Praise on tax change misdirected
In regards to Ann Fraser’s letter on June 8 “Kudos for sticking up for homeowners,” your thank you to Mayor Kim for “sparing homeowners in the recent property tax rate increase” is misdirected.
Mayor Kim’s proposal was to apply a rate increase pro rata to all property classifications, including homeowner, other than affordable rental. Under his proposal, the homeowner rate would have gone from $6.15 to $6.55. Your thanks should be directed to seven of nine council members who voted for no increase to the homeowner classification.
In addition, your comment that “you have listened to the voices of those who are fully committed to living and working here” is not accurate. There is no work requirement for obtaining a homeowner exemption and thus being eligible for the homeowner rate. A person could live here full time and work here full time but pay rent for housing and would not be eligible for the homeowner rate.
In fact, a person in that situation could wind up effectively paying property tax at a rate of $11.10 (residential) or $11.70 (apartment, the highest rate under the new schedule) if the full amount of the recent increase was “passed through” to the tenant.
David Clark
Waikoloa
Trump fails basic vetting
I am very disturbed that our country is entering a dark era, an era of paralysis and of many marches and protests. I believe the stock markets will continue to decline, businesses will not expand, and very little will get accomplished in our Congress.
Because the president has clearly obstructed justice, now the country will be consumed with quest for impeachment. This type of disaster could be avoided in the future if all our political parties subject all primary candidates to an eligibility test that includes the following criteria: (1) Must agree to release their tax returns. (2) Must have relevant experience in government (3) Must be of sound and moral character.
Trump would have failed on all three criteria. This country would have been saved this long national nightmare.
Marian Hughes
Kamuela
Weekend closures discriminate
Whose crazy idea was it to close the little, well-loved Kealakekua Library to the public on Saturdays? Who in the upper Department of Education administration allowed such a hoax? The library needs to be open at least four hours on a Saturday for those of us full-time workers of the South Kona and Ocean View areas to do our book looking, magazine reading, etc.
Maybe I don’t make it to the library every Saturday, but I sure would like to. By closing the library on Saturdays, the DOE has turned the Kealakekua Library into a library that shows preference to people who don’t work. This is a form of discrimination, which should not be tolerated by the public at-large. And please don’t give me the argument that the library is open Wednesday evenings till 7 p.m. Week nights just don’t cut it. I don’t get out of work until 6 p.m. and I have to go home and feed the kids and a husband. In any case, week nights don’t work for most working people even if we’d like to go there. Please use some imagination in staffing the library on Saturdays.
The DOE should support the needs of our community’s full-time workers who pay state taxes and the DOE should continue to give us the opportunity to use the Kealakekua Library on weekends. To close the library to the public on Saturdays exhibits a lack of aloha for the community — it’s downright un-American. The library serves us down in Ocean View and a commitment from DOE superiors needs to get that library back on a sensible, community-based track. The American library is one of the greatest gifts of government to its people.
Pinky Girard
Ocean View