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Monday, May 8, 2023
May 8, 2023 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 5:20 PM :: 2128 Views

Is racism why OHA can’t build condos?

Join us for our annual overview of what went down at the Legislature

First-ever National LifeSmarts Championship for Hawaiʻi

Territorial Governors Challenge Biden on Marine Monument

Recent headlines support idea that Jones Act makes no economic sense 

Flip-Flop: Suddenly Pacific Garbage Patch is 'gathering place for life'

TheBus Routes Changing to Link up with Rail 

DoI to End 'Compact Impact' Payments

Feds Bust HS Softball Coach and Jail Guard--Smuggled Gun and Meth at OCCC

SA: … The former head coach of the Sacred Hearts Academy softball team who was charged for her alleged role in a conspiracy to smuggle methamphetamine and a gun to her stepbrother through a guard at the Oahu Community Correctional Center is asking a federal judge for probation or home confinement.

Keicha K.W. Brunn-Kekuewa stepped down as head coach after the 2022 season following a March 4, 2021, superseding indictment charging her with conspiracy to posses with intent to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to possess a firearm by a felon and unlawful user of a controlled substance.

Brunn-Kekuewa entered into a plea agreement Nov. 1 where she declared her intent to plead guilty to the methamphetamine conspiracy in exchange for the U.S. Department of Justice dropping the firearm charge. Brunn-Kekuewa, a former catcher, was a member of the Lancers’ 2007 ILH and state Division II championship team.

… According to federal court documents, on Dec. 10, 2019, and Feb. 7, 2020, Brunn-Kekuewa’s stepbrother, Robert S. Gibson, called his girlfriend, Cecelia Charity Hilo, several times from the Oahu Community Correctional Center, through Brunn-Kekuewa.

The conversations indicated that Hilo allegedly acquired methamphetamine and was separating it for distribution.

Hilo told Gibson she was keeping “one 14,” which meant she was keeping a half-ounce for her personal use.

In other phone calls between Gibson and Brunn-Kekuewa, Gibson told his stepsister to get his “heater,” or his “piece,” which he told her that Hilo was holding. Hilo replied through Brunn-Kekuewa that she would not give the gun to anyone.

In the same set of calls, Gibson allegedly laid out a conspiracy and gave instructions to Hilo and Brunn-Kekuewa about how to “acquire, package and deliver methamphetamine” with the assistance of a prison guard, Richard Ascencio, who allegedly intended to smuggle it into OCCC for Gibson.

Gibson was found guilty in state court on May 5, 2021, of four counts of kidnapping, two counts of second-degree robbery, promoting a dangerous drug in the third degree, and impersonating a law enforcement officer in the second degree. He was sentenced to 10 years in state prison and is in federal custody ahead of sentencing in a separate state robbery case.

According to the plea agreement, Brunn-Kekuewa met with Ascencio at Whitmore Village on Feb. 11, 2020, and at that meeting, at a convenience store, security camera footage showed Brunn- Kekuewa delivering the methamphetamine obtained from Hilo to Ascencio….

SA: Ex-softball coach gets 20 months in federal prison

PDF: Indictment

read … Feds Doing the Job the State Just Can’t Do

Aloha Stadium project mired by too many questions

SA: … Hawaii doesn’t even have a professional soccer team or a professional rugby team. Furthermore, professional rugby is still trying to establish itself in the U.S., and it averages only slightly more than 2,000 spectators per game. It’s not feasible to build a big stadium for events with low attendance….

When the Stadium Authority fumbled by not maintaining the old Aloha Stadium adequately, UH recovered the fumble and ran with it, building its own stadium in record time on the Manoa campus. UH plans to expand its stadium, and that may be sufficient because UH football attendance has been falling for decades….

Aloha Stadium supporters cite Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego as a model because it was recently completed and it is also part of a mixed-use development, as a new Aloha Stadium in Halawa would be. However, the events calendar on the Snapdragon Stadium website is sparse.

As of May 1, it contains a total of six concerts, San Diego State football games — six of them in the 2023 season — and soccer, rugby and lacrosse. That’s it. Supporters of a new Aloha Stadium need a reality check if they are depending on soccer, rugby and lacrosse for revenue. If the Snapdragon Stadium calendar indicates success, one wonders what failure looks like….

