Many people once predicted that the Internet and e-mail would enable business and government operations to become entirely paperless, saving natural resources and money. This dream has not been fully realized, of course; but in certain circumstances, these benefits are within reach and worth reaching for.

That's why the city is following the correct path in its plans to shift the burden of delivering property tax assessments to e-mail servers, rather than handing them to mail carriers.

It's a cost-cutting move that's becoming increasingly popular. This year the city also moved voting in the O'ahu Neighborhood Board elections entirely online, ending years of mail-in balloting. That was also aimed at saving printing and postage costs. This approach should be replicated wherever practical throughout city and state government.

But in many cases, the strategy depends on taxpayer cooperation to be effective.

Government officials can't always decide unilaterally to handle certain core communications exclusively through e-mail, because they can't assume everyone has Internet access.

In this case, property owners have until Monday to opt-in for this tax cycle, by visiting the Web at www. realpropertyhonolulu.com (information: 768-3799).

It costs the city about $80,000 annually to mail assessments to 280,000 property owners. It may not seem like a lot of money.

But by signing up for the e-mail, a taxpayer can strike a small but vital blow for fiscal responsibility.