HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0476.009 2020-2022 1
From: Janice Glennie
Sent: Wednesday,January 05, 2022 10:12 AM COUNTYCLERY,
To: Council Testimony COUNTYOFHAW 'I
Cc: Villegas, Rebecca RECEWED
Subject: HVB communication 476 a10,11 a,M.
ate 11 �Q2
Communication 476 re. Hawaii Visitors Bureau
for Hawai'i County Council
Committee on Governmental Operations, Relations, and Economic Development
10:30 AM Wednesday, January 5, 2022
Aloha council members,
I'm humbled by how many wise, experienced people we have in our midst—longtime residents and experts who can
help us discern the reality of What is and What Should Be tourism in Hawaii.
Starting with Hawaii's renown environmental advocate and attorney, David Kimo Frankel, `By now, we are all well
aware of[tourism's] impacts: overcrowded beaches, clogged roads, congested trails, and absurd wait-times at our
local airports. Too few real wilderness areas remain available to locals. Too many visitors strain our water supplies,
energy infrastructure, landfills, and even our housing supply. And let's not forget that the tourism industry demands
fossil-fueled jet travel that propels climate change, all while not paying its fair share of the cost to host the industry
here."
Statistics submitted"by Frankel and others regarding the astronomically negative affects of tourism portray our leaders
embracing the bombshells of carbon emissions that are building up in our local atmosphere rather than working
together to deflect them.
The local Sierra Club's work and writings on this topic are also based on decades of research and experience. "The
Destination Management Plan is commendable, but what we really need is a totally different direction." Our state's
push toward becoming less economically dependent on outside sources has been consistently neglected, and I submit
that that's a willfully created default reality—not one that we have to bequeath to future generations of Hawaii's
keiki.
And though I agree with the concept of creating an EIS for tourism, their preparation is often paid for by the entity
who supports the projects being studied. And there's the conundrum of assessing the economic value of clean air,
open space, and other irreplaceable environmental, social and cultural resources against the revenue generated by
tourism as well as determining the true negative costs of that industry.
Meanwhile, residents pay astronomical prices for basic necessities like food, shelter, and automobiles whose prices
are skyrocketing, not just because they need to be shipped here or are inherently expensive, but because of the
suffocating competition of tourists who are willing and able to pay higher prices for the necessities that longer-term
residents have less ability to absorb.
While Hawai'i is being offered to the bidder, none of the corporate entities enjoying the revenue generated from
tourism is paying their fair share of the cost of infrastructure so lagging that the weight of new cars on our roads and
too few places for longtime residents to live is taking us farther and farther from the culture of Aloha. Again, from Mr
Frankel: "We need to completely stop subsidizing the tourism industry, as a whole. The hotel industry can pay for its
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own advertising—our natural beauty sells itself. Then we can use our tax dollars ...to provide all manner of public
services that primarily benefit residents..."
So no more asking for tourists. No more building hotels or short term rentals. It's not up to us to provide jobs for
building contractors who want to escape their overcrowded states. Hawaii needs to take a long, deep breath and focus
on what our collective vision is for the future (like the one mandated in the Kona Community Development Plan).
Plawai'i needs to catch up with herself—ourselves—or face the consequences of crashing toward a future reality—
like honoiulu or worse—of poisoned water and criss-crossing freeways whose ugly, uncrossable boundaries are
homes to the increasingly unhoused.
Janice raln,a-Glennie
Kailua-Kona,Hawai'i 96745
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