Members of Kaua‘i-based ad hoc committee Ohana Kauai yesterday submitted to the County Clerk’s Office the required number of signatures for a petition for a charter amendment proposal to roll back and cap county property taxes. The charter amendment proposal
Members of Kaua‘i-based ad hoc committee Ohana Kauai yesterday submitted to the County Clerk’s Office the required number of signatures for a petition for a charter amendment proposal to roll back and cap county property taxes.
The charter amendment proposal intends to reduce property taxes for residents who occupy their homes to the tax amount they paid in 1998-1999.
The initiative also proposes to limit tax increases to 2 percent a year in 2006, a year after the proposal takes effect.
For residents who buy homes after 1998, the rollback would be applied to the year they bought their home.
Gathering at the historic County Building, Ohana Kauai members said they submitted to County Clerk Peter Nakamura petitions containing signatures of 2300 registered voters.
Only 1870 signatures were required before the proposed charter amendment could be voted upon in the general election in November 2004.
Ohana Kauai members said the proposal is the first charter amendment initiated by a voter petition since 1984.
Walter Lewis, of the founders of Ohana Kauai, said the group was pleased with the results of the petition drive, and thanked all who signed the petitions.
Although the deadline for filing the petition is June 25, Lewis said more signatures will be collected to ensure the measure goes to voters this year.
“We are extending our drive for signatures in order that they can do so (become acquainted with the initiative),” said Lewis, a retired attorney and a resident of Princeville.
Ohana Kauai members mounted the petition drive last November in response to what they said have been repeat high-priced sales over the last six years that continue to threaten to force longtime homeowners off their land.
The repeat sales have ratcheted up the assessments of neighborhood properties that are not for sale, county officials have said. Lewis said county officials have confirmed that the average assessment for properties has gone up nearly 30 percent from last year.
Because of higher assessments, the landowners are confronted by spiraling tax bills that leave them no alternative but to sell, resulting in their displacement and that of their family members.
Lewis said the Ohana Kauai initiative would take effect in 2005 if voters approved it in the upcoming election.
Lewis said the county could lose an estimated $1 million in property tax revenues a year should the initiative be adopted by voters.
That figure would drop with each passing year because “people who are eligible will be selling them (their homes), and when they do that, they lose the benefit,” Lewis said.
Lewis said the loss of the $1 million dollars a year is not significant because it is only about one percent of the budget, and can be “compensated by increases in taxes elsewhere.”
Additional revenues could be generated by possibly raising the tax rates for seven other tax categories, including those that apply to businesses and resort operations, for instance.
When asked whether proprietors of businesses and resorts would be happy about higher tax rates and having to pay more property taxes while homeowners pay less, Lewis said they “may not like it, no.”
The loss of the real property tax revenues could mean a cutback in government services, Lewis acknowledged.
More funds can be found elsewhere to run government, and less funds will prod government agencies to operate more efficiently and to provide the same level of services that exist now, Lewis said.
Residents will embrace the initiative because “People always look for an opportunity to reduce their taxes when they feel it is an appropriate thing,” Lewis said.
Lewis said Kauai Ohana members chose 1998 as the point at which the property tax relief measure should kick in because that was the year when property assessments started to spiral.
“Tax rates were pretty much level from 1992 to 1997, but beginning in 1998, tax amounts increased as assessments increased,” Lewis said.
Lewis declined to comment on a report a Kaua‘i County task force recently sent to the Kaua‘i County Council recommending reform of the county tax structure.
Chief among the recommendations was one proposing to charge higher taxes for construction of large residential buildings and less taxes for the land. Currently, the tax is higher for land than it is for buildings.
Making the shift would allow longtime property owners to stay on their land, task group members have told council members. The council has taken no official action on the recommendations at this time.
Lewis said he would not make a direct comparison between his group’s charter amendment proposal and task force report.
“We are not offering any comment on the measure presented by the task force. Their purpose is to provide overall reform to county property taxes,” Lewis said. “Our measure only targets the particular segment, that is to say the resident homeowners.”
The county task force makes recommendations not only for the homeowner tax category but for the other tax categories related to commercial, industrial and hotel businesses.
People who are interested in the Ohana Kauai initiative can call members at 822-0988 or at 332-9745.
Ohana group members who presented the petitions to the county included Dr. Monroe Richman, of Koloa; Ming Fang, a retired businessman living in Kilauea; John Hoff, a South Kaua‘i resident who is a contractor who has started the first union for substitute teachers in Hawai‘i; “Doc” Gordon Smith and his wife, LuAnne Smith of Kapa‘a and Glenn Mickens, a retired baseball coach and resident of Kapa‘a.
Other members include Ron Kouchi, a former chairman of the Kaua‘i County Council and mayoral candidate in 2002; Chick Lanphier; Wayne Medeiros; Bruce Pleas; Bill Steed; Michael Wells; Donald Whiting and John Wooten.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
