More pilikia on Moloka'i

[craigwatanabe]

Re: More pilikia on Moloka'i

Tim you gotta stop with the personal attacks already. That kind of talk isn't necessary. What Miulang is saying that After everything is all built up, the kinds of jobs there isn't gonna justify any shift in the local economy significantly. Sure there will be work to be done by construction workers (as you've listed) but many of them won't come from Molokai, and when the work is done, what you have left is a void in employment (again) but this time because of the higher valuations of land, there will be added tax burden to a land that didn't need to be developed for the sake of homeowners who will end up leasing their properties or visiting them once or twice a year.

Hawaiians on Molokai are slowly being squeezed out of one of the very last places of untouched Hawaiiana, West Molokai where the fishing is pristine and almost as good as it was before western pre-contact days. Much of the land is as it was also.

Like I said in an earlier post, Molokai is slowly becoming a land being controlled by more and more western ideologies. West Molokai represents the side that doesn't want development. East Molokai is all about development.

Places like Maui, Kauai, Oahu, and parts of the Big Island, have already felt the sting of development. But unlike these places that can handle the influx of social change, Molokai cannot. It's basic utility infrastructure cannot handle growth as seen by it's neighboring islands.

Going to West Maui is as if time stood still. It's almost as good as it is now as it was 20-years ago, a nice slow pace where the mind can think for the moment and not plan for the next power lunch.

I support development in some areas where urban blight is necessary, but not on Molokai. We need to protect the Aina before it destroys us. Molokai is one of those places that say, come visit us but please keep your stay short and pleasant. One comes to Molokai to basically reset their values then they go back to their busy lives mentally charged up. Why would anyone want to destroy that. Building these expensive homes with all their trappings isn't what Molokai is all about. It's about the simpler times as Don Ho sung in those lyrics: I love the simple folk. You can learn a lot from simple people. We need to preserve that part of Human evolution.

I believe the strength of anything is based on it's simplicity. Make it complex and you have more things to breakdown.

KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid as the saying goes. And no that wasn't a personal attack on you Tim.

[timkona]

Re: More pilikia on Moloka'i

West Molokai is dominated by the resort at Kaluakoi, and the hotel in Mauna Loa. East Molokai is the slower paced side, with a fish ponds, and a twisting road, culminating in Halawa Valley.

Is it possible you have your geography mixed up, Craig?

[Miulang]

Re: More pilikia on Moloka'i

Miulang, Oh Miulang, you are so naive and brainwashed. You truly believe your own drivel.

200 million dollar homes on Molokai will be built by maids & landscapers????

What about operators, concrete finishers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, painters, etc etc. It will take many, many years to build so many homes. And what about the ancillary income to the local economy in the form of groceries, fuel, etc etc.

Or would it be better for Molokai to stay trapped in a time machine of poverty, which is what you want for those people? Liberalism should be painted with the brush of criminal intent.

Tim, you just don't get it. Never will. Your definition of being poor is based on money. I'll tell you something about the people of Molokai. Money isn't everything to them, not when they can still go fishing in pristine waters to get their meals, or grow taro for poi. The people of Molokai are not poor in terms of caring about each other and the land they love. You would never get 5% of the locals in one place at one time anywhere else in Hawai'i to protest a proposed housing project. You would never get an entire island protesting to prevent cruise ships from establishing a port of call there (they did this very successfully about 5 years ago).

Craig's right, you know. The momentary increase in population caused by a housing development will do squat for the locals once the 200 estates are built. When I was in the supermarket in K'kai, I overheard some locals talking about how the people like McAfee don't use locals to maintain their estates. They "import" their own staffs. So all people like the McAfees do is bring in their money and think if they wave enough of it in front of the locals' noses, that they will get what they want. McAfee already has learned that the people of Molokai are not about to just roll over and play dead like they would anywhere else in Hawai'i.

The people of Molokai are proud of their island and their lifestyle, and if the majority of them want to keep things the way they are, then why shouldn't their concerns be heard and respected? They may be poor in the checkbook, and man oh man they are millionaires as far as their pride in their culture, their caring about their neighbors and their ability to live off the land.

Miulang

[timkona]

Re: More pilikia on Moloka'i

I have often wondered who sold that land to McAfee??

[craigwatanabe]

Re: More pilikia on Moloka'i

West Molokai is dominated by the resort at Kaluakoi, and the hotel in Mauna Loa. East Molokai is the slower paced side, with a fish ponds, and a twisting road, culminating in Halawa Valley.

Is it possible you have your geography mixed up, Craig?

True there are some developments going on over on the West side however West Molokai is the homestead side and East Molokai is where more outsiders (I hate to say it that way) are dwelling. As a result the dividing line between homesteaders and non-homeesteaders is Kaunakakai. There is a general rift between each side not like East and West Hawaii but more of a racial rift between that locals vs Haole attitude. (I'm trying not to sound racist but unfortunately that's how it is there).

It's not so much the development as I said but more the demographics that make East differ from West. As it is development has encrouched on the homestead style of demographics. Development is slowly replacing the homestead lifestyle that has really made Molokai what it is.

