County should crack down on illegal rentals

Mayor Victorino, instead of asking the airlines to have fewer flights — which I am sure they got a good laugh from — why don’t you go after the root of the problem?

Illegal Airbnb’s and VRBO’s are being fined heavily on Oahu. It can’t be that hard to go on an app and figure out which locations are illegal hosts.

For every illegal Airbnb, there’s one less spot for a local to live. Maybe hundreds of local generational families won’t have to move to the Mainland each year if you take some initiative.

Maybe pay one or two of the 40,000 individuals in the state still milking unemployment because Ige and you allow the extra $300 a week to continue (because we all know the left loves controlling how much money, EBT and health care each of us receive).

Mr. Victorino, you have previously mentioned how Maui is meant for the wealthy; well, here is your opportunity to do something about it.

Let’s face it: Airbnb is a great opportunity for people to travel, but it does very little for our local economy and makes rent unaffordable

We want tourists that do activities and spend money — not tourists using their Southwest points to get to their shared bedroom on Airbnb and take up all the beach parking by 8:30 a.m.

ANDREW MANTZ, Lahaina

Residents need affordable homes

I hear of 5,000 “affordable” homes that are to be built on Maui in the next five years. That word “affordable” has always scared me. Who can really afford these homes? Not the working class. These homes should also be sold to residents who have lived here for over 10-15 years and do not own a home anywhere else.

Who will regulate this concept of keeping these homes affordable and not allowing owners to resell or rent them out upon buying one of these homes?

I have seen over my many years on Maui that holding people to conditions is virtually impossible. For example, I bought my home in Napilihau in 1973 with the condition that I could not sell or rent it out within ten years of the purchase. If I had to sell, it would have to be sold back to Maui Land and Pine, who was the developer of this project. This was why it was “affordable” back then and would remain affordable.

Napilihau was built for the plantation workers and then offered to low-income families. It was a great idea to keep these homes affordable.

Well, this is what happened. The year after I bought, I saw that a fellow owner was now renting out their home and not living in it. I contacted the housing authority and asked how can this be? The answer was: there are not enough rental homes, so we are overlooking this initial condition of owning in Napilihau.

The following year, my neighbor sold their house for four times the original cost — now, no longer low income. I called Maui Land and Pine; their answer was, “We can’t afford to by them back, so that condition was now null and void.”

Let’s now look at Launiupoko. That was to be for agricultural lots originally. What happened? Owners were subdividing and selling off land to have more homes… what became of those rules?

So, I ask you, how do we control “affordable” homes and the whole concept behind them when the county could not even control what was built in the past? How do we enforce developers to help with the infrastructure?

Before we build, let’s make sure that everyone will be held responsible for the future of promises made!

Think about that.

SU CAMPOS, Napili

‘Ohana Kilo Hoku launched

On Feb. 23, 2021, Kalepa Baybayan, Mailani Neal and I filed articles of incorporation to create ‘Ohana Kilo Hoku, a Native Hawaii organization that supports astronomy and space programs in Hawaii and beyond. We shared a vision of an organization that inspired the children of Hawaii, and especially our fellow Native Hawaiians, to seek careers in astronomy and space fields. With Kalepa’s passing, Professor Heather Kaluna joined OKH as a director to keep this dream alive.

I am now very pleased to announce that OKH’s website is up and running. Please check it out at https://www.ohanakilohoku.org/. The site is just getting started and will continue to expand. Right now you can find out about fascinating astronomy opportunities and learn about Hawaii’s astronomy and space institutions.

I am also excited to announce that OKH has been award its first grant! Please look out for this thrilling announcement at OKH’s Twitter account (https://twitter.com/ohanakilohoku)! OKH will be using this grant to develop a curriculum that will inspire Hawaii’s keiki to pursue astronomy and space careers.

If you know any teachers that would be interested in participating, please e-mail OhanaKiloHoku@gmail.com.

If you share OKH’s vision and passion for astronomy and space programs in Hawaii, I encourage you to donate today to help OKH reach for the stars!

SAMUEL WILDER KING II

Keiki enjoyed summer program

Hello, my name is Megumi Matsumoto. I attended the King Kamehameha III Elementary School summer program. We worked on math, nonfiction reading and opinion writing, which was my favorite. We even read an awesome book called “The Sign of the Beaver.” It is a great book, and I recommend it.

The best part of the summer program was that we could do tons of fun activities! First, we went to the Reefdancer. Thank you, Heioli, for the fun Reefdancer trip. We learned a lot about the animals in the ocean.

Thank you, Javien, for the shave ice! We all loved the Breakwall Shave Ice — it was the best!

Thank you, Jason, for teaching us how to play the ukulele. We learned the c, GG and D7 chords.

Thank you to Uncle Kalapana for making bracelets with us and teaching us about Hawaiian cordage. We had fun harvesting taro, too!

We all want to thank Javien, Heioli, Jason, Kalapana and Kimo for all the activities that we got to do during the summer program. All of the activities made this summer program awesome and memorable.

MEGUMI MATSUMOTO, West Maui