WHT reported today on what I blogged about yesterday.The Hawaii Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments in the Coupe condemnation appeal for October 16, 2008 at 9:00am.
It still boggles my mind why Charles & Joan Coupe are still fighting this condemnation.A completed Hokulia bypass would dramatically increase the value of their remaining land holdings. But unfortunately they are looking at only the short term view, not the long term.Thus it is my strong belief that the Coupe’s feel that they are not being fairly compensated for their land. The latter is what this case boils down to.
The Big Island hotel occupancy rate was much better during the week ending August 16.
“Big Island occupancy dropped 8.1 percentage points to 67.9 percent, while room rates declined 7.3 percent to $206.”
But overall I still think we are in for a rough ride. There still appears to be a major weakness in hotel occupancy despite the overall rate being at 67.9%.Especially since the latter represents a 8.1% decrease from 2007.
Lastly, there was interesting Building Industry article on the state of Hawaii County’s economy and reflections from Mayor Kim as he leaves office. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that most aspects of the construction industry here in Hawaii County is being affected by overall world economy. I started noticing signs of weakness starting in early 2007. In my view, how the overall world economy does will have direct impact on if the construction industry here has a rough or soft landing.
I personally foresee it being somewhere in between. I figure that government infrastructure projects and private commercial retail projects will make up for some of the declines in private residential projects.
As far as Mayor Kim’s thoughts on his administration, I have one word for it, embarrassment !
