Trending
There are numerous former vacation rental owners who have signed up for the program to convert their units into long-term rentals to help with housing for displaced fire victims.
However, some of their units have been empty since Feb. 1 when they joined the program.
So, these owners are being paid thousands of dollars a month, and they are exempt from their property taxes, but no one has been placed into their units. What a waste of taxpayer dollars.
And what a shame that no fire victims have been helped by being placed into these units.
There is an off-island owner of a bedroom/one bath condo in North Kihei who has been receiving $6,000 per month, but no one has been living there.
Zero fire victims helped while $12,000 of taxpayer dollars has been wasted to pay for an empty unit for the past two months. Not to mention the tax rebates this off-island owner is getting.
How is this right? It's just yet another example of government incompetence and/or corruption.
Gov. Josh Green and Mayor Richard Bissen whine and moan about how badly we need vacation rental owners to convert to long term rentals, they hammer home how important it is to sign up for this program, but then to they allow the units signed up to sit empty for 60 days now, while paying these owners for absolutely nothing.
Jason Denhart
Kihei