The dream factory
If you add up all the things that a college is, they can all be summed up as one thing, it is a Dream Factory. Education is the single most important asset anyone can have to make their dreams come true. Hawaii has done an excellent job in creating the University of Hawaii system to insure that the coming generations can achieve their lifetime goals, and dreams.
Being a Hawaii resident offers a fifty percent discount to resident students to make college affordable, which is a great investment in the future.
Unfortunately, there are a few loop holes in determining residency which need to be addressed. A child who was born and raised in Hawaii, perhaps has never even left the state can still be called a “nonresident.” If an absent parent living on the mainland is claiming a child as a dependant on his taxes that child is “not a resident.” Similarly, a student who goes to the mainland for any number of reasons will discover they have lost their residency as a result.
We should welcome these family members home; we should not discriminate against children who are ensnared in the tax situation of their parents.
These inequities are going to be addressed this legislative session by House Bill 1488. The bill basically vests the right of residency at the University of Hawaii with a student when they receive their high school diploma from a high school in Hawaii. This would be a right which remains with the student no matter what twists of fate occur in their young lives.
I would encourage students (and parents) across Hawaii to contact their representatives and senators in support of HB 1488. This is about your future, your government, and the State of Hawaii which will soon belong to you. s
Michael Mentnech
Keaau
Show them they’re wrong
You can’t be for working families and for the zombie putative tree- cutting and burning Honua Ola power plant.
It’s ironic that some labor unions which claim to be advocates for working families support the Honua Ola project in Peepeekeo. According to filings from HECO submitted to the Public Utilities Commission and publicly available on the PUC docket website, their analysis shows that this project will cost Hawaii ratepayers at least more than $13 per month than alternatives.
That’s right — more than $150 a year for every electric-bill paying resident of the island that we would all have to pay if this project is approved under a, get this, 30-year power purchase contract. And enough already with Honua Ola’s relentless PR efforts spamming people’s inboxes with weekly fear mongering as they try to slam the reliability of other more green and affordable energy resources. Why do they have to try so hard?
With the availability of significantly lower cost geothermal, ample solar and wind, battery storage technology that is cheaper and better every day, and other new technologies on the horizon, there is no need to force these exorbitant costs on Hawaii Island residents. The billionaire investors in California and Delaware shell companies that are behind this project are counting on Hawaii being a backwater filled with uninformed locals who they can take advantage of. Let’s show them they’re wrong. Enough already.
Pierre Davet
Hilo
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