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+--- Thread: Potential restrictions to Mauna Kea access (/showthread.php?tid=16163)
RE: Potential restrictions to Mauna Kea access - Newgirl - 07-15-2015
quote:
Well, Newgirl, I have changed my mind as a result of your pristine arguments and logic and definitions and copying and pasting abilities.
It's not as much fun since I'm not arrogant anymore, but I am on the right side with you!
I _hate_ those cubicles, too! I'd much rather be out trolling for stuff in nature's wonderland.
Kirt, I guess I deserve the mocking for speaking emotionally instead of practically, but hey, sometimes, you just have to do whatever makes you feel better. My exuberance of breaking the dumb cycle gets the best of me sometimes....often.
RE: Potential restrictions to Mauna Kea access - rainyjim - 07-15-2015
Newgirl, What you don't seem to understand is the TMT owes 'insert x ethnic group here' nothing.
Since when is a non-profit scientific endeavor required to pay a 'protection' fee to some local thugs?
What makes you think the TMT owes anyone anything?
RE: Potential restrictions to Mauna Kea access - HereOnThePrimalEdge - 07-15-2015
Can anyone tell me what Hawaii has gotten in return so far?
The TMT Observatory Corp. launched the fund, which provides $250,000 a year to Pauahi Foundation and $750,000 a year to Hawaii Community Foundation, last November to support science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education on the island.
A TMT spokeswoman said that fund will last for as long as the 180-foot-tall observatory sits on Mauna Kea. It has an existing sublease until 2033 and is designed to last for 60 years.
http://m.hawaiitribune-herald.com/news/local-news/tmt-fight-puts-education-grants-jeopardy
The total estimated value for local education scholarships over the lifespan of the TMT is about $50 million.
RE: Potential restrictions to Mauna Kea access - Newgirl - 07-15-2015
quote:
Since when is a non-profit scientific endeavor required to pay a 'protection' fee to some local thugs?
Well, the most obvious is that the organization doesn't own the land it's applying to use, so it's totally dependent on the local "thugs" to move forward.
RE: Potential restrictions to Mauna Kea access - Newgirl - 07-15-2015
quote:
The TMT Observatory Corp. launched the fund, which provides $250,000 a year to Pauahi Foundation and $750,000 a year to Hawaii Community Foundation, last November to support science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education on the island.
A TMT spokeswoman said that fund will last for as long as the 180-foot-tall observatory sits on Mauna Kea. It has an existing sublease until 2033 and is designed to last for 60 years.
http://m.hawaiitribune-herald.com/news/local-news/tmt-fight-puts-education-grants-jeopardy
The total estimated value for local education scholarships over the lifespan of the TMT is about $50 million.
So it's worth about a $1 Million a year. Sounds awfully cheap to me, but I don't know much about the economics of the big island.
RE: Potential restrictions to Mauna Kea access - HereOnThePrimalEdge - 07-15-2015
Sounds awfully cheap to me
A million $ a year sounds cheap? From a non profit entity?
Who else is going to offer Big Island keiki that much money for education?
If the TMT doesn't provide it, no one else is going to step in, because... It's a huge amount of money.
Let me ask you this. If you set up the Newgirl Educational Scholarship Fund and disperse $1 million in your first year and someone calls you cheap, do you think that's fair? Remember, $1 million has the same effect on the recipients whether it comes from an individual or a non profit corporation.
RE: Potential restrictions to Mauna Kea access - HereOnThePrimalEdge - 07-15-2015
the TMT is going to be so awesome they'll be able to charge whatever they want.
I'm sure it will be a money making bonanza. After a few years it may even attract a private investor like Donald Trump, and he'll figure out a way to really rake in the profits, which are bound to be... astronomical.
He won't even have to change the name as it already starts with a T.
RE: Potential restrictions to Mauna Kea access - lavalava - 07-15-2015
quote:
Originally posted by dakine
If the KECK facility is costing investigators $50,000 a night and the TMT is an order of magnitude bigger, and one can expect it will cost astronomers that much more, then we're talking about what? 25 million plus a year in revenue? So making it sound like the TMT is some little ol' non-profit is a weak argument. And besides, if viewing time on the TMT is going to be so awesome they'll be able to charge whatever they want.
wait a minute. what happened to the sacred mountain? sounds like a lot of money talk to me.
RE: Potential restrictions to Mauna Kea access - shockwave rider - 07-15-2015
Newgirl:
"So it's worth about a $1 Million a year. Sounds awfully cheap to me, but I don't know much about the economics of the big island."
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding running through the whole discussion on what the TMT "owes" to use that site.
People see the big numbers building the telescope is going to COST and somehow translate that in their minds that the TMT project has that big sum of money coming in and everyone has their hands out for a share. This is not a big profit making corporation building a factory that will generate income, this is an international non profit research effort to see deep into the heavens and understand the galaxy we live in and the galaxies beyond us. It will generate KNOWLEDGE not income.
The right of the University to lease sites and control use of Mauna Kea for astronomy was established in 1968, that was almost 50 years ago. If any people wanted to change that process to something different they had plenty of time to work to that end, but there is something fundamentally wrong with letting an entity negotiate and move forward in good faith for 7 years on a very expensive project and then hold the project hostage by blocking roads.
RE: Potential restrictions to Mauna Kea access - Newgirl - 07-15-2015
No, it's not so much what the construction costs are, it's the leased time and fees collected by the operators or University, who apparently previously leased it to them for a $1 a year. And correct me if I'm wrong, since I'm having to do a lot of reading to catch up.
A few things come to mind, the main being the typical political and financial suck universities have become today, both private and public. I haven't even started to look at what the administrators make, but if it's anything like other states, it's often a racket for students these days that pay ridiculous tuition.
From there, what I've read, little was spent by the university for environmental impacts which was found to be inadequate by a state audit, as well as the enormous amounts of money collected for time, such as $12 Million paid by Yale for 15 days at one of the telescopes. Why not get an agreement to receive a percentage of all the leased time? The public should also get a full accounting on every telescope up there since it is state conservation land.
It also seems that the University is asking for a new lease so they can manage the expected life of the telescopes, extending it to 65 years. I haven't heard how that turned out, but seems like better plan would be to have them finish out the term of the current lease and renegotiate the new lease once their term runs out.
And why be so dismissive of the financial stakes for the owners of that trust? What I'm hearing is that the amount of funds provided for the property is already inadequate, just because Hawaiians find the land sacred has no bearing on extracting fair market value for the land lease.
Finally, this seems problematic to me, as there seems to be intentional holes in the accounting, from an article I read: OMKM has received $6 per visitor from permitted commercial tour operators, totaling about $280,000 per year. Twenty percent of these funds sit in an account to be transferred to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, but no mechanism currently exists to do such.
That's nuts.