VACATION RENTALS

WHERE IS PROTECTION FOR RESIDENTIAL ZONING?

One important fact was missing from Sunday's front-page article on bed-and-breakfast and transient vacation rentals. The majority are illegal yet continue to operate since there is a shortage of city inspectors to investigate.

Expanding the number of B&Bs will overburden an agency that currently cannot enforce regulations due to lack of personnel. When the county "grandfathered" existing units in 1989, the City and County of Honolulu promised that they would not come back to the community to expand the number of units. Now here we are in 2007 having to fight the same battle all over again.

Residents do not want more vacation rentals in neighborhoods. We want illegal rentals terminated. Rewarding illegal operations by making them "legal" is a lousy way to run a county government.

Hotels have had declining occupancy rates so expanding the B&B industry will have a negative impact on hotels. But the biggest impact is what the B&B/TVU "business" does to our neighborhoods.

Property values have skyrocketed, residents cannot find long-term rentals and neighbors are inconvenienced by visitors arriving at all hours of the night. How ironic that Henry Eng, director of the Department of Planning and Permitting, stated that "the amendment would not allow bed-and-breakfast homes on agriculture land, because the state and the city are developing policies to protect agriculture lands." Where is DPP's protection for residential zoning? Doesn't residential mean "no business?"

B&BS, VACATION RENTALS INCREASE HOMELESSNESS

How ironic that your article on homelessness appeared on the same front page (Nov. 4) as your article on the proposed City Council legislation to allow more tourist rentals in our residential neighborhoods.

Because the proliferation of these tourist rentals (most of which are illegal) contributes to the increase in homelessness, it is quite fitting that the two articles should be juxtaposed. Unfortunately the relationship between the two seems to be lost on some of our council members and on our city administration.

Speculators and illegal operators of B&Bs and transient vacation rentals have greatly diminished the inventory of affordable housing, thereby contributing to the spiraling cost of housing and rents. Many of our local people have lost the roof over their heads.

Our city government, which has failed miserably to enforce regulations governing the small number of B&Bs and transient vacation rentals legalized in 1989, now proposes to legalize thousands more. (Never mind that in 1989 we were promised that there would be no more.)

Under the proposed legislation, our residential neighborhoods would be asked to accommodate the demand for "alternative" accommodations for thousands of additional tourists. In the process, our own local people would be forced into the "alternative" accommodations offered by streets, parks, beaches and shelters.

How fair and moral is that?

GARRISON KEILLOR

ASSESSMENT OF OUR PRESIDENT IS SPOT ON

Garrison Keillor is probably one of the most clever writers in America today, in my opinion.

Tom Freitas (Letters, Nov. 6) doesn't seem to think so. I try not to miss the Keillor commentaries. Keillor's assessment of the "current occupant" (referring to the man who now sits in the Oval Office) as "dim" is, I think, spot on.

If the "current occupant" is not "dim," certainly his advisers must be. But perhaps we should not despair. President Bush now has an approval rating of a whopping 33 percent — up from the high 20s — and only 75 percent of the country think the government is on the wrong track.

I look forward to more of Garrison Keillor's commentaries.

COLUMNIST SPEAKS FOR MAJORITY OF AMERICANS

In Tuesday's paper (Nov. 6), you published a letter from my friend, Tom Freitas. Tom was complaining about Garrison Keillor's inclusion in the Focus Section because of Keillor's disparaging remarks about President Bush.

Tom, Keillor speaks for the majority of all Americans. And, he is far far more gentlemanly about it than most of us. Garrison Keillor is right where he belongs.

SAUDI KING AND POPE

ADVERTISER SLIGHTED HISTORIC MEETING

Newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and all the major European and Arabic papers, featured stories on the historic meeting between Saudi King Abdullah and Pope Benedict XVI in Rome — the first meeting of its kind between the leader of the largest Christian denomination and the protector of Islam's holiest sites.

This meeting was of profound significance for Christians, Muslims and people of good will all over the world.

Yet you slighted this profoundly historic event by only running a photo and a terse caption that simply noted that the pope, "who has upset Muslims with his comments on Islam, met with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah for the first time."

This caption belittles the event and the actions of the pope and the king to seek common ground for world peace, including peace in the Middle East.

One of the biggest points of discussion between these world leaders was the religious freedom of the estimated 1 million Catholics who live in Saudi Arabia, most of them Filipino workers who are not allowed to freely practice their religion.

One would have thought this to be of interest to the large Filipino community in Hawai'i.

Therefore, I would suggest that you consider running a more complete version of this story and being more sensitive in the future.