you mr clerk and judging by the victory knows you're with us and judging on the members sitting in the gallery we probably don't need to remind them to turn off their cell thousand and fifteen and april twenty second two thousand and fifteen editions of the mountain news thank you members since the media was properly noticed without objections will proceed with public testimony thank you mr clerk is proceed in accordance to section three point four eight point five six five the country code the public is invited to provide testimony before the council regarding the reported tax rates for the county for the fiscal year july first twenty fifteen to june thirtieth twenty sixteen we've established limited telephone interactive communication that enables individuals from you to provide testimony from our district offices individuals who wish to offer testimony from set up a district office staff individuals offer testimony in the chamber please sign up at the desk mr cherry of two individuals who signed up to testify in the council chamber the first person to testify in the chamber is bruce or for he will be followed by nicola n good evening counsel i'm bruce or for testifying on behalf of myself and thank you for coming today fifty here two of us i'm here partially to praise you which is unusual in that last year for the first time maybe ever it took the prior year property tax rates and proportionately change them all the same proportion quick simple totally transparent to everyone the the issue becomes are the tax rates sensible as they are and i don't think we can ever figure that out there are ten tax rates which probably at least five or six too many if anybody could ever explain to me why for instance the conservation rate is six dollars and six cents in the agricultural rate as an example is five dollars and eighty six cents why there's a twenty cents difference i don't think anybody can ever explain should there be a twenty cent difference who knows i did see the numbers that we're only council member a com is proposing in the newspaper and i see that they're pretty much a proportional decrease across the board with some rounding i even like the rounding because it goes to the five cent and dime showing that there may not be a as much exactness as when something is to the penny so i think even appreciate that and it's generally that is then understood that these numbers do have some variance but the issue becomes i mean i mean read short sentence that the tax payers desire fairness and equity with respect to property taxes and rates knowing that all fall the same percentage not only implies fairness but also provides a totally transparent process it may seem too simple it may seem easy it may seem inadequate but it works and it saves a lot of time and your effort and i think everybody understands it so i'm here to thank you for that and keep it going year after year the second issue i want to bring up which doesn't have anything do with rates i hope i can continue is for years i've talked about a limitation on the home exemption rate as you all know the dollar exemption which we have is in we also have a percentage rate exemption there are two parts to our exemption this is very unusual i can never find another municipality the does both the dollar exemption is very progressive in that those with lower priced homes benefit the most the percentage reduction exemption is a regressive exemption benefits those with the higher priced homes in other words those will those people who have higher valuations if there's a reduction in the percentage they will benefit most with that reduction will understand that i think why do we do that why do we subsidize those with the greatest value homes the most i have never understood this if we were to limit it and we could limited based on as we did with the circuit breaker you could limit it based on the value of the building and then also the value of the land if you wanted to so that those who are land who had a lot of land the old families would not be doing so much for minutes and that's it ok well if you would since there's only two of you that have already happened next and do another month ok thank you  the but the real issue is we are subsidizing those with the highest value properties the most and subsidizing the least those with the lowest value properties is that really what we want to do we're giving away money that i think we probably need and person with a ten million dollars house may not need a reduction for all ten million dollars i mean it's simply we could limit it and say ok we're going to give you the rate for the first two million million and a half whatever it would be and anything above that reverts back to the residential rate and if we wanted to again we could some areas the values when we are went up much higher than others so we try to proportionally do it that way that's the way we decided to kind of go that way so that will give you that answer and secondly i was interested in your statement about higher price so the higher value homes get better percentage break into lower value homes i tend to agree with dan and one day we need to adjust and see how we can change that maybe by a different classification but you've already said we've got ten five too many so i don't know what we need to do there you know all i'm saying is is at some point in value yes you revert back to the residential rate that they would have been paying had they not had the home exemption i see so they're taxed at one rate below two million dollars and another rate above two million ok now we've discussed that you know ok i got down ok thank you bruce i appreciate any other questions mr couch thank you and thank you mr chair for letting him go on a little bit further because he answered one of the questions i was going to ask you have your your tax bill every  year do you feel that that's a fair level of tax a low level that i've been putting on the spot mr for or too high one of the things i've tried never or to do with council is taxes are too high or too low i thought i tried to stay no and i mean that because i've tried to make presentation based on a mathematical and logical issues and stay away from the politics of too high too  low there are a