[ OUR OPINION ]
State should keep
trying to improve
airport taxi system
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The State Independent Drivers Association, or SIDA, had the contract with the airport for seven years but closed down last year, in debt to the state for more than $730,000 in concessionaire payments and interest. Signature Cab Holdings took over the operation until last May, when the state Department of Transportation granted the first taxi managing service for the airport to a non-cab company, Ampco System Parking, and it has been a bumpy road.
Visitors' experience upon arriving at the airport can be important, and recent reports indicate those first impressions could be terrible. Local residents also report long waits at the airport curbside for cabs to pick them up.
"The poor tourists have got to beg, borrow and steal to get out of that airport," Honolulu businessman Edward McNaughton told the Star-Bulletin's Rob Perez. "It's absolutely disgusting." McNaughton says he now arranges his own taxi pickup before leaving Honolulu on a round trip.
State and Ampco officials acknowledge the problems and say they are working to solve them. The state recently asked Ampco to assign more dispatchers outside the baggage area to respond quickly to taxi requests and to set aside more curb space for cabs outside the international arrivals area.
Steve Choo, regional manager for Ampco in Hawaii, says airlines generally have refused to provide information about delayed plane arrivals, claiming the information to be proprietary. Taxi companies have been less than enthusiastic about responding to post-midnight requests for passengers arriving on delayed flights. SIDA drivers were obligated to respond to such calls from their company.
The anecdotal horror stories may exaggerate the seriousness of the problem. Perez went to the airport twice last week to observe the operation for three hours, and it seemed to be working well, with waits lasting no longer than several minutes.
When Ampco began the operation, cab drivers complained about the fee system. In past years, drivers would pay $400 a month to the company managing taxi departures. They now pay a $4 fee for each pickup. That change may be worth re-evaluating after a reasonable time has elapsed.
Council, mayor bend
well on ag land taxes
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The Council unanimously approved and Mayor Harris signed into law a measure two years ago that provided tax breaks for farmers but was designed to eliminate those breaks for ag-zoned landowners who were not farming. In July, lobbied by a group of landowners and developers called the Land Use Research Foundation, the Council rewrote the law to provide $12 million in tax breaks to landowners.
Harris vetoed that bill in July, and the Council was too late in trying to override his veto, which kept the issue alive. The final version, approved this week, would reduce the tax breaks to $4 million, a shortfall with which the administration can cope. Ivan Lui-Kwan, the city's budget director, calls the compromise "fair and workable."
The new bill, which Harris is expected to sign, uses a formula that includes a valuation of crops to cap taxes. It also provides for taxes of unused agricultural land at half its market value for 10 years. It also reduces taxes for land "dedicated" to farming.
The issue has arisen in the mayoral race. Mufi Hannemann has accused Duke Bainum of driving farmers off their land by favoring the 2002 measure. Bainum maintains that the tax change worked to eliminate a loophole for landowners that aren't farming while continuing tax breaks for more than 1,100 owners of land that is being farmed.
