County out to wreck economy

I guess the most infuriating aspect of the vacation rental crackdown on the north shore is the fact that the north shore has developed and succeeded with absolutely no help from the county government.

Most of us on the north shore pay substantially higher fire insurance rates because we have no fire station nearby. Calling the police to report a crime is nothing short of an adventure on many unmarked roads in Haiku, Huelo and beyond. Many of us don’t have county water. Many of us have to fix and maintain our own roads.

The vacation rental industry is an industry spawned by individuals to enable us to survive in a place that has no jobs and little opportunity. The pioneers of this industry have created wealth and employment without help from county bureaucrats.

While people in the mayor’s office are basically full-time, lifelong parasites eating from the public trough, the people who run vacation rentals are the entrepreneurs who put meat on the table and money in the economy.

It is a happy irony that the very same mayor who seems to be overmatched in her new job and ineffective at getting anything done, won’t be able to cripple the north shore economy because she just isn’t good at anything.

Thank God for small favors.

Bryce Kallen

Paia

From the Maui News Letters, Oct 6, 2007

What is the ’impact’ of TVRs that Mayor Tavares refers to?

I have to disagree with what Mayor Charmaine Tavares wrote (Viewpoint, Sept. 30). She and Planning Director Jeff Hunt always refer to the “impact” of transient vacation rentals on neighborhoods, but always they talk in vague and nonspecific ways with no facts or figures.

There is no evidence that TVRs have increased the cost of housing. Just like all nice places to live, houses cost more than 10 years ago. It’s supply and demand. There are no TVRs in Pasadena or Orange County, Calif.; the prices go up there, too.

The “community” of Maui, about which she expresses her concerns, would be so much better off and enriched by opening its arms and extending the aloha spirit to our visitors. Tavares says she is concerned about our neighborhoods, yet the county allows many of our residential dwellings in Kahului to be remodeled into multifamily places; how is that right?

Tavares wants to keep our “treasured neighborhoods” for our local people and free from visitors. How then will Maui’s children ever have a chance to meet others from far-away places and benefit from the enriching experiences that come with meeting those people?

If Tavares has her way, our children will grow up to become old-fashioned thinkers like our mayor, stuck in the old days, separated from other cultures. This no longer works in today’s world.

I think we need to seriously be asking ourselves if this mayor is whom we want speaking for Maui.

Joe Dela Cruz

Haiku

From the Maui News Letters, Oct. 7 2007

Mayor using vacation rentals as scapegoat

In her Viewpoint (Sept. 30) regarding vacation rentals, Mayor Charmaine Tavares complains, “Many members of our island community have expressed dismay about losing the sense of security and community long enjoyed in their rural neighborhoods.”

I have been a social worker on Maui for seven years. The forces creating loss of security and community are alcoholism and ice addictions and family abuse. Evidently, the mayor feels powerless to solve these serious problems, so she uses vacation rentals as the scapegoat. To blame something so irrelevant for the breakdown of the local family and community is cowardly and creating more divisiveness.

She says, “Let’s work together to preserve all that we love about our community for today and for future generations.” In this context it appears that by working together she means, “Let’s take away the businesses and eventually homes of the ’outsiders.’ Let’s focus on them so we won’t have to deal honestly with our own painful issues.”

The Mayor’s Viewpoint isn’t about reinforcing the “strengths of families who were bonded by friendship.” Friendship isn’t being encouraged by turning in your neighbor in. Friendship is about attempting to connect with those that come from a different culture than yourself. It is about understanding that you can bond with a family even if they have guests from around the world. It is about focusing on what is constant instead of what changes.

This article is thinly disguised racism by the Mayor of Maui County.

I am shocked.

Christine Lopez

From the Maui News Letters, Oct 5, 2007

Vacation rentals are part of economic sustainability

I have been learning about sustainability from the Hawaii 2050 program. It says that Hawaii will be more sustainable if people walk to work, use renewable energy, and if money from businesses stays on the island.

I heard that Mayor Charmaine Tavares spoke at the recent conference on Oahu in support of sustainability – which I think is great.

I look around at a couple of my neighbors who are running vacation rentals on their ag land in addition to their small subsistence farms. They walk to work; the people that help them out walk or bike to work – or drive. They recycle. The money that comes in from the guests goes to the owner and the staff who spend it all locally.

So I didn’t understand why our mayor is shutting these family businesses down.

I also read that our mayor addressed the Hotel and Lodging Association several weeks ago. She complained that she was getting “hits from the community” for shutting down one of its main sources of income and for resident owners losing their homes. She asked for support from the association. I can’t see why they would want to waste their time on the kind of bullying Tavares engages in. I’m sure they realize that the national bad publicity generated by the county’s actions hurts them too.

I’m still racking my brain: How exactly is destroying a positive force in a finally thriving north shore economy creating sustainability for Maui?

Devin Walsh

Haiku

From the Maui News Letters, October 5, 2007

Who are ’the many residents’ to whom the mayor is referring?

The mayor of Maui says (Viewpoint, Sept. 30) that because of vacation rentals “many members of our community have expressed dismay about losing a sense of security and community long enjoyed in their rural neighborhoods,” and also that “many of our residents are feeling pressured” by vacation rentals. Who and where are these “many residents” and just how have they lost a sense of security? Who is feeling pressured?

According to the Planning Department, vacation rentals cause less then 2 percent of complaints generated to their department. Where, and what is the demonstrable negative impact to the community that visitors staying with families on their private property are having? The visitors who choose to stay among us in my community, the north shore, are welcome and are a much appreciated and valued part of our community.

To say that because of visitors staying among us and not in hotels that my children would not know the people in their neighborhood, that family bonds would be diminished, that we would lose support networks and friendships, that we stand to lose the very foundation and “essence” of our communities . . . all because we share our aloha with visitors from all over the world in our homes, is a flat-out grotesque sentiment. I only hope we, as a community, of which the visitor is a part, can weather this storm together and see it for what it is.

Elanor Durant

Haiku