If you only do one thing this week, please be sure to attend the information session tonight at 5 PM.

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• There is an information session tonight at 5 PM about the proposed regulations. Be there, comment in the chat, provide feedback if allowed.
• VRBO sent an email message. We are now planning local feedback sessions. We need volunteers to help organize them.
• 2022 Financial Statements are now available.

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Information Session Tonight - Log In, Comment

Counselors Kimbell and Kierkiewicz are holding an information session on the County’s plan to regulate and, in some cases, eliminate hosted vacation rental operations here on the Big Island.

If this meeting follows the format of the November 20th meeting their will not be any forum for meaningful discussion. It is purely to inform the public what they plan to do, not to give the public an opportunity to tell them why they shouldn’t do it.

This one sided approach to information sharing prevents meaningful engagement about the impact this bill will have on the incomes and home values of thousands of families.  It is intended to calm us.

We are encouraging members of the public to make use of the chat feature to provide timely feedback to the proposal. We are also planning in-person listening sessions sometime in the next several weeks where members of the public will be able to voice their concerns. Both Counselors have agreed, in principle, to attend.

You are supposed to register individually here, but since many folks won’t have time to do this in advance I’m providing my personal link as well. If you use my personal link you will show up with my name so please don’t do or say anything that I’ll have to apologize for later.

VRBO Email

VRBO sent out a nice email message this week pointing hosts to our group. As a result we’ve added dozens of new members.

I’ve also been put in touch with the public affairs team at AirBnB.

Now that we have a path to communicate with most of the industry we will be planning public feedback sessions which both sponsors of this bill have agreed, in principle, to attend.

We will host the Kona event on our farm, but need hosts in Puna, Hilo and Waimea. If you can help organize one of these sessions it would be much appreciated. If you’ve already volunteered and I missed your email, please reach out again.

2022 Financial Statements

In keeping with our core principle of transparency here is our 2022 profit and loss statement as well as a balance sheet.

We are rapidly adding members and are working to build a sustainable revenue stream so we can bring on part time staff and start participating in local elections, but we’re not quite there yet. If you haven’t already joined, please consider becoming a paid member. We all count on rental revenue and this is a good investment to protect that revenue from government overreach.