Bill 62 Higher Taxes Mean Higher Rent on Oahu

Dear Editor,  Jan 30, 2023

Your article “High cost of living drives family, friends out of Hawaii” from Jan 29, begs the question what can be done about it? 

One thing that can be done is to reign in the burdensome tax increases particularly on those least able to afford them. 

Bill 62 which just passed first reading at the Honolulu City Council seeks to create new tax categories for non-owner houses on Oahu.  The only reason to create new categories is to increase taxes on non-owner houses.  Non-owner houses are occupied by RENTERS.  Increases in city property taxes will result in increases in RENTS.  Higher costs of rents will drive more people off the island. 

It seems reasonable for those that rent houses to write to their city council person to OPPOSE BILL 62. 

Paul Nachtigall

Honolulu, Oahu

Bill 62: Text, Status

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HB132 Would Eliminate Election Auditing

Dear Editor,   January 22, 2023

Please bring attention to the fact the bill HB-132 will eliminate the paper ballots audits of our electronic vote counting machines as required by HRS  16-42 in our elections.  The Kauai/Hawaii Election Integrity team has worked incredibly hard force the Office of Elections to perform the required risk limited audits of the vote counting machine with paper ballots in the 10% of precincts specified in HRS 16-42. 

Instead of simply doing the risk limited audits as required the head of the Office of Elections, Scott Nago, Deputy Attorney General Reese, and Representative Scott Saiki have introduced a bill that will eliminate the audits entirely.  Why would this group of people work so hard to prevent a simple audit of our vote counting machines?

Without these audits there is NO WAY to know if the vote counting machines are accurately counting our votes. 

Mahalo,

Tom Stanton

HRP District 15 Chair

Kauai Election Integrity Chair

HB132: Text, Status