Community: Message List

Re: Hawaii Trying to Kill VRBO

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 09:57:07 GMT

If you delete a post, all the associated replies are automatically deleted with it. It is best to keep a copy of your original post or any replies either in Microsoft Word or in Pages.

Re: Hawaii Trying to Kill VRBO

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 02:27:23 GMT

Several bloggers appear to be confused about how bills pass through the Hawaii State Legislature.

For those who seek enlightenment, see a clear explanation on the usual route of passage on the link to the Hawaii Legislators Handbook:

http://hawaii.gov/lrb/hndbook/hbk6.html

Another blogger did not appear to understand what will happen after the RBOAA (Rental By Owner Awareness Association. http://www.rboaa.org)

takes legal action and defeats the bill in court. The bill is then overturned by the court. This ends the process. The court does not turn around and try to rewrite or amend the bill.

Re: Hawaii Trying to Kill VRBO

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 01:22:55 GMT

The issue here for Google is not a "Restraint of Trade" violation, but this particular restriction by the State of Hawaii for them and for us is a violation of the "Privilages and Immunities Clause" of the US Constitution.

For those interested in a clear explanation of this "Privilages and Immunities Clause" see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privileges_and_Immunities_Clause

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Privileges+and+Immunities

They are of course violating other clauses of the US Constitution in all of this - like the Equal Protection Clause and the Commerce Clause. They are violating the "Restraint of Trade" rights of local residents with their "1:1 Rule".

Blackburied is not getting ahead of himself/herself.

Prepare for legal action.

If you lived in Hawaii long enough or went to school there, you would understand well their attitude towards mainlanders and not be surprised by any of this.

Sorry, but as I said before, they are blowing Aloha smoke in all your faces.

Re: Hawaii Trying to Kill VRBO

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 04:50:52 GMT

Have the actions of the Hawaii State Legislature had an impact on revenues from sales of Condominiums since the introduction of these bills to harm off-island owners?

Consider the data year in the charts below on Condominium Sales in Maui Year to Date (YTD) compared to the same YTD data last year (i.e. January to March 2011 versus January to March 2012).

Source of above information: Realtors Association of Maui. March 2012

Question 1. If you were a business owner and one of your sales managers took actions against your advice and the above were the results of their sales productivity after they ignored your advice, what would you do?

They just lost $19,378,791 for your business in only one little corner of their sales region.

Answer 1. Fire them

The recent actions of the Hawaii legislature are associated with a loss of $19,378,791 in condominium sales in Maui alone this year to date (YTD).

How much is this in tax revenue losses to the state of Hawaii?

How many lost jobs does this add?

How much do Hawaii State taxes need to go up to offset this fall in lost tax revenue?

How many programs to the poor and needy in Hawaii have to be cut or not made available because of this?

How much income have the realtors on Maui lost as a result?

And this is just one little island.

What should we do with these legislators? You know the answer.

The provisions we dispute in these bills betray the discriminatory intentions of the legislators to create requirements for non-resident owners that are very difficult to meet. This will be the basis for immediate litigation and claims for substantial financial damages and perhaps a class action suit against the State of Hawaii for their unconstitutional behavior if the bills containing this or similar verbiage are enacted.

Re: Hawaii Trying to Kill VRBO

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 21:26:01 GMT

Alohaes, you should feel free to use this in your letter campaign to the Senators and Representatives, since you were the first one to supply the idea. That is why I provided it as a downloadable file (a pdf. file), so you could use it.

Re: Hawaii Trying to Kill VRBO

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:14:51 GMT

The requirement that off-island owners must employ an on-island agent or contact, who in turn is restricted from serving more than one owner, even if the owner retains management responsibilities, is a “restraint of trade” violation. This “1:1 Rule” makes it void and unenforceable.

For those interested in a clear overview of Restraint of Trade see the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restraint_of_trade

http://definitions.uslegal.com/r/restraint-of-trade/

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Restraint+of+Trade

http://wiki.ask.com/Restraint_of_trade?oo=13755

It is also a violation of antitrust law/competition law.

For those interested in a clear overview of Restraint of Trade see the following link:

http://wiki.ask.com/Competition_law?qsrc=3044&oo=13755

Sherman Act 1890.

Section 2. Monopolizing trade a felony; penalty

“Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.”

Section 4. Jurisdiction of courts; duty of United States attorneys; procedure

“The several district courts of the United States are invested with jurisdiction to prevent and restrain violations of sections 1 to 7 of this title; and it shall be the duty of the several United States attorneys, in their respective districts, under the direction of the Attorney General, to institute proceedings in equity to prevent and restrain such violations. Such proceedings may be by way of petition setting forth the case and praying that such violation shall be enjoined or otherwise prohibited. When the parties complained of shall have been duly notified of such petition the court shall proceed, as soon as may be, to the hearing and determination of the case; and pending such petition and before final decree, the court may at any time make such temporary restraining order or prohibition as shall be deemed just in the premises.”

