Letters | 10-05-14

More pressing problems than property tax exemption

I read with interest your “County eyes Property tax revisions” story in the Sept. 30 edition of the West Hawaii Today. I guess that Margaret Willie doesn’t understand that you can be a “full-time resident of Hawaii,” not have any Hawaii State Income Tax liability and are not required to fill out a state income tax form each year.

Under her plan (Bill 292), if you don’t fill out a state tax return, you don’t get the personal property exemption.

Get ready senior citizens (and others) — if you do not have any Hawaii state tax liability, and you are not required to fill out the state income tax form, your property tax is going to go up thanks to her.

Residents who are not required to pay state income tax should start calling their representatives and showing up at meetings with vocal opposition to this proposal, otherwise they are going to get the surprise of their lives when they get the next property tax bill.

Why don’t our representatives work on the big problems here on the Big Island?

I would think that drunken driving, meth, infrastructure maintenance, education, medical and other issues would be a priority over a few scofflaws who are getting away with relatively little, when compared to the value of working on and solving some of our most pressing issues.

Wilson Pepper

Waimea

Industrialized nations need to stop polluting

Whenever I read about the Hawaiian crow and monk seals threat of becoming extinct, I wonder if it’s not nature’s way of mercifully allowing these animals a way of exiting this existence that will soon become uninhabitable.

Mankind has done so much damage to our environment that animals can’t find enough food to survive. Now they have to be cared for by man who took away their power to hunt for themselves. The trend is happening and species after species will slowly disappear. I commend those who are animal lovers like myself who want to save the them all. It’s quite distressing to read about them every day.

I just wish there was more we could do, but until all industrialized nations stop polluting our environment, there seems little chance of anything surviving extinction.

Colleen Miyose-Wallis

Kona

Protect Kona coffee, protect our farmers

Brenda Ford of our County Council is spot-on for her latest initiative to get more truth in coffee labeling. Too much fact-covering with the labels used on locally sold Kona coffee — much less that going to the mainland — has been going on, and for too long.

I have been a fan of good Kona-grown for a quarter century and used to buy it on the mainland before I moved here not knowing really what was occurring. How preposterous for Longs Drugs, Safeway and even our locally owned businesses to sell Kona’s farmers’ product short, like they have been doing. Ten percent? Of what? The worst of the worst — maybe. I could taste the difference then and now even more so.

Friends, get the word out and protect a cherished and historic product. It helps you and helps the hard-working farmers of the historic crop.

Robert Lawrence

Kailua-Kona

Accept fearmongering news with grain of salt

Recent disturbing trends have me quite worried about the state of mind of our country. There seems to be so many people living in fear of outside events, despite the lack of evidence. We need to take a deep breath and trust ourselves more.

The economy is not in the tank: job growth, manufacturing, housing starts are all up — look it up.

There are about 12 Americans fighting with ISIS, not hundreds — look it up. There is no credible evidence that ISIS or anyone else from the outside is a direct threat to our country right now.

Fearmongering by some news agencies and congressmen who take delight in scaring the heck out of everybody seem to have no facts to back them up — Fox news, CNN, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

What is a very real and direct threat to our homeland is the number of untreated mentally ill people with guns, knives, machetes and axes, and the general acceptance of violence as the norm. Most terrorism, as we know it, is being committed by our own citizens.

Let’s all take a deep breath, watch the news with a large grain of salt, and stop becoming unhinged about remote possibilities.

Louise Winn

Honaunau