About $884.7 million in federal funding was sent to Hawaii Nei to invest in roads, bridges, public transit, ports, airports and roughly $69 million for clean water. How much of that amount have our Maui representatives fought for and received for us in Kula?

Maui County is still giving out water meters and building permits like they are going out of style. The state is getting fat on our property taxes, which contribute to the high rental costs. I’m presently paying the same amount of money for property taxes monthly that I used to pay for my rental, and my roadway water systems and everything else is no different than it was over a couple of decades ago when I first purchased it.

The last several years we have seen our gullies fill up and literally rivers of rainwater have flowed through those gullies. Some of the old timers tell me they only saw water flowing like that when they were young many decades ago.

No new reservoirs have been built to catch the hundreds of thousands of gallons that flowed through the reservoir areas. Poor planning, or none at all, and who suffered? Yet, millions of tax dollars are put into new highway systems to move tourists from the airport to the outlying areas of our island. I know much of that is also federal.

Time to get people in office who will fight not for big business, but for us, the people who live and work here.

Jimmy Muschietti

Kula