Posted on 08/07/2007 4:58:53 PM PDT by republicpictures
HONOLULU, HI; August 7, 2007: A voter-enacted measure that would have reined in skyrocketing property taxes on the island of Kauai was struck down by the Hawaii Supreme Court yesterday. The court permitted local government officials to challenge the “Ohana Kauai” tax-limitation measure by essentially suing themselves – in a lawsuit in which the government was both plaintiff and defendant and the same attorneys represent both sides. The court also ruled that the state constitution does not permit anyone but government officials to establish tax policy.
“We’re disappointed that the court allowed this fabricated lawsuit to go forward,” said Pacific Legal Foundation Attorney Robert Thomas, who represented homeowners who sponsored the Ohana Kauai measure. “This decision represents a real loss to the people of Kauai. It has told them that their votes don’t count, and that if government officials disagree with a result, they can create lawsuits against themselves, funded by public money, asking a court to strike down a vote.”
“This decision says that it is government officials who have the exclusive say on property taxes, not the people who pay them,” Thomas continued.
Sponsored by the homeowners’ group, “Ohana Kauai,” and approved in 2004 by an overwhelming majority of voters on the island of Kauai, the measure would have amended the county charter to keep a check on property taxes, which have been rising at astronomical rates. Property taxes would have been restored to 1998 levels for owner-occupied homes of residents who had owned their properties since at least 1998, and for homeowners who purchased after 1998, the tax level would be based on purchase price. Future tax increases for all resident homeowners could not exceed 2% per year.
But instead of implementing the charter amendment, Kauai officials sued each other to invalidate it, with the county attorney representing both sides of the case. The officials claimed they alone had power to decide property tax issues, and hired private attorneys with over $250,000 of public funds to litigate the lawsuit.
After the Circuit Court invalidated the amendment, attorneys for Pacific Legal Foundation came in to represent members of Ohana Kauai in an appeal to the Hawaii Supreme Court.
This week’s 3-2 decision by the Supreme Court held both that the peculiar posture of the case – with the county suing itself – was valid, and that only government officials, not the citizens of the counties, may set property tax policy.
Associate Justice Simeon R. Acoba, Jr., in a dissent joined by Associate Justice James E. Duffy, Jr., criticized the majority for allowing a lawsuit to go forward in which the original parties were the County of Kauai (as plaintiff) and the Kauai County Council (as defendant), with the County Attorney representing both sides.
“With all due respect, our role is to protect the judicial process, not to subvert it,” wrote Justice Acoba.
Where do you get that info? I'm not trying to be confrontational, I'm just trying to learn more about the situation.
Based on comments around the election period on the state constitution...a number of folks made observations that the constitution wouldn’t allow such an episode to occur...so the court would knock it down. Whoever wrote this voter-idea...knew that without any doubt. This was simply to waste time and delay things.
“It sounds from the article like a state-law issue. If that’s so, US Supreme Court wouldn’t get involved.”
Other than recalling the scoundrels, what options do the voters have? This really is ridiculous.
Do they have the recall in Hawaii?
obvious, right? for some reason, this doesn't happen... "the people" keep sending the same officials back... it's a phenomenon...
Don’t know. Hope so.
Must be not enough people know what the officials have been doing to them, instead of for them. Folks who want to live there need to either like it, fight it, or leave. I say this as a former Californian. I didn’t like the way California was going, and saw that I couldn’t stop it, so I left. I don’t know if Hawaii’s problems have reached the point where it’s time to leave or not. I do know that the Internet has given people like you and I a brand new way to get such messages out. If it had existed back then, I might not have given up.
You'd think that would be easy with bonehead decisions like this one. Not so - this state will elect a dead woman and a senile old man before they'll vote someone out of office.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism...
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