Any legislators who conspire with any business, any union, any lobbyists, any contributors or any donors to restrain trade in this way can be subject to Section 2 of the Sherman Act of 1890, which is vigorously enforced.

Such violations should be reported to the Federal Trade Commission.

In the meantime, petition the courts to prohibit this “1:1 Rule” requirement and seek a temporary restraining order from it’s imminent implementation.

Any person knowing of such a conspiracy and reporting it, may be entitled under the Federal Whistleblowers Act, to a substantial percentage of the fine(s) levied against any and all of the violators they report.

Re: Hawaii Trying to Kill VRBO

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 20:36:40 GMT

Thank you alohaes. Terrific detective work. You are correct.

The data show that the Hawaii Leisure and Hospitality Employment figures were the hardest hit since 2008. During that same time period the Hawaii Government payroll has steadily increased by 6.4% (or by 9.4% from January 2002 to July 2010 or by 19.5% from January 1990 to July 2010), even in the face of the 2008 recession. Therefore, if the state has budget problems in the face of declining revenues, the Hawaii taxpayers need to know that their legislators are on a spending spree. What business would hire more employees and spend more money when revenues drop? Anyone with business sense knows that the correct solution should be exactly the opposite.

To illustrate your point graphically, I have organized the data from your 2 tables into a graph (attachment below), showing the data for the past 10 years.

Years and numbers of employed in the Hawaii Leisure / Hospitality sector (units=1000s). In January 2002, 95,800 were employed in this sector in Hawaii.

Attribution: data from alohaes on blog, page 73.

As you state, the Hotel Unions and those in the Leisure and Hospitality sector who were hardest hit as a result of the recession have every incentive to lobby the legislature to play Robin Hood. The legislature in turn would prefer to blame and punish someone else (like off-island owners) for this fiscal problem instead of getting their own “House” in order, like any other business.

Re: Hawaii Trying to Kill VRBO

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 20:12:08 GMT

The legislators involved in HB1706, HB1707, HB2078 and SB2089 bills are blowing Aloha smoke in your face.

They pretend that these bills are all about collecting taxes. In fact they are jobs bills for local property services who have fared badly in the current recession and are a thank you/payback to the Unions and others who have helped legislators and they hope will continue to help them in the upcoming elections. The smoke screen is the tax issue. The real agenda is electoral support (financial and votes).

Here is how it works.

Question 1: What is the main Union representing property mangers, hotel workers, doormen, porters and property maintenance workers in Hawaii?

Answer 1. It is the SEIU 32BJ. It is the largest property service workers union in the US. It is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that has over 2 million members. Many individual SEIU locals remain affiliated to regional AFL-CIO bodies through "solidarity charters”. In 1995, SEIU President John Sweeney was elected president of the AFL-CIO.

SEIU is focused on organizing workers in three sectors: health care (over half of members work in the health care field), including hospital, home care and nursing home workers; public services (local and state government employees); and property services (including property managers, janitors, security officers and food service workers).

For more information on the SEIU see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Employees_International_Union

For more information on the SEIU 32BJ see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEIU_32BJ

Question 2: Who contributed the most money to electing a Democrat to the White House in 2008?

Answer 2: The SEIU. It spent $28 million supporting President Obama in the 2008 presidential election, making it the "organization that spent the most to help Barack Obama get elected president." The SEIU contributes 95% of its donations to Democrats. They also help in turning out the vote at the time of elections. Local and state government employees (like property managers and property service workers) are SEIU union members. As legislative staff members they are often charged with crafting the wording on bills and have the ears of legislators.

Question 3: What is the link between the wording in these bills catering to the interests of property managers at the expense of private owners?

Answer 3: Democrat legislators seeking re-election this year need to be seen to push legislation that is in the interest of the local property managers and those involved in local property services and those involved with the unions rather than those involved in the private sector (private owners). How better to do this than to persistently revive and re-insert into new bills language that does this and that was previously deleted from earlier bills? The hope is that the SEIU and the group in the Hawaii Realtors Association who support this language will help them in the upcoming election. However another group in the Hawaii Realtors Association who sell property are not in favor of this language, since they know it will hurt their business, slow down property sales and decrease the asset value of property. The hotel industry in Hawaii will not be pleased about the activity by these legislators who are emboldening the very unions who are trying to unionize their workers (like SEIU 32BJ). This will drive up the costs and decrease the profits for the hotel industry in Hawaii.

Question 4: Who has voted AYE most frequently in favor of these bills (HB1706, HB1707, HB2078 and SB2089) over the past several weeks. Below is a table that tracks the votes so far.

Answer 4:

Bill	Number of	Number of	Number of	Number of	Number of
Introducer	AYE votes	AYE votes	AYE votes	AYE votes	AYE votes
	5	4	3	2	1
C. Evans	Brower	Herkes	Cabanilla	Ito	Chang
Choy	Tsuji	Marumoto	Keith-Agaran	Coffman	Nakashima
Green		Tokioka	Luke	Yamane	Rhoads
			Thielen	Souki	Carroll
			Choy	Ching	Fontaine
			Hashem	Awana	Hanohano
			Baker	Evans	McKelvey
			Galuteria	Nishimoto	Souki
				Har	Oshiro
				Taniguchi	M. Lee
				Nishihara	Cullen
				Kim	Giugni
				Kouchi	Ichiyama
					Jordan
					Kawakami
					C. Lee
					Morikawa
					Yamashita
					Riviere
					Ward

From this table, the off-island owners, the realtors involved in selling property and the local hotel industry and local businesses can see who is most actively operating against their interests.

