What the supervisor told me is that even if the cleaning fee is separately listed, it is still considered part of the rent and TAT and GET must be paid.  On top of that, your cleaner has to pay GET on what s/he receives!  Double taxation!

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:

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:

1. File an injunction to block the bills being enacted until after they are adjudicated in court
2. Pursue action in Federal Courts on the grounds of the unconstitutional violations
3. Pursue monetary damages against the state of Hawaii based on the Federal remedies mentioned above
4. Investigate the dealings of the legislators as outlined above and report any violations to the state, the federal agencies and the media
5. Launch an all out public relations media campaign about these issues
6. 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.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR EVERYONE.  Please prepare opposing letters by tomorrow to be ready to send to the Hawaii legislatures by Sunday 6pm.  SB2078 in its current form will be voted on Tuesday 4/10.  This is our last free opportunity to oppose this bill.

Your letters should be short and polite. You should oppose the 3 items as follows:  the 1:1 owner:contact requirement, the posting of local contact's personal info in your ads, and no PMs. Please write this anyway you want but if you disagree and write something different than this, our message will not be strong.

Please contact your on island contact via phone and advise them how SB2078 will affect their lives regarding:

237D(a)(3) Able to respond to any issues or concerns relating to the transient accommodation, including in the case of an emergency or natural disaster; provided that the designated agent shall not include any individual who is designated as an agent for more than a single owner;

This means that your on island contact can only work for you and nobody else.  And if your island contact cannot function in that manner, then we will be forced to hire a licensed agent.

237D(f) If the owner resides without the State or on another island from where the transient accommodation is located, any advertisement for the owner's transient accommodation shall also include the name and phone number of a designated agent for that transient accommodation.

This means that your on island contact name and phone number will be on your advertisement and their information will no longer be private and they could get unwanted phones calls from people viewing your ad at any time

We will post instructions on how to submit your letter tomorrow.  Please join us in the 'BIG WAVE'.

I contacted my on island rep, and she is going to prepare a statement in opposition to HB2078 and also forward the information I gave her to other interested locals.

(at least I got the number right)

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.

This is the start of my email tonight:

RE: opposition to HB2078 HD2 SD2

Dear Representative:

Under HRS 467-2 owners are excepted from requiring a property manager or caretaker, and allowed to manage their property as a TVR.  Any change to that right, requiring out-of-state owners to hire a licensed realtor, property manager, or exclusive caretaker, will bankrupt many owners unnecessarily.

Under HRS Section 521-43(f), out-of-state owners are currently required to provide guests with an on-island emergency contact… a good requirement no business could survive without.

HB2078 HD2 SD2 effectively changes the on-island contact to fall under the requirements of HRS 467, thus eliminating the out-of-state owners right to act as their own agent. Since there is no obvious need to have the emergency contact fall under real-estate licensing guidelines, other than to subvert interstate commerce law and NAFTA, any judge will quickly block execution of this law.

Is that a good start?

Hawaii Government payroll sector showing steady growth (ie not the instability of the Hotel/Leisure sector):

: