Rush to put in roads

[csgray]

Not everyone thinks of their home in purely monetary terms, maybe you do, but not everyone else does.

The house I'm in now we could sell out tomorrow and not blink an eye (anyone want a 4 bedroom 3 bath 2 story "treehouse" in HPP?) but the house in Oregon that I lovingly remodeled by hand, that I raised my kids in, that had an amazing yard full of rare plants and trees put in by my husband while he was courting me (the man doesn't believe in buying flowers but he sure planted me flowers) where I watched my daughter learn to walk, being FORCED to sell that house, or losing half the yard to a parkway would have broken my heart. Letting go of that house was the hardest part of deciding to move here, to be forced out by eminent domain would have been devastating, because there is no sum of money to reimburse us for what we would have lost.

There are many people who have equally lovingly hand created their homes here in Hawaii, and you dismiss their attachment to their homes with air quotes around the word victim. I've known people who lost their homes to a bridge project, and they did not make out like bandits, they all got stuck with a very low "take it or sue" settlement offer that was not enough to buy an equal property. In the old boys club of Hawaii I highly doubt that a bunch of mainland transplants with no political connections living in HPP would get enough to relocate after losing half their yard to a parkway.

Carol

Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb