To control city taxes, rein in spending
Why must property assessment values and taxes be higher year after year? The reason is that the city is spending more and getting into deeper debt year after year, and it is property tax revenue that pays those bills.
It is really very simple; higher property values yield more tax revenue and a higher credit rating for the city and county.
Since it is possible for the city to foreclose on property that is behind on tax payments, it has a legal right to the tax proceeds, paid or unpaid. Creditors love to know that the loans they have made can be repaid. Remember, overspending or debt issued as bonds is simply increased future property taxes by another name.
The critical point for property owners to remember is that assessments do not make taxes high; city spending makes taxes high.
Ask your City Council representative to control city spending, and property taxes will not have to rise.
Paul E. Smith
Honolulu
Don't complain if you keep voting for them
Everyone is loudly protesting the excessive increase in property tax. Why? Why blame our elected officials? You put them there, they continue on a regular basis to financially rape you, and you go right back and re-elect them, over and over again.
The major political parties are, much like labor unions, special-interest groups. They have their own agendas, which are not in the best interest of the majority, but of some special-interest sector of our citizenry.
Want to make a change? Vote for the person, not the party. You have been misled by your party. You have been lied to by your party. You have been financially raped by your party. If you continue to do the same thing, you're going to get the same results. Is that ignorance or what?
John Shupe
Honolulu
Cave items bring the ancients closer
Hawaiian sculpture is the most tangible art form that can bring us one-on-one with our ancient artisans. Those early carvers, weavers and feather workers put a tremendous amount of time and mana into their work.
It is ironic that their artistic skills were recognized in the 20th century, after the items were sold to the Bishop Museum, photographed, cataloged, studied, then published in the memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Vol. II, No. 2 in 1906. For 100 years the people of Hawaii and the world were able to view selected artworks from this collection, making a direct connection with the ancients.
The fact that the Forbes Cave collection of artifacts contained western-style goods of Chinese manufacture suggests a deposit date after western contact. That most of them were not found in direct context with the two burials, found elsewhere in the cave, suggests a separate (secondary) deposit, as opposed to funerary rites.
It appears that whoever chose to place these artifacts in Forbes Cave did so in 1819 in a successful attempt to keep them out of the hands of Kaahumanu and those who wished to destroy the kapu system, and all of the aumakua.
It seems a shame that our museums are being gutted of these treasures at the height of the Hawaiian Renaissance.
Richard W. Rogers
Haleiwa
Court shouldn't force Ayau to violate beliefs
This past Tuesday, a good friend, Edward Halealoha Ayau, was found in contempt of court and held in custody by U.S. District Judge David Ezra for Ayau's and other members of Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai'i Nei's refusal to provide the specific location of Hawaiian funerary items.
Ayau along with other Hui Malama members has taken on the sacred responsibility of caring for the bones and burial objects of our Hawaiian ancestors. In order to protect these bones and burial objects, Hui Malama cannot, and should not, divulge their exact location. This is a traditional Hawaiian religious belief well documented by native and non-native scholars and practiced by Hui Malama. Ayau is being wrongfully persecuted for his convictions and fidelity to this longstanding religious belief.
The courts cannot be allowed to dictate "what is" and "what is not" a valid Hawaiian cultural belief and practice or that of any other belief system. The courts cannot be allowed to force an individual to betray his or her belief system and commit perjury to one's religious convictions. Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians alike need to protest Judge Ezra's persecutory actions against Hui Malama for being true to themselves and what they stand for.
J. Keawe'aimoku Kaholokula
Honolulu
Democracy seems fleeting at home
I am constantly amazed at how members of the Bush administration break the law and speak proudly of it as patriotic. When will this destruction of the rule of law come to an end, or have we exported so much democracy that we have none left at home?
Lee Mentley
Los Angeles, Calif.
Part-time Kauai resident