• A Hidden Agenda? A Hidden Agenda? By John Hoff The Ohana Kaua‘i Charter amendment has received a great deal of attention and opposition from Kaua‘i’s elected officials. Both County Council members and the administration have expressed hostility to the
• A Hidden Agenda?
A Hidden Agenda?
By John Hoff
The Ohana Kaua‘i Charter amendment has received a great deal of attention and opposition from Kaua‘i’s elected officials. Both County Council members and the administration have expressed hostility to the amendment in articles and vocally at forums and public meetings. Illustrative are the article by JoAnn Yukimura. and Joe Munechika, two candidates for County Council, in the September 26th Garden Island, remarks made by Council members at the Board of Realtors on September 29th and the forum presented in Lihu‘e by the Garden Island just last night, October 5th .
A principal contention they made is that the term “County resident” was not defined in the proposed amendment. While the meaning of the term would be quite clear to most people, in addition the last sentence of the proposed amendment provides to the County government the right and obligation to adopt such laws and rules as are necessary to interpret and carry out the proposes of the proposal. In other words, our elected officials are given the responsibility to prevent abuses such as non-resident owners of vacation rentals and time shares attempting to claim rights they are not entitled to. Our elected representatives have been given the opportunity to exhibit their leadership qualities.
They also raised subordinate issues about effects on Kaua‘i’s bond ratings and budget problems. These arguments were effectively answered by Ohana members Walter Lewis and Glenn Mickens in articles published in The Garden Island and at the forum. In short, the County has ample means of generating revenues to replace any shortfall. All that is required is leadership on the part of our County Council.
Because of the rather trivial nature of the reasons to oppose the Ohana measure, it appears that the main problem they have is that the Ohana concept was initiated by a citizens group and this offended their prerogatives. In JoAnn’s and Joe’s article they state that “it is a terrible idea to establish our real property tax system by charter amendment.” I am concerned that what the council candidates are really saying is that it is a terrible idea to allow our citizens to have a choice in their government. My concern was re-enforced as candidate Munechika declared at the Board of Realtor’s forum that the Ohana Kaua‘i charter amendment issue “does not belong here (in a community forum), it belongs on the floor of the Council.”
The position being taken by the council members is that they disapprove of citizens exercising their rights. The framers of our County Charter very clearly empowered our County residents to initiate and vote on measures when our legislators failed to carry out the wishes of the electorate. I cannot go along with a philosophy of governing that denies these fundamental rights to our citizens. This viewpoint permeates our incumbents lawmakers disapproval of the Ohana Kaua‘i Charter amendment and is the reason I am running for office. This very same display of disregard for the electorate was demonstrated a few months ago in the past state legislative session when all four of Kaua‘i’s incumbent state lawmakers voted to deny Kaua‘i’s voters the opportunity to vote on the issue concerning local school boards and the department of education system. Why is our majority leadership so afraid to have voters voice their opinions, decide for themselves? Where would we be today if our Founding forefathers thought this way? Probably still on Plymouth Rock.
As a community, we dare not lose our young, our “local” families, our neighborhoods and become just a community of revenue producing strangers, visitors, transients. The reality of the situation is that resident homeowners property taxes are soaring in cost. After personally witnessing a 350% increase in one year for a long term, generational, resident widow living on a limited income in the Wailua homesteads, it is time to vote for relief. She placed her trust in our counties property tax exemptions and lost. In order to pay her skyrocketing property taxes she had to “raid her savings account” reserved for medications. Though the art of “raiding funds” from supplementary sources is a fine tuned practice of our lawmakers, it is a death knell practice for resident homeowners budgets.
Candidates need to stop and consider why they are running and their responsibilities when they swear to uphold the constitutions for the United States of America and of Hawai‘i as well as the protection of our rights and our properties.
John Hoff is a resident of Lawa‘i, a member of Ohana Kauai and is running for the East Kaua‘i seat in the State House of Representatives as a Republican.
