Quick point to consider
If guns kill people, I guess spoons make you fat, too.
Hugo von Platen Luder
Holualoa
And quick question to ponder
Can we trade our west side fire ants for east side garbage?
Kurt Engelstad
Kailua-Kona
Host lists aren’t what they seem
Regarding your article on vacation rentals and the idea that some hosts are not paying their taxes, I question the involvement of Ross Birch, executive director of the Island of Hawaii Visitors Bureau. I sense that he is representing the hotel industry and not Hawaiian tourism. The Big Island, particularly the east side, does not have enough rooms to manage our tourist demand. And, the paying public demands vacation rentals as an option to sterile, expensive hotels.
The numbers of vacation rentals are highly inflated by a number of factors. Hosts market the same property several ways, each with a different number of rooms or services. Hosts market across multiple platforms and may use different property names. And, studies have shown that 50 percent of listings are actually inactive and do not accept reservations.
Bill 108, to which you refer, was a amateurishly written bill that has the sense of having been written by a bunch of angry people.
Taxes need to be paid, and the transient vacation rental industry needs to have controls, but the process to do this needs to include representatives from many groups and be equitable to all.
David Currier
Pahoa
Company deserves mahalo
Thanks, Helco. Nice job on replacing our underground service at the Queen Liliuokalani Village. No more flickering lights, no more exploding transformers, and I think my photo voltaic works better with clean power.
The subs were courteous, and accommodating, thanks guys, great job.
Bill Lawrence
Queen Liliuokalani Village, Kailua-Kona
Silly point needs addressing
One comment in Eric Hafner’s Monday letter has merit: “Hawaii is not America.”
Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, etc. are America. Perhaps he could have correctly identified the remotest land mass on the planet where he lives as Polynesia. Perhaps he can promote and begin a withdrawal policy of government aid from the United States of North America’s federal government to the Hawaiian atoll of Polynesia.
The DPRK stepping in to give assistance kind of sounds like Cuba a few years ago. Probably should check out how that went first.
Ann Medve
Hawi
