Lowering property tax is the fair solution

Mayor Hannemann wants to give residents a "fair and equitable" property tax break. Any tax relief other than a reduction of the property tax rate will be unfair and inequitable to some segment of residents. The simple, fair and equitable solution is to lower the rate!

Homeowners need relief from soaring tax

My wife and I are retired government employees, who have lived in our home in Moanalua Gardens for the last 40 years.

We just received our 2005-2006 real property tax bill, which shows an additional 27 percent increase over last year's 43 percent increase. That's an 82 percent increase over the last two years. Is this because of the surge in the real estate market? Should we pray for the bubble to burst so we can have our taxes lowered?

Mr. Mayor and City Council members, please help, help, help. We are being taxed to death.

Property tax proposal doesn't make sense

I have been waiting for some time for word from the City Council about how it would address the problem of increased property tax assessments.

The story carried in the July 27 Star-Bulletin is not the word or the relief I had hoped to see from the City Council. Under Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi's proposal my property taxes would quadruple rather than go down. Gross income for my household is around $50,000 a year. My home is 50-plus years old. Kobayashi needs to explain how she figures $2,000 a year is a fair property tax for a home as old as this one.

The other aspect of this plan that should immediately turn anyone off is that it is income- based so it becomes more of an income tax collected by the city rather than a fair assessment of your property's value.

The only thing that needs to be corrected in the current plan is how the city relates sales in the current hot real estate market to the value of existing homes. All too often they are comparing apples to oranges rather than differentiating between the two. If that is too big of a task for the city to undertake, then the Council can simply roll back the rates. Maybe the Council could take a look at the measure that the citizens of Kauai voted for recently.

The first look at property tax reform is a scary look and doesn't bode well for property owners in this county.

Headlines say it all about Hawaii schools

Star-Bulletin headlines over the past few years:

» "Isle SAT verbal skill scores dip" (August 1999);
» "State math scores lagging" (August 2001);
» "Science test scores drop" (November 2001);
» "Students score low on reading, math tests" (November 2002);
» "Most Hawaii kids are not proficient in state test" (February 2003);
» "Hawaii's SAT scores are down slightly" (August 2003);
» "Scores on SATs worsen in isles" (October 2003);
» "Test scores showed students declined in almost all areas" (October 2003);
» "Hawaii below average on SAT" (August 2004);
» "24 failing schools to revamp" (March 2005).

Star-Bulletin front-page picture (July 27): Teachers play patty-cake with each other at "school reform" seminar.

A picture is worth a thousand (headline) words.

Quit slamming Tam for trying to help

City Councilman Rod Tam is getting a bum rap in the media. His attempts to negotiate in the Honolulu Memorial Park Cemetery matter have been played up and distorted, so that those who are not present at the meetings may begin to think that he is doing things for his own personal gain ("Tam to quit cemetery job," Star-Bulletin, July 17).

The financial problems of the cemetery are not easily resolved and the situation has become too emotionally charged. It was wise of Tam to refrain from speaking at the recent meeting, knowing that a lawyer was present for the opposing side and could use any response he made against him.

Being an honest politician is a thankless job, which is why few people choose such a public role. Give Tam a break, and start a search for a funeral services company or another professional entity to purchase the cemetery and turn things around.

And a word of advice to Councilman Tam: Don't take on losing causes. Let people pick up their own rubbish and stop waiting for someone else to do it for them. When the mess is big enough, they will take on the responsibility themselves.

Roberts deserves fair hearing in Senate

If politics were a court of law, President Bush would have an airtight winning case with his nomination of the impeccably qualified Judge John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court.

When he was nominated to his current post on the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, more than 150 members of the D.C. bar weighed in with their support, calling him a "brilliant writer" of "unquestioned integrity" and "fair-mindedness." He earned those accolades, in part, as a lawyer who argued more cases before the high court than all but a few of the 180,000 members of the Supreme Court bar.

Despite this impeccable record, Roberts can expect stiff opposition from Senate liberals like Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer and anti-Bush pressure groups like MoveOn.org. They've already begun assailing his nomination, desperate to keep off the bench anyone who believes a judge's job is to interpret law, not make it.

Any partisan bid to block Roberts must not be allowed to succeed. He deserves a fair hearing and a fair vote in the Senate.

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