Councilman Greenwell for Higher taxes!

Dear Dave,
I thought Kelly Greenwell and Emily Nanoele-Beason went to DC. What did we get for our TAX DOLLARS? Nothing. There is no magic lamp in DC or one of these two would have brought home the bacon.

We are in fact a business and that is why we follow business practices like balancing the budget.

The mid level road is a WASTE of Tax payer dollars. It only benefits those that own property adjoining it. It doesn’t help the thousands of residents in the upper Palisades subdivisions.

Sad our own Councilman wants the rich to pay his way. He came up with the idea of charging all the rich aircraft on the ground $2,500.00 a day to stay here. He doesn't know the State operates the Airport and he has NO jurisdiction there.
What is going to happen to those renters that will now have their rents go up do to the property tax increase. The trickle down will be that the public will no longer want to vacation or buy on the Big Island. The island will become a ghost town when they find out having a rental will be guaranteed 29% taxes and the property has no chance of breaking even.

Get rid of the $100.00 min. tax if you want to be FAIR.

According to West Hawaii Today quote 5/7/10 "That category has grown the most in North Kona, increasing 34 percent in property value in one year alone.Yet County Councilman Kelly Greenwell, who represents that district, says the tax hike is perfectly acceptable to him"

Kelly never did anything prior to being County Council. Never came to a meeting, Never helped volunteer with parks,… Just a golden spoon baby that doesn’t know how to run a successful business (Hawaiian Gardens went under and the property sits with all of his improvements and nothing to show for it.)
Sadly we are at the short end of the stick when it comes to Greenwell.
Mrs. McGeachy
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Aloha,
Please find attached, and pasted below, Councilmember Greenwell’s June 7 & 8, 2010 Council meeting comments regarding Comm. 711.200 (Bill 211 Draft 3) -the Operating budget-FY2010-2011.

Please feel free to post on your blogs\news sites for public review and comments.
As always, feel free to email or call me with any questions,
Dave Hirt
Legislative Assistant to
Councilmember Kelly Greenwell
Council District 8, North Kona, Hawai‘i
Phone 808-327-3642
Fax 808-329-4786
dhirt@co.hawaii.hi.us

June 7, 2010
To understand the solution to fixing our budget woes, we must first accept that we can no longer think of government as a business. Government process is not based on the typical business model. In fact, government draws on an entirely different reason for being. Beyond the assurance of justice, public safety, and welfare, the responsibility of government is to ensure an economic setting wherein private business can succeed. While responsible accounting is certainly necessary, balancing the county budget, which has dominated our efforts for 6 months, is merely a part of the accounting process and cannot be considered as a required goal. Therefore, before we concern ourselves any further with what is really the Mayor’s budget, we need to focus on reviving our county’s business climate. In our present situation the only realistic way to do this is to enhance our financial situation. Since the level of government that creates money is federal, and since they have largely recognized that more cash is needed in the overall economy, and are providing it through the ARRA, we at county need to make the effort to obtain our share.

Our County’s share of the ARRA has presently been determined to exceed $500 million on a per capita basis but so far we have received only about 20% of that. To illustrate our reluctance to seek ARRA funding, had I not insisted that U.S. Representative Mazie Hirono research our eligibility to receive federal assistance in building the Ane Keohokalole Highway in Kona ($35 million) we might not have gotten it at all. Certainly it was secured by the Mayor and his staff who in a timely fashion met the requirements needed to qualify for the grant, but we as a county were content with Ms. Hirono’s rationale for why we couldn’t qualify until I challenged her thinking – and our thinking as well.

I challenge your thinking today by again insisting that federal money is available if we frame the request properly and with conviction.

The ARRA is intended to be the tool to restart the U.S. economy and like any tool, it only works if we use it − and it works a whole lot better if we learn how.

If we continue to follow the current thinking, where will the county’s business environment be a year from now? Will cutting county services and employment by 10% improve things? In this economy? Do we believe the private sector, pressed to manage with reduced services and probably intensified criminal activity based merely on not having enough to eat, is going to rally?

Do we think that the developers and investors who provide most of our jobs are going to be moved to participate in an extended economic crisis?

Fellow Councilors, please understand that we are government, not business, and as such, have quite different responsibilities, goals and objectives.

It may be the established path of business to cut back during hard times but the very last thing government does during these same hard times is cut service. Again, like so many businesses have done already, we in government do not have the option to fail. – We can not close the doors, and furthermore our success is not measured by profit – or by loss.

Our primary, and perhaps only responsibility right now is to revive the economy, and an economy does not perform if you eliminate its’ ability to grow.—if you take the capacity to earn out of the equation by not spending, the economy will only continue to decline.

Where do we think we will be next year? We are significantly worse off this year than last and we will not reverse the trend by down-sizing. The investors and the businesses who can, along with the minds who operate them, will move away and the rest of us will fail, further impacting government services.
Crime, as the only occupation that pays under those conditions, will take over, and what is left of Government will be entirely focused in that area, perhaps even, as in so many other similar situations, becoming a partner. We can’t afford to take that risk under any circumstance.

We need to return this budget to the mayor with one comment and only one comment: That we will assist his administration in any way possible to secure our share of ARRA funds, so much of which is already being held by the State – that would mean:
1. No Reduction in Service
2. No New Taxes
3. No Furloughs