An analysis of the old model by PFM Financial Advisors estimated that the 30-year cost to the state for a new stadium, including financing and maintenance expenses, would have been $1.49 billion.

High costs, along with delays, have forced the state to think smaller, just as the rail project was forced to do. For example, the latest idea is to reduce the 35,000 seats in the original stadium idea to bleacher seating for 25,000 spectators — and the stadium roof is gone. It’s another version of back to the future, because it looks more like the old Honolulu Stadium on King Street, which, coincidentally, had a capacity of 25,000.

The state has appropriated $400 million for the project. Events will generate income, but to generate $1 billion over 30 years (see PFM Financial Advisors’ total estimated cost of $1.49 billion over 30 years), the stadium would have to average the equivalent of 33 events per year (nearly three events per month), each generating $1 million. The old Aloha Stadium didn’t even come close….

read … Aloha Stadium project mired by too many questions

Chaos at the Capitol is part of lawmaking in Hawaii

SA: … ”It was unusually confusing this session,” he said. “There’s always a lot of drama that goes on in conference, but legislators didn’t seem to have an idea how this all would shape up in the end and there was some disappointment about some of the bills that ended up not making it.”

House Speaker Scott Saiki said there was an exceptionally high number of bills still needing agreement from House-Senate conference committees by the usual 6 p.m. deadline on April 28, so he and Senate President Ron Kouchi decided that day to make handling such volume more manageable by shepherding all meetings into one room at the Capitol, Room 309, for the last 90 minutes starting at 4:30 p.m….

To help manage the cavalcade of bills up for agreement, House Majority Leader Nadine Nakamura worked to spur along voting by different conference committees in an order sketched out on a large panel of paper.

“We have to keep moving quickly,” she said after urging one lawmaker to put off signing a bill’s final draft so more agreement votes could be taken.

“We’re going to go to the next item. … Do you have some agreed-upon bills?” Nakamura called out, seeking action on bills related to higher education and technology.

In response, Rep. Amy Perusso called to order a committee on the subject as Rep. Della Au Belatti attempted to continue with health-related bills while yet another lawmaker asked, “What are we doing?”

Nakamura held firm with the order of operations saying, “Della, we’re already on to the next committee.” Later, Belatti was able to obtain votes on the bumped health bills before the 6 p.m. deadline….

In Room 309, some lawmakers voted from the doorway or other standing positions around conference tables where colleagues rotated throughout the afternoon as different conference committees convened and reconvened.

Occasionally, committee chairs called out for members to appear in order to hold votes.

“We are ready to vote as soon as I see Sen. (Chris) Lee,” declared Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole on one measure. After a pause and gazes shot around the room, Lee appeared and voting proceeded.

In another instance, one lawmaker’s absence led to the demise of a bill appropriating $5.5 million in the next fiscal year starting July 1 toward a state-led effort to develop a planned (scam) hydrogen fuel hub that is in contention to receive $500 million from the federal government matched by $500 million from private industry.

About 20 minutes before the 6 p.m. deadline in Room 309, Rep. Nicole Lowen noted that a designee of the House Finance Committee chaired by Rep. Kyle Yama­shita wasn’t available to vote on the hydrogen hub bill, SB 1520.

“I guess at this point, what’s the recommendation?” asked Sen. Lynn DeCoite. In response, Lowen said, “We can defer since we don’t have Rep. Yamashita here to vote on it.”

SB 1520 never got its needed vote. Yet the (scam) hydrogen hub appropriation, unbeknownst to Lowen and DeCoite, had been approved about 90 minutes earlier in the same room by Yama­shita and five other lawmakers who agreed to insert language from SB 1520 including the $5.5 million appropriation plus other material including an additional $10 million for fiscal year 2025 and $700,000 for a state Department of Taxation computer system upgrade into House Bill 28, a blank bill “relating to state programs.”

The conference committee meeting for HB 28 took less than a minute. “We have an agreement to move forward on this,” Yamashita announced. Upon tallying the vote to approve the conference draft, he said, “OK, we have a measure. We’re adjourned.”

There were so many last-day agreements producing conference draft bills that Saiki and Kouchi extended a filing deadline for them and related committee reports from 11:30 p.m. that night, a Friday, to Monday, May 1, at noon. Then on May 1, Saiki and Kouchi further extended the filing deadline to 6 p.m….

