April 2009

Home   Newsletters May 2009

June 2009

Mail-in Election for City Council Went Smoothly (Kim Langley) Honoring Our Stalwart Members State League Biennial Convention At Honolulu's Annual Meeting in April League Testimony on City Budget, May 18, 2009 (Pearl Johnson) Mahalo Contributors Affordable Housing Funds Cut (Jackie Parnell) In Memoriam [Jerry Hess] (Carol Whitesell) Calendar of Events

Affordable Housing Funds Cut The story in the Legislature this year was all about money. No way were we going to get any more for affordable housing. We were fighting to hang on to the little we have. The biggest hit was on the conveyance tax. A coalition of environmentalists and housing advocates had finally got the legislature to increase a committed share of the conveyance tax to the land conservation fund and the rental housing trust fund. This was an easy target for the budget balancers. In its final form, HB1741 reduced the 30% allocated to rental housing to 25% from July 2009 to July 2012 and that to the conservation fund from 25% to 20 % for the same three-year period. Actually, we are probably lucky they didn’t take it all! There were other bills to eliminate tax credits to builders of affordable housing (absolutely essential or nothing would be built) but to the best of my knowledge they did not pass. Jackie Parnell

April 2009

Top   Home   Newsletters

June 2009