New bus route lacks efficiency

I rode the new E (for Empty) Bus Rapid Transit route last week for the sixth time. The 60-seat bus served a total of eight passengers between Chinatown and the zoo, with no more than four aboard at one time.

The current route diversion past the new University of Hawaii medical school in Kakaako is ridiculous, since this unfinished school will not open until next August. On none of my trips has any passenger ever used this stop.

The energy-efficient technologies of the new gas/electric buses should be applied on long, urban, many-stop routes like the No. 1 or 2, where older equipment is least efficient, not on an express service route where existing diesels are most efficient.

The new BRT shelter at the zoo was placed squarely on the Kapiolani Park bike path, with no diversion of the path around it. Bikers now ride directly through the shelter, inches from the toes of bus customers seated on the shelter benches.

This BRT route designator should be changed to S for "stupid."

Property tax caps are needed in Hawaii

Just because some people choose to overpay for their condos or houses, the rest of us get stuck with higher taxes because they move the average value up. If someone chooses to pay 30 percent over market for a unit in my building, that doesn't mean that I would pay that. So why should my taxes go up because of what someone else does?

Californians went through this same thing back in the 1970s. They solved the problem by invoking Proposition 13, which rolled back assessment values to 1975 and capped the assessment increases on property to 2 percent per year (plus any bonds or other issues that are subsequently voted in). When the property is sold, the assessment then steps up to the purchase price. Those who have the money to pay current prices for their property get hit with the higher tax rate, as it should be here.

Everyone should lobby, write, call their legislators to get a bill similar to Prop 13 on our next ballot. Assessments should be rolled back to say, the year 2000. This latest real estate bubble is going to force more and more people out of their homes and this state. This madness needs to stop.

Property taxes keep bus fares low

Property assessments announced last week sent chills down the spine of every property owner who wants to forecast the property tax cost of owning their home.

While property taxes should be of concern, of equal concern should be how the City and County spends the property tax revenue that it receives.

During the last budget hearings it was noted that bus fares should be set to cover no more or less than 27 percent of the cost of running TheBus. Because the City Council is unwilling to raise fares beyond this artificial level, TheBus requires a yearly subsidy of approximately $100 million to pay for the 73 percent of the costs that are not covered by the bus fares collected. I suspect energy has increased the costs (and therefore the subsidy) during most of 2004.

If one takes a property tax bill of $2,000 per year and divides that into TheBus subsidy, you find that it takes the property taxes of more than 50,000 taxpaying homes valued around $500,000 each to keep the bus riders subsidized.

Is it better to have cheap rides and tax homeowners out of their homes or is it better to have homeowners who can afford to live in their homes and riders who pay the full cost of their rides?

It's not up to the U.S. to create democracy

Only the Middle East tunnel vision of the president of the United States is keeping our troops from coming home. He has said repeatedly that he visualizes a democratic form of government in Iraq, as an example to other countries in the Middle East.

The objective of the invasion of Iraq was to remove a threat to the security of the United States. This has been well done. The Congress did not agree to military action to create a democracy. The people of Iraq expect a form of government like one of their sister countries.

Withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq to Kuwait. Tell Syria and Iran to stay out. Let government emerge freely in Iraq. Bring the troops home.

Fiber-optic project is a boondoggle

I'm surprised little has been said about the $400 million fiber-optic project being built by Sandwich Isles Communications. This project is being financed by U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utility Service loans, which will be repaid by the Universal Service Fund. The USF is a source of money to expand broadband access to rural areas.

This project will benefit only Hawaiians living on Department of Hawaiian Homelands. No one living out of DHHL lands will be able to use this network when complete, which, taking into account the funding of the project, is racially exclusionary.

Sandwich Isles Communications hopes to eventually service 22,000 people. But currently there are not 22,000 people living on DHHL lands. Taking into account DHHL's track record in placing homesteaders on DHHL land, it is unlikely the 22,000 figure will be met anytime soon. Thus I believe this network will need continuous financial support to survive after startup.

I hope this opens up people's eyes to this boondoggle project.