My Open Letter to Governor Linda Lingle About Her Lying Or Ignorance Of Turtle Bay's History

Aloha Governor Lingle.

I was listening you this morning (2-5-08) on KHVH News Radio with host Rick Hamada and I must say you were either lying or ignorant in your words.

To say Oaktree put a couple of million dollars in to Turtle Bay Resort and wants to "flip it" is a gross lie and does a disservice to the thousands of people who worked to turn Turtle Bay around. Your number is off by about $140,000,000 in terms of what they spent on the project. When Oaktree bought Turtle Bay Resort in 1998, it was a mess. It was close to closing, large dangerous pieces of concrete were missing from exterior and the rooms were dingy, moldy and dismal. The rate was about $60 a night and occupancy hardly ever got past 50 percent. Oaktree saved that property and I for one worked on the renovation. We all busted our butts and helped create a new jewel. You owe Oaktree an apology for your characterization.

Your comment of "pristine land" is either a lie or ignorant. The community through the Unilateral Agreement set up Turtle Bay to continue to be productive land. Some of the previous uses of Turtle Bay were an airfield (check out the pictures here)- there are still remnants of the building and runways on the undeveloped parts of the property. The PGA Tour and LPGA use a former runway as the center of their operations. If you ever actually went there to see it, you would marvel at the amount of old concrete and blacktop there is to sustain the 10-20 mobile trucks in the TV compound. If you ever spoke to anyone there they could easily show you.

Turtle Bay was also a sugar cane field. That is why all the trees there are the same size. They all started growing when the fields went fallow and we lost our jobs at the Kahuku Sugar Mill. There were also houses on the Turtle Bay side of the Kawela Bay as late as the 1980s. There are small patches of land that are pristine. Yes the beaches are beautiful, but the plan we put together that you so disparagingly referred to as "old" protected the beaches, created parks, created a walkway across the entire property so everyone could access it.

You obviously know nothing about this history or you are lying.

You should talk to some people who do not have a strictly preservationist viewpoint. Carol Philips for example, is a known Serial Campaigner over here and we know she is/was on your staff. She was a supporter of Turtle Bay until she ran for office and used it as an issue.

Finally, this is a distinction that you know is true but will not be perceived by many. You are using your bully pulpit in affecting the sale of the property. Nice dodge to attack Rick Hamada of KHVH - AM for his analogous column, you knew it was allegory yet you chose to distort his intentions to duck discussing the issue, THAT WAS COWARDLY AND SHAMEFUL.

A project this size does not get sold over night in a depressed real estate economy, in a state that has a well deserved reputation for being horrible to do business in. Your proclamation that the state wants to buy it and preserve it is going to affect the market.

To say the State of Hawaii is just another buyer like you did this morning (2-5-08) is a pure, 100 percent unadulterated, SHABAI (to be polite).

I have written some history about the property that is not socialist propaganda from radical, strong armed Eco thugs that seem to have your ear.

Here are the links, please get educated.

Let's pretend it is 1997 and YOU are Mr. Oaktree. (Part 1) http://keepthenorthshoresane.blogspot.com/2006/09/lets-pretend-it-is-1997-and-you-are-mr.html

Turtle Bay Opponents - Do the Ends Justify The Means? (Part 2) http://keepthenorthshoresane.blogspot.com/2006/09/turtle-bay-opponents-do-ends-justify.html

The Genius of Carol Phillips

http://keepthenorthshoresane.blogspot.com/2006/11/genius-of-carol-philips.html

Pave Kawela Bay

http://keepthenorthshoresane.blogspot.com/2006/12/are-you-idiot-or-liar.html

Please Governor, read these and apologize to Oaktree for being misinformed. Go back to being a Republican and back away from the Socialist Pipe that you have been inhaling from.