also doesn’t like the term “assault rifle,” apparently.
The weapons in question were designed to be exactly that — weapons to be used by the military during assaults on enemy forces — so what’s the problem?
While I’ve been away from my home town of Santa Cruz, Calif., two police officers were shot dead there by an armed gunman dressed in body armor and with multiple weapons.
Maybe Mr. Sexton should go talk to their families and ask them if they agree with his ideas on gun control.
People don’t kill people — guns do, plain and simple.
Peter Haworth
Santa Cruz, Calif.
Mahalo Kaua‘i for your help
While boogie boarding at Bernnecke’s Beach, a wave pounded my face into the bottom. Luckily, I was able to get up and walk ashore. I sat on the rocks, trying to stop the bleeding, thinking I wasn’t hurt that badly, but I was wrong.
Some nice young girls brought me a towel and washed the blood off my board, a man sat with me, and a lady walked over to get the lifeguards, who started attending to me, called the medics, and dialed my cell phone allowing me to talk with my wife and son.
The medics got me in a neck brace and wheel chair, and took me to the ER at a Lihu‘e hospital where I received first class treatment.
I would like to thank the total strangers and the competent professionals who helped me through a tough time.
Lee Bowen
Sequim, Wash.
Monk seal rebuttal
Once again, the federal worker malahini show they know nothing of Hawai‘i’s ocean culture.
If they think that the near shore waters of the Main Hawaiian Islands have an abundance of tako and puhi to feed the seals, think again.
Guys are diving all year around, and more so from April to September for both tako bait and tako poki for wedding and graduation celebrations. Or were they planning on curtailing diving?
Remember it was these same feds who restricted the fishermen from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — fishermen who in turn could fish down the populations of ulua and sharks that are competing with the seals there for tako and puhi.
William King
Hilo, Big Island
