Project will harm wildlife
The real impact is to the wildlife at Kahaluu Beach Park. These cheap timeshare buildings require underground termicide treatments regularly.
These nasty chlorinated pesticides leach through our lava tube soil into the bay and kill the limu and colorful reef fish. It won’t take long. On Oahu they call them legacy pollution, and you cannot anything from fresh water due to aldrin and deldrin injected for years to stop termites from eating cheap buildings.
Rollin Frost
Kailua-Kona
Flags deserve our respect
On Tuesday’s opinion page there was an expression of true Americanism by Jim Lomonaco regarding the incorrect flying of our flags at Kona Shopping Center.
I am not a veteran but I am a true American who believes that our flags should be treated respectfully and must be flown properly. Shame on the management company that will not return calls. How would they like it if we all quit shopping there? I just might do that. Perhaps we should plan a walk up and down Palani Road holding our wonderful flags, then maybe someone would listen.
Thank you Mr. Lomonaco for starting this.
Anita Labertew
Ocean View
Left really not that radical
Self-identified Libertarian Tom Munden is still living in the 1960s with his reference to the “New Left” and its supposed influence on the Democratic Party. The New Left’s influence is negligible in the party or anywhere else. Unfortunately, the national party has been controlled by neo-liberals who are controlled by corporate Wall Street hucksters. Whether this continues is the biggest question facing the party at this time.
The New Left philosophy was the mistaken belief by some on the political left that the working class could be ignored and elections could still be won. Neo-liberals believe the same but put profits at any cost over the welfare of American Workers and as Clinton found out that doesn’t win elections either. To suggest Bernie Sanders belongs in either one of these groups is a display of complete ignorance of political philosophy and the man himself.
Actually, Munden as a Libertarian is in common cause with the neo-liberals. Get rid of all government regulations and rules as he would like and the global monopolist corporations will be free to do whatever they want to the people in pursuit of profits without limits.
Such a system will never survive in the never ending struggle of history. And the “radical” issues the progressives of the Democratic Party support all polls show a large majority of the American people support now and will in the future!
Bill Johnston
Kailua-Kona
Pass commonsense AirBnB laws
I am writing in support of SB 704 to expedite the payment of state taxes by AirBnB and other rental platforms for vacation rentals. My partner and I have owned two vacation rentals in Puna for the past three years and we deeply appreciate this work. This is a win-win situation. Tourists love the personal and intimate experience of staying in our homes and what makes having a vacation in Hawaii distinctive.
Furthermore, this provides an income for us and for our community. As it is currently written, HB1471 would be difficult to enforce and potentially violates federal law. Lawmakers should move to pass simple, commonsense legislation like SB704 that would bring in as much as $100 million per year in much-needed revenue for Hawaii. There are millions of dollars of taxes going uncollected right now. With the state facing a major budget fall, Hawaii and its citizens would benefit from a bill that brings immediate financial relief to the state.
Robert Golden
Pahoa