Question 5: Who are the main financial contributors to the legislators repeatedly pushing this legislation in the past few months?

Answer 5: Those interested in examining the contributions to these legislators from the property services, the health care sector, public services and unions going to these legislators can find such information as follows. The public financial disclosure filings posted on the Hawaii State Ethics Commission website for the legislators and the campaign contributions to the legislators most frequently voting AYE for this legislation can be found at:

http://hawaii.gov/ethics/findisc/legs

For additional independent information on contributions sources of funding for Hawaii State Legislators see:

http://www.followthemoney.org/

http://www.followthemoney.org/database/advancedsearch.phtml

http://www.opensecrets.org/resources/ftm/

Some of the legislators involved in this voting have not filed their 2012 public financial disclosures on the Hawaii State Ethics Commission website. Several have been getting contributions from the health care sector, public services, property services and unions.

Hawaii State Governor Neil Abercrombie received $38,250 from the SEIU.

Any ethics violations can be reported for further investigation to:

Hawaii State Ethics Commission:

Maria Sullivan, Chairperson

Les Kondo, Executive Director

Website http://hawaii.gov/ethics

Office Location: 1001 Bishop Street Honolulu, HI 96813

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 616 Honolulu, HI 96809

Phone: (808) 587-0460 Fax: (808) 587-0470

Go to Civil Beat http://www.civilbeat.com/topics/hawaii-state-ethics-commission/

The Ethics Commission opposed the most controversial ethics bill considered in the 2011 legislative session. Senate Bill 671 attempted to water down Hawaii's gift law, including allowing legislators to accept "charitable gifts" from labor unions and business groups.

Hawaii Senator Galuteria proposed gutting rules governing gifts to lawmakers. The move by Democratic Sen. Brickwood Galuteria comes after the Hawaii State Ethics Commission told Senate President Shan Tsutsui that lawmakers could not accept gifts of $200-per-person tickets to a Feb. 24 Hawaii Institute for Public Affairs (HIPA) fundraiser. The state's rules on gifts have not been changed since they were created in 1967. But on Tuesday at 9 a.m., the Judiciary and Labor Committee will hold the first public hearing for SB 671. Galuteria has proposed amending the bill in a way that would radically alter the intent of its two initial sponsors, Sens. Les Ihara and Sam Slom, who wanted to tighten ethics rules. Galuteria could not be reached for comment.

Galuteria voted AYE 3 times in support of the bills hostile to off-island owners (see table above).

Question 6. I heard these bills have wording that is in violation of NAFTA, the Commerce Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution. Where can I find information about this?

Answer 6.

For a clear overview on the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution see:

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Commerce+Clause

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause

For a clear overview on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment of the US Constitution see:

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Equal+Protection+Clause

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection

For a clear overview on NAFTA see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFTA

Pursuant to these Clauses, the US Congress had enacted major pieces of legislation that have extended protection against discrimination beyond that contained in the Constitution. For example, the CR Act of 1871 (42. U.S.C.A. 1983 et seq.) Section 1983 of the Act created a federal remedy for individuals whose constitutional rights had been violated by state officials. Such relief will be granted if “state action” can be demonstrated.

Further information can be found on Google, Bing and Askme.com.

Question 7: What do we do now?

Answer 7: If the final bills passed in the next 2 weeks are harmful to the interests of off-island owners, do the following:

File an injunction to block the bills being enacted until after they are adjudicated in court
Pursue action in Federal Courts on the grounds of the unconstitutional violations
Pursue monetary damages against the state of Hawaii based on the Federal remedies mentioned above
Investigate the dealings of the legislators as outlined above and report any violations to the state, the federal agencies and the media
Launch an all out public relations media campaign about these issues
Don’t inhale any more of their Aloha smoke. The real agenda here is not to improve tax collections. That smoke is to distract you from the real agenda.

Re: Hawaii Trying to Kill VRBO

community-no-reply@homeaway.com — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 13:53:47 GMT

See the Union Home Page for SEIU 32BJ (http://www.seiu32bj.org/au/index.asp) where the Mission Statement is clearly spelled out as follows:

“Our Mission

As part of SEIU Justice for Janitors, Stand for Security and Multi Service Workers campaigns, 32BJ helps property service workers lift themselves out of poverty and into the middle class by wining livable wages and meaningful benefits, including healthcare, paid sick days and job protection.”

Their website actually spells winning as 'wining" (as copied above). To "lift themselves out of poverty" and get better "job protection", they need to learn how to spell (and read). This is what we are up against.