lot of people on the silent who feel that they're getting away with very low property tax rates but these of the other states other municipalities i mean it's not it's not just states it's other counties in maui like sorry and hawaii other counties and why of course this is too low it's certainly too low for those who a notice you didn't comment at all on the minimum tax anything you want to share with us about that we got that raise several years ago to what is it two fifteen zero or you know it was it was the effort you put into this every year and ongoing welcome ok so and i have a question for you mr for was your inference that the conservation rate should be lower now it was just an example that here's november what's the logic to what the other and and i mean obviously to ag aggregates apply to a very limited assessment i mean the fact that it's property it wasn't specific to those issues it was specific to why is one rates a little bit more than the other i mean is there a rationale to it and i'm not faulting anybody i'm just saying that i don't think we should spend an unbelievable amount of time trying to determine what one rate visa v the other should be because i don't think you really can without really going through the whole thing from scratch right which so the question itself is a challenge yes i know i know well thank you very much you're welcome here well any other questions for mr for the not thank you very much minutes mr nichol could evening mr chair and members of the county council my name is nick keel the nanda twenty nine year resident of maui county for the last eighteen years i've lived in a low i want to thank you for the opportunity you don't see me in front of his body very much and i appreciate an evening meeting i want to first put on the record that bruce and i i mean we've met a couple of times but i did not talk to him  thought his testimony he was taking it out of my head so i'm going to just those of you see me testify at the budget hearings out in public know that so i so appreciate i've been a broken record and the county clerk asked me something outside that we don't see a much it's because so often i testify and i can count maybe on one hand the number of suggestions over the years whether it's my tennis courts in haiku or the next thing i want to talk about it just gets ignored not looked at and council member victory you know i'm glad you asked that question tiered rates i've been a broken record for years talking about tiered rates and bruce said even better than i have exactly you take ten percent off a trillion dollar house and ten percent off a fifty thousand dollars house or it's somebody's salary think of the difference it's not equal and it's absurd that all these years these twenty million do ag and yet what are they charging their rates so it's you responsibility and every time i hear the council member saying we have a hard job we have no you guys ran for office one this is your job that's why you're paid the big bucks to figure this out a ready it's time we redo the property tax rates you know the people that have been involved with comet for years have brought up all of these issues about people losing their homes because someone tore down a plantation house built this giant house and then they couldn't afford it because it taxes by the way just on the side it used to be sixty dollars to minimum then it went up to two fifty and yes it's a minimum rate and so that's what people can pay the minimum rate but the tiered rates how much money are we losing now there's so many other issues about you know where do we get our money and i appreciate that council member who kama said that we don't get anything for free so his proposals to cut the budget about fifteen percent or a little bit more of what's been offered and the things that are being cut are services that people will enjoy in the future like the tennis courts that i won't see in my lifetime but the people in the pay in the future maybe would have taken advantage of that so when we going to build some item like a sports complex or something that's for people a future ok back to the money where do we get our money where does the government money where do you guys get your salary i'm paying your salary that's why a lot of people in the community always say hey you guys work for me and that's true how many people are in the administrations how many assistances they have twenty twenty five and yet we hear talk about affordable housing and homeless and how many people assistants in his office that are working on homelessness back to the tax rates that's where the money comes from all of the issues i brought up when you guys came to haiku this year thank you for coming to haiku and not by ear nothing inspired but i live a little closer haiku all of those issues and i gave you the list and it's a whole laundry list and they get ignored every year get ignored every year get ignored or sad but i so appreciate bruce's bringing up the same issue that i schlep all the way into town for because i'm so passionate about this and then what happens we need money to pave the roads to keep the parks going whatever the issues are the money comes from the taxes and property taxes or services or fees and all of those things but we could make the tax code so much fairer and we don't we stick it to people the people lower income or working class or whatever it is and on that note i do have to put a plug i cannot believe that this council might possibly raise the fee on the mound we brought us how can you even consider doing that those are the most vulnerable people who don't have cars who use the bus there's not a single transportation system in this country that isn't subsidized so that's where you cannot raise not a penny and i don't write right the bus it's not convenient for me but i'm such a supporter of it and i think counts for my councilwoman joy and johnson's done a great job it doesn't come out to where i am but anyway not raise the rate on the field on the bus and tiered property taxes he explained it and i'm sure you understand that a twenty million dollars house maybe up to two million one million five million and you do it and i'm not saying but people can if it's five cents per thousand so