Nevada super-PAC funding pro-development candidates

This election for Maui County Council presents a clear choice.

There is the slate of pro-development candidates endorsed by the corporate-funded Nevada super political action committee (PAC) which calls itself Hui-O-Maui Citizens for Change. Their slate ensures rezoning requests for mass tourist development are rubber-stamped by the council.

The actual impacts on traffic, environmental degradation, quality of life, cost of living and infrastructure are not paid by developers. Those costs are born by the people who live here. Developers on Maui are not even charged traffic impact fees or held responsible for future water supply. They pocket their profits and dodge all responsibility before the actual impacts manifest.

Then there are the candidates endorsed by Maui Pono Network, a group of actual citizens interested in change that benefits people who call Maui their home.

Park City, Utah, is a popular tourist destination that has over-developed and its character is lost. I used to live there. A study revealed that the development cost the community more than it gained because of spiraling infrastructure demands.

The real estate boards and the construction industry won. The cost of living in now crowded Park City is 50 percent higher than the national average.

Greg Klassen notes, “If we really did the cost accounting, we would find lots of destinations are actually losing money.” (Hotelier.com, June 5, 2019, “Rapid Tourism Growth Has Become the Enemy of Popular Destinations”).

Please don’t let Maui go that way. Your vote counts.

Ernest Hilberg Kihei