The slower paced East side as you indicated isn't the slow pace that Molokai is known for. Unfortunately the East Side represents the richer geological side of Molokai but like Oahu Hawaiians are homesteaded on the dryer and less desireable sides of the islands. But now it seems developers want to capitalize on what homesteaders have carved out for themselves. And that's what has Walter Ritte all up in arms over.

Where's the greater population base? You guessed it, East Molokai where the land use vote is always going to be skewed towards what East wants and not what West is trying to protect. Hawaiians are losing control over land issues all over the state so their activism is vital because their voting numbers are dwindling with each passing year.

Tim it's as if an in-law came to visit your home for a few days and then it became a few weeks then it seems they aren't planning on leaving your home, especially when they start bringing in their TV sets from where they came from and they start inviting their own family all the while you sit back and helplessly watch as your home is taken over by these people you so kindly hosted. Pretty soon you get fed up and ask them to leave but they don't listen, so you get all upset. Then you find out they took over the title to your home and now they want you to move to the packing shed out in the backyard and you should be thankful that they even gave you that piece of crap real estate to dwell on while they dine in your once pristine home.

They trash it to pieces and then they eventually want that packing shed because they invited too many of their family over and soon they tell you you should be grateful for having their families over so you can have a job cleaning their messy toilets that once belonged to you in the first place!

How would you feel? I think a bit of activism would be surging thru your veins by now and all you want to do is kick all of them outta your house.

Well that's how Walter Ritte and a lot of Hawaiians are feeling about Hawaii. It's there home and we all came in and unpacked for the long haul then we set aside some crap land we call homestead land and graceously put them on it thru a waiting list. Now we've overdeveloped what we stole from them and we want their lands to develop on because we don't have enough space to develop on lands we really don't own legally.

And we're telling them they should be grateful? I do understand why they take the welfare checks and why as a government we give it to them. We really owe them that and more. For some it's blood money but for others it's what the government owes them for stealing the lands from them in the first place. And for still others, it's just laziness.

You have some Hawaiians that will not take the money, then you have those who will take it as repayment, then you have those who take it because they're just too lazy to work.

All three, one race, but we choose to pick the last reason because it paints a picture of deceit rather than rightful defiance.

Tim you want to be a hero in the eyes of Hawaiians? Buy fertile lands and give it back to the Hawaiians thru a non-profit 501c3 and take the write-off as a donation.

But we need to curb development into West Molokai. It's a shame there because it is one of the last few places that are open and pristine...yet.

The fishponds you mentioned are right along the highway. And Halawa Valley is lush but the boat harbor isn't exactly a co-existive partner with the fishponds with the Makaha to keep the big ones from getting away.

[Miulang]

Re: More pilikia on Moloka'i

I have often wondered who sold that land to McAfee??

His West Molokai property was probably sold to him by Molokai Ranch; as for his East Molokai desires, well, they were kinda squashed by the community.

Miulang

[Leo Lakio]

Re: More pilikia on Moloka'i

West Molokai is dominated by the resort at Kaluakoi

Forgive my ignorance, but what is the present-day status of that facility? I stayed there in 1989, before it folded (and was sold, and reopened, and ... whatever is happening there now?)

Please note: I stayed there before I knew anything more about Hawai`i (and Moloka`i) than any other I.M.H.; I was married to a travel agent at the time, and we spent three days there after a trip to Australia.

[Miulang]

Re: More pilikia on Moloka'i

Forgive my ignorance, but what is the present-day status of that facility? I stayed there in 1989, before it folded (and was sold, and reopened, and ... whatever is happening there now?)
.

Right now the hotel part closed down, but people are living in condos on the property. There was some talk of converting it into timeshare units (nobody builds hotels anymore...condos are where the money's at for developers in Hawai'i).

Miulang

[timkona]

Re: More pilikia on Moloka'i

Craig, I don't think it was better back in the day, when the King owned ALL the land, and the commoner owned nothing. You speak of the historic past in Hawaii as if the common Hawaiian had rights over the King. Nowadays, many Hawaiians own their home, and their land. And many more successful Hawaiians have the opportunity to buy, which is vastly different from 250 years ago.

It's a crazy world we live in, when the subjugated past is revered over the freedom loving present.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: More pilikia on Moloka'i

Craig, I don't think it was better back in the day, when the King owned ALL the land, and the commoner owned nothing. You speak of the historic past in Hawaii as if the common Hawaiian had rights over the King. Nowadays, many Hawaiians own their home, and their land. And many more successful Hawaiians have the opportunity to buy, which is vastly different from 250 years ago.

It's a crazy world we live in, when the subjugated past is revered over the freedom loving present.

Tim I was referring to the land itself...sometimes natural landscape is better than man made. But I agree that Kamehameha really was the Polynesian Atilla the Hun. I wonder who would have kicked whose ass.

[Miulang]

Re: More pilikia on Moloka'i

[QUOTE=timkona]I don't think it was better back in the day, when the King owned ALL the land, and the commoner owned nothing. [\quote]
The maka'aina didn't HAVE to own land: as long as they lived on an ahupua'a and took care of it, the ali'i made sure the families had enough to live on. Land ownership is a EUROPEAN concept.

Miulang