someone's paying a couple hundred dollars more but that adds up anyway so i thank you for the extra time thank you very much for coming in council chair white the classifications we have when you know thank you for that because i was thinking ok how would it affect the other rates so where there's you know buildings because i think the land i feel a little different but i'm not in the position like you guys are so when you say that of course i'm concerned about the homeowner i own my home in this residential there's you know built up land so so basically i'm sticking with the value of the house you know because again my land is  acre and by the way my property tax my my value of my house my sesame went down all these people it said what i cannot believe it went down not very much but went down the land went down a little bit i can't believe  paint your house a little bit more i guess she was me so about the no no the house stayed the same the house went up the land went down but i mean people are saying like how the assessments have gone up so i want that on record my actually went down not much not a lot of things eighteen thousand dollars but i can't believe it you know my plan on selling it but you know it went down a little bit but again you know i went on final specifically yes you guys look at that but i don't think if i'm wrong this is been addressed at all of really looking at the proposals that comet made outside of the circuit breaker that was great that really saved people but something is off when we have a twenty million dollar house assessed it says it's seven twenty and house was funny yesterday i was with someone who told me that in europe and i'm going to say sweden denmark one of those scandinavian countries when you get caught speeding they figure your ticket based on your income so this is what the way the subject came up he was telling me this gentleman had gone twenty miles over the speed limit it had to be a fifty five thousand dollar fine and that's not the record the record in that country was one hundred four thousand dollars it's all based off your income something like what you're talking about and i think you know you heard it last night this guy was telling a story and i'm like whoa and now you talk about tears and what maybe that we need to go i don't know if the council has the world to do it but i would be interested in looking at that program where ten million dollar house is a different than my house which is worth less but by the way my house went up so i'm sorry i've being more this year but life is that everybody is saying i mean i heard that someone testified at the haiku community station meeting their house went up six hundred thousand dollars i hadn't gotten my assessment yet and i went to that because  it's always a confusion for people i went up there and got it nice what looked like it went down so and by the way i just want to clarify one thing council member victory not you said it's not across the board i'm talking about like when someone has a twenty million dollar house i'm not saying as bruce mentioned about what is the you know one to two million two to five five to ten that's for you guys to come up with but that is tiered and how much five cents ten cents i'm not saying i'm not asking to stick it to people but again the  can get more money from people can more for it look at the lexus is on a maui you know this is the only place in the country that lexus jaguar and b m w are the top three of the top ten cars and there are a lot of people here that are rolling in dough and there's other people struggling don't stick it to the people writing the maui bus well again the moral of that story was you're paying proportionately the pain you pay if you eat five thousand dollars a year or five million dollars you know using that example the pain is identical percentage wise and that was the whole theory behind of that and your guy doesn't just get stuck with a fifty dollar fine me who might be filthy rich gets a fifty dollar fine right now how to do that's the argument being here a couple of things first of all i want to make clear that the budget that is being discussed is cheers but it's his first draft of the chairs budget the council doesn't have a budget oh thank you for if i misspoke it's i think it's important because we heard it several times today what is on the table now is the chairs draft of his first budget and we're going to tweak and play with it and eventually we'll come up with a council proposal  year during the budget i big to have a review of the tech situation and mr for can verify this because i've talked with him since we got here and i still have that i would like to have that i'm not saying that our our system is no good i think we need to spend some time really looking at it discussing it with the community and seeing is there a better way but maybe i'll see it before i leave and it would not but you know that i've been trying on the bus fares we discussed that today and we had the opportunity to bring the department of transportation and they gave us really good reasons about and their concerns about the chairs so nothing's been decided and we are very sensitive we want to make sure that our bus system is available to take care of our people we also very concerned because it's a very expensive situation as you know and you you're well read so i know you know that most bus systems in the country are very heavily subsidized because they're expensive to run but they're also one of the you know when i was it him you know we surveyed the community on a regular basis annually and ask what is your biggest need and it came back every time mobility and access we got a way to get where we're going and not everybody can afford a car so you know we may have to figure out how to get some money and maybe the bus passes and how much we charge different groups have to be looked at but we're the district office and as you know mr chair will check in with the district offices but we're not actually closing public testimony tonight because this meeting will be recessed what check in with the district office is first you office are there any additional testif tax rates will be recessed to friday may fifteenth at eleven am in the council chamber