A “Tale of an Eviction” side story
It is a rare thing to hear from a reader about my written work. Most times it’s a short text or email to me saying, in effect “atta boy” or “nice work”. Even when I was running my podcast “The SuperflyOz Podcast: from April 2017 – April 2019, I would only from time to time hear from a listener.
My policy then was to share the entire content of what was shared, and let the listener decide their feelings on it. I am adhering to this policy with my blog site “Politics Hawaii with Stan Fichtman”.
PC: Pat Magie, Island Seaplane Service
I guess when you talk about a government entity that has a massive fingerprint – specifically highlighting the State of Hawaii Department of Transportation – it seems that other people got stories too.
With thanks to Andrew Walden, who has been reposting my articles about “A Tale of an eviction”, telling the saga of the Naval Air Museum Barbers Point imminent eviction, others have come out to tell their tale.
My stories on Andrew’s blogsite can be found at http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/.
This letter was written to me, through Andrew, about how the State of Hawaii has also affected other air and air-focused operations in other parts of the state. Read through this letter as a side story to “A tale of an eviction”.
Attn: Stan Fichtman
I can see that things have not changed in Hawaii. The State is very much against small business in Hawaii especially the DOT who really should be promoting Aviation and Maritime activities. My wife and I spent 23 years in Hawaii, started and operated Island Seaplane Service at 85 Lagoon Drive. We operated for 23 years and never filed an insurance claim, no accidents, no incidents while the helicopters killed many. While there we also flew for the movies,” Godzilla”, “50 First Dates” and TV series ” Fantasy Island” and “Entourage” plus many many advertising shoots for companies around the world. This was great free advertising for the State of Hawaii. We also brought in pilots from all over the world for seaplane training who also spent a lot of money on hotels, meals and car rentals. Airports Division misplaced or mishandled our checks of payment for many years. And of course, their 30 day revocable lease is archaic and senseless. We spent 8 years to obtain a permit to operate and then spent another 1 1/2 million dollars to start the business. I have owned and operated seaplane businesses in Minnesota, Alaska, Florida, California and Hawaii which was by far the hardest to work with.
I have enclosed some pictures of our business in Hawaii and a summary of some of our problems with Roy Sakata and the Airports Division. The final straw was when they raised our annual rent from $28,000.00 to $91,0000.00. The Airports Division never spend a cent on our operation. They simply leased us a 50 foot strip of rocks and cement that our whole operation was attached to. We did all the landscaping and work. In fact our permit for the docks and building was issued by the Army Corps of Engineers.
I just heard yesterday that a bowling alley at Kaneohe Bay was shut down with their 30 day revocable lease. We were charged for 23 years as Industrial Land, so we had to hire a real estate appraiser who said that was illegal – it should have been charged as unpaved parking area.Pat Magie
Formerly Owner of Island Seaplane Service Evicted December 2018
If you wish to opine on anything written on the Politics Hawaii with Stan Fichtman blog site, please send your letters to sjfhawaii@gmail.com. And if they are succinct enough, I will share them on the site as a “letter to the publisher”.