Appreciate the road repairs
Mr. Mayor:
When I read that Kahiliholo Road will be repaired this year I was so happy that I needed to make sure to thank you and all involved with getting this done for the over 300 homes in this neighborhood.
If you could do us another favor and reseal our road, which has not been sealed for 30 years, that would make us all so much happier. If you don’t have the budget for it now we would greatly appreciate it if you could at least have it restriped, as I am very worried that accidents will happen with no center line to define the road.
Mahalo nui loa,
Michael Radeczki, Kahiliholo Road, Kilauea
Look closely at housing problem
Government is the cause of the housing shortage.
Exactions, conditions and even laws that are meant to provide affordable housing actually result in less housing, according to experts such as Ricky Cassiday and Paul Brewbaker.
“You cannot maximize social welfare more than if you remove all distortions. Production quotas — no matter how you dress them up, like calling them ‘Workforce Housing Requirements,’ distort the housing market, result in less new housing and less affordable housing. Reducing the amount of new housing that can be built IS the problem. It is not the solution. Clever branding does not make bad public policy better.” — Paul Brewbaker
Dennis Esaki, Lihue
Value of land, people
We are nothing!
U.S. people are spiritual, but the popular image is the president, and swarms of couch potato trash. There are “we the people,” and there is the popular version presented. These are not the same. Free thinking has become standard issue.
However, the media that is presented is powerful. Propaganda trumps free thinking. The average total net worth of a U.S. citizen is $62,000. Most U.S. citizens are hard-working with one or more jobs. The average U.S. citizen is either renting or living with family. We either do not own our home or we live with family.
Fortunately, my family came a while ago when real estate was cheap, before it was only for rich people. There are many such stories, people living in family-owned property from before.
To put that in proper perspective, there is a billionaire here who owns 700 acres of this island. Do you know who that might be? Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook. The land for him is about $1 million per acre.
Barney Blankenship, Koloa
Over run with tourists and populations of foreigners who don’t care about our fragile enviroment and culture…. we are doomed.
Barney Blankenship said, “Most U.S. citizens are hard-working with one or more jobs.”
“Most”? Where did you get that? Here are the government statistics that show only 4.9% of all working Americans hold more than one job. How can we trust anything you say?
https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat36.htm
Blankenship said, “The average U.S. citizen is either renting or living with family. We either do not own our home or we live with family.”
Maybe there’s a reason for this. You can read part of it in Dennis Esaki’s letter above. Of course, Barney, you’re part of the problem with lack of housing since your family came here and took up housing that might have gone to a kama’aina. Hypocrite!
Abigail Summerville of CNBC wrote, “Rising home prices, lingering fears from the housing crash, and larger amounts of student debt are some of the reasons why many Americans see the appeal of renting, said Richard Fry, a senior researcher at Pew and one of the report’s authors.
“There is some evidence that increased student debt has made it more difficult for households headed by young adults to become homeowners,” Fry said.
And millennials (those age 35 and younger) continue to be the most likely of all age groups to rent, Pew found. In 2016, 65 percent of households headed by young adults were renting, up 8 percentage points from 2006.
Other reasons could be that young adults haven’t accumulated enough wealth for a down payment on a house, Fry said. Also, owning a home inhibits moving, and young adults are the most likely age group to move, so they may prefer not to own just yet, he said.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/20/there-are-more-renters-than-any-time-since-1965.html
Student debt is rising because parents no longer save to send their children to college. So they let their children be burdened with huge debt when they’re just starting of life on their own. Great parenting!
M. Radeczki . I wouldn’t be surprise< "if you get your wishes granted from the mayor and DOT." It's an election year! Mayor Carvalho need your vote for LT. Gov. What we need is new bloods in offices with better and greater ideas that could work for Kauai. There is such a person who believes, "build more affordable homes for the young and mix it in with commercial buildings. So people can walk to work instead of using their POV."
Barney, perhaps your arrival to and settling in Kauai led to high real estate prices? Supply and demand.
I’m not sure what Mr Blankenship wants done with Mark Zuckerberg. Yes many of struggle with our day to day existence. It’s symptomatic of the growing income disparity. Yet to point out a wealth holder like Zuckerberg has property on island is saying what? He’s not a self made wealth holder? Those with wealth are never welcome on Kauai?
Nice letter. But what you need to know is that you can write whatever you like. The mayor is a fake. Very tall guy. And big. Just football & UH cable tv time. That’s the show. Many fakes in office. Spot them clearly. Small State.
Kahiliholo Rd culvert to fixed by end of year? I’ll believe that when it’s actually done. I’d bet on 2019. If the property owner (Porter) that the current 1-2 mile pothole ridden one-lane gravel access road runs through doesn’t renew access for K Road residents, workers, it would have to get done. While it is true we are of limited resources, had to wait for FEMA money, the bottom line is the gift of the access road contributed to the lack of a priority. Time to end the access agreement…put a deadline on it. In the meantime, compared to the Wainiha and Haena convoy system, the access road is no problem.