He will gladly tell you all this is the previous mayor's fault.

Mahalo, Mayor, on a great first year.

MAINLAND

O'AHU PROPERTY TAX IS COMPARATIVELY LOW

This won't be a popular view, but our real property taxes are low. I have owned homes on O'ahu since 1974, and my recent assessment just went up 25 percent after going up 33 percent the year before.

I have owned homes in Colorado and Virginia. The tax rate on O'ahu is about 25 percent of the rate in Arlington, Va. Right across the Potomac River in Montgomery County, Md., the rates are even higher. I should mention that the median homes prices in Arlington and Montgomery counties are about $600,000. To make it simple, if you owned a $600,000 home in one of those counties, your tax would be the same as someone owning a $2.4 million home on O'ahu.

For homeowners on O'ahu over age 62 who are "house-rich" and "cash-poor," I suggest taking out a reverse mortgage to increase their income to pay taxes and even enjoy life a bit more.

WINDFALLS

DOUBLE PROPERTY TAX IS COMING TOO QUICKLY

I thank Jim Scofield for calling attention to the city's property tax windfalls over the past five years (Letters Dec. 27), but his calculus is too generous to the bad guys.

He says that increases of 10 percent per year would spread a doubling of taxes over 10 years. In fact, a 10 percent interest rate would cause a doubling in just over seven years. An interest rate of just over 7 percent would double in 10 years.

The so-called Rule of 72 is a guide to how this works. Divide 72 by an interest rate, and the answer will be how many years it takes to double. At 6 percent, doubling occurs in about 12 years. At 8 percent, doubling occurs in nine years. It also tells us that at 36 percent, doubling occurs in about two years (actually closer to 1.8 years).

C'mon guys. For us long-time owner-occupants, let's push for an above-the-inflation-rate increase of no more than 4 percent to hold the doubling time to 18 years. Let the fat cats fatten their "rainy-day" funds at the expense of real estate speculators who are reaping the big bucks.

KAILUA, LANIKAI

GILL NETTING DESTROYING MANY FISH POPULATIONS

I began pole fishing for papio in the waters off Kailua as a young boy. Kailua Bay used to be teeming with o'ama, papio, kumu, moi, o'io and other great fish to catch and eat.

There used to be thousands of o'ama (juvenile weke) in Kailua Bay to catch in July and August months, but now the once-huge schools show up only as tiny pockets or, like last summer, they were all gone.

Most evenings you can see crews of fishermen arrive to park their cars and lay their miles of nets just offshore Kailua and Lanikai. They leave their lay nets out all night (knowing that the DLNR is understaffed and unable to enforce the four-hour time limit), and they indiscriminately rape the local waters of whatever swims by (including the egg-bearing weke).

We residents here see these fishermen haul their dead catches in the morning regularly and toss out half of their "junk fish catch."

All reasonable water people in Hawai'i know that gill nets are decimating our fish populations and are devastating to our ecosystem. Today, the waters off Kailua and Lanikai hold a tiny fraction of the fish that were here just 20 or, worse, 10 years ago. Today, when I troll for papio on my kayak, I feel lucky to even get a strike.

Please voice your opinion to Gov. Lingle and the DLNR and ask them to ban all gill netting and save what's left of our fish populations.

DANGEROUS

KANE'OHE CROSSWALK SHOULD BE REMOVED

I was saddened to hear that a pedestrian was struck and killed while crossing Kam Highway in Kane'ohe near Star market. This is not the first time someone has been been killed while crossing in this particular crosswalk.

I do not know the specifics of the accident and whether the car was speeding; however, this is a very dangerous spot to have a crosswalk. It is on a five-lane highway that includes a center turning lane. It is a very busy area because there are some six driveways in the immediate area that cars turn in and out of.

There are two other crosswalks on both sides of this one, and these crosswalks are at traffic signals. If this deadly, marked crosswalk were eliminated, then it would compel most pedestrians to use either of the safer crosswalks at the traffic signals.

GOVERNMENT

CONCON IS NEEDED TO ADDRESS OUR PROBLEMS

The abiding, overpowering issue for the public and the Legislature to face up to is the proper role of government.

The fact that you say that the "surplus" is an issue to deal with pretty much says it all.

Our ancestors created government to serve them as individuals. Instead, it now serves itself as a way to buy votes and corrupt free, honest elections.

In the process, some individuals are harmed, willy-nilly, to benefit the favored. Then the situation is reversed and the favored become the picked-upon.

All this is very confusing and getting more and more complicated. If this issue is not resolved, the obvious result is any surplus is "needed" for essential "services" and any shortfall is responded to by a tax increase.

The end result? Tyranny.

To give a concrete example, the state government future retirement requirements, not now listed as a liability on state government books, will eventually fail. Having the future obligations on the books would make the problems harder to ignore and create a demand for solutions.

So, two major issues:

The single solution? Let's go with a Constitutional Convention, which can address problems and other issues in a public forum and get them resolved.

MOBILE PARK

HOUSE HOMELESS IN FEMA TRAILERS

Why doesn't the state of Hawai'i get some of the trailers from FEMA to house the homeless for a year, and build a mobile park temporarily and require each one of them to undergo skill training?

This would get a roof over their heads and help them get back into day-to-day working skills. The state needs to think outside of the box for a change.

TUNNEL, OVERPASS

'EWA ROADWAY CLAIMS UNWARRANTED

The state Department of Transportation would like to clarify and correct Mr. Tom Berg's claims in his Dec. 15 letter to the editor criticizing the state's transportation initiatives in 'Ewa:

The U.S. Navy and Air Force have both publicly stated that they would not support or allow a public road through their military installations for security reasons.

In addition, the proposed tunnel, estimated to cost between $3 billion and $6 billion, is currently not on the O'ahu Metropolitan Planning Organization's Regional Transportation Plan for O'ahu transportation list, meaning it will not be eligible for federal funding.

The state DOT also continues with work on the long-awaited North-South Road, which will provide another road into and out of the 'Ewa region.

Design work is also scheduled for completion next year on a new Kapolei Complex Interchange to provide residents of Kapolei with another alternative to access the H-1 Freeway.