March 29th, 2024
RE: Update on the Maui Fire (Privileged & Confidential; Attorney-Client Communication)
Aloha my friends,
I hope this note finds you well as we go into our Easter weekend. Today, I have a favor to ask of you, can I apply your name and address to the letter below?
HECO is at it again and is trying to get the Hawaii Legislature to allow them to hike up your utility rates in order to pay the money they owe you for burning down your town and forever changing your life.
If you are ok with standing up against HECO and not forcing you and your community to pay for their mistake, reply back to this email with your permission and we will forward your letter onto the state legislature.
Please respond as soon as possible, and we will hopefully stop HECO for its attempt to make YOU pay for THEIR liability.
See you soon,
Andrew Van Arsdale
March 26, 2024
To: Members of the Hawaii State Legislature
The Hon. Donovan Dela Cruz The Hon. Kyle Yamashita, Chair
Senate Committee on Ways & Mean House Finance Committee
The Hon. Sharon Moriwaki, Vice Chair The Hon. Lisa Kitagawa, Vice Chair
Senate Committee on Ways & Means House Finance Committee
RE: STRONG OPPOSITION TO SB 2922
To the Honorable Chairs, Vice Chairs, and Members of the Hawaii State Legislature:
I am a survivor of the August 2023 Maui Wildfires and I’m writing today to express my strong opposition to SB 2922, a bill that would allow Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) to borrow billions of dollars on the backs of ratepayers to pay for wildfire related costs and expenses.
This bill allows HECO to go into significant debt to help it pay for billions of dollars of liabilities it owes because of its own corporate gross negligence in starting all Maui wildfires. In short, HECO burned down significant parts of Maui including almost all of Lahaina Town and killed 101 people because it did not properly maintain its own equipment and chose not to have a power safety shut off program in place, like many utilities in the Western United States. SB2922 would allow them to borrow billions on the backs of me and every other Maui wildfire survivor. Please reject this misguided effort.
To reiterate, allowing HECO to go into debt and then have the very people it burned out of house and home (ratepayers) pay-back this debt instead of their own company shareholders is absolutely wrong, does not hold HECO’s executives accountable for their acts, and should be rejected.
As a proud Maui resident who is struggling to move past this horrific tragedy, I urge you to reject SB 2922 and demand that HECO’s shareholders bear the burdens of its corporate gross negligence.
Sincerely,
Name:
Damaged/Destroyed Address:
