• Flooring thanks
• Minimal property rights left
Flooring thanks
Flooring Innovations & Interiors would like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude to our families, friends, customers, business associates, the Kauai Fire Dept and most of all our employees, who are both family and friends, for all the care and support shown to us as a result of the devastating fire we experienced Jan 19th.
Mega thanks to the Fire Dept for their thoughtfulness in covering my desk, our computers and most of our business papers – what a blessing that turned out to be – our computers came right up, as did the printers and copier.
A huge thank you to Glen Naumu of Naumu Flooring and Supply for offering us space to set up a temporary office in the bay next to his.
How grateful we are to have a competitor who is first a friend!!
And to our employees, Dan and Andy Jones, Michael Wilmes, Paul Baxter, Art Solano, Justin Tew and Ryan Price – thank you more than words can express for helping with the filthy and horrible job of clean up.
And to Harmony Ross and Rich Hoeppner for getting the temporary office up and running and generally keeping things going – don’t know how we’d have managed without your help!
And to our “computer guy,” Al Salamon, for dropping everything to test our computers once we had somewhere to plug them in!
Our thanks and sincere appreciation go out to KIUC, who “turned us on” within four hours of us getting a temporary office!
To our families and friends, near and far, for your love and support, our hearts overflow with love and gratitude.
And last but certainly not least, we are extremely grateful for the condolences, words of support and encouragement from business associates and customers and especially for the patience and understanding of our customers while we re-ordered materials and got back on our feet.
We are up and running again, albeit no phone or fax lines til February 6th, but that’s minor in the overall scheme.
It’s at times like this that we are reminded of how truly valuable and precious our relationships are and what a gift the words of caring and support are. Mahalo and Aloha,
Judie Hilke Lundborg and Mark Jones
Lihu‘e
Minimal property rights left
There have been many letters of late calling for the abolishment of whatever minimal property rights that still remain.
There are inferences that our county leaders are incompetent for not passing laws defining when a property owner will be allowed to sell, to whom that sale may be made, and how much can be charged.
In addition they call for limitations on who the property may be rented to, as well as rent controls for those deemed worthy to be tenants.
A PhD (in what, I am curious) has decided that the ‘law of supply and demand’ is not a ‘law’ at all.
His apparent belief is that the only ‘laws’ are those passed by legislatures.
Under that concept, perhaps we should petition our government to repeal the ‘law’ of gravity so as to prevent airplane crashes.
No doubt they would try.
The prices of property have risen precipitously of late.
This is in part a result of government interference in the free market.
Nobody disputes the need for some zoning and land use laws – but over the years these have become overly restrictive due to the NIMBY effect drastically reducing the supply of residential land.
Further, many unnecessary building codes have hampered the maximum use of available lands as well as driven up costs of construction.
And then there is the cost of red tape encountered when trying to provide any reasonably affordable housing.
Recently a developer wanted to build 27 homes and the county in its infinite wisdom demanded that he build a 500,000-gallon water tank and donate it to the county.
The developer will have to pass on that cost to the buyers (so much for affordability) and presumably the county will then charge those homeowners for their own water.
And, of course, the county policymakers love these high prices that they have helped to engender.
They joyfully raise tax valuations on all and revel like Scrooge McDuck swimming in his silos of money.
Plenty of kala to pass around to ensure re-election.
The solution is not to have the government confiscate all property on the island.
Rather, we should eliminate some laws, get the government off our backs, and let free enterprise (yes, the ‘law’ of supply and demand) work.
Oceanfront properties will remain high priced while private enterprise will provide affordable housing as long as there is a demand for it, and the bureaucrats allow it to happen.
STAN GODES
Hanalei