SA Editorial: Public left in dark by budget chaos

read … Chaos at the Capitol is part of lawmaking in Hawaii

This Year's Legislature Was Much Worse Than Business As Usual

CB: … In conference committee mysterious things happen in the most anti-democratic manner. Without any justification Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz killed the bill, by first diluting it and then allowing the deadline to pass. This is the same bill he passed in his own committee, by a vote of 13-0 in favor. (Other votes in the Senate were 4-0 and 23-0, and in the House 7-0, 15-0, and 48-2, in favor of the bill.)

Dela Cruz shows his colors time and again; there is nothing here that surprised anyone. But the fact that a completely ethics-free politician is given such corrupting power year after year is an indictment of the leadership.

To allow such dirty tricks to stand, he had the support of President Ron Kouchi. His House counterparts — Finance Committee chair Kyle Yamashita and Speaker Scott Saiki — apparently stand in silent support of this shameful action. …

What we saw this year is not business as usual; It’s much worse. It’s a betrayal of democratic principles and a slap in the face to those who (stupidly) believed that our Legislature was going to reform….

(IQ Test: Were you surprised that reform failed?)

read … This Year's Legislature Was Much Worse Than Business As Usual

Working Families Win With EITC Expansion

CB: … With the passage of House Bill 954, the state will increase the value of its state EITC from 20% of the federal EITC to 40%. This gives Hawaii one of the strongest state level EITCs in the nation, behind only California, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

With this expanded credit, Hawaii will now be a national leader in providing economic relief to the low and moderate-income working families that need it most.

The EITC provides relief to working families by reducing the taxes they owe and, for those with little or no tax liability, increasing the size of their tax refund. This extra cash-in-hand allows families to meet their basic needs for things like food, housing, transportation and childcare.

In 2018 alone, the federal EITC lifted 5.6 million people out of poverty across the nation, 3 million of which were children. In 2021, more than 100,000 Hawaii taxpayers claimed the EITC, bringing more than $200 million back into our local economy….

HB 954 also doubled the value of the refundable food/excise tax credit and made improvements to the child and dependent care tax credit.

These two credits, like the EITC, are refundable and put cash directly into the hands of working families, so they can offset the costs of food and childcare….

read … Working Families Win With EITC Expansion

HB1396: Cesspool Bill Flushed in Conference

CB: … House Bill 1396 would have targeted the state’s 83,000 cesspools on multiple fronts to hasten their conversion into cleaner sewage treatment systems after a state working group recently concluded after a four-year study that Hawaii cannot wait another 30 years to scrap them as planned.

The bill abruptly died on the final afternoon of conference hearings last week….

Rep. Nicole Lowen, who chairs the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee, expressed similar disappointment. 

Neither she nor Gabbard knew exactly why the bill failed at the 11th hour, but it was one of a flurry of bills that died amid a last-minute and fairly chaotic “cattle-call” session.

HB 1396 was a top priority, and lawmakers had “healthy discussions” about the measure, Lowen said. But some of those lawmakers also had concerns about committing large amounts of money without first talking to the counties about “stepping up to do their part,” she added….

read … Hawaii Legislature Delivers Mixed Bag On Climate, Environment Solutions

The Miske case started with a secret indictment (Part 2)

ILind: … In a statement to the FBI and prosecutors year later, Miller said he immediately returned to Oahu after being released from custody in California in July 2014.

When Miske heard about the loss of both his money and the 5 kilos of cocaine, he reportedly became suspicious of Miller’s story about being busted and then released. At first Miske refused to speak to Miller, “fearing that he was wearing a recording device,” according to one account.

Miske told Miller they needed to meet with Mike’s attorney, Tom Otake, to discuss what had happened in California. The last-minute request to meet caught Otake after he had already left his office, but they agreed to meet in the parking lot of a Waikiki elementary school.

Miske picked Miller up in his truck and drove them to the hastily scheduled meeting with Otake.

During the meeting, Miller explained the circumstances which led to his arrest, and asked for Otake’s advice. The attorney said he thought it was unusual that Miller was released based so quickly, given the circumstances.

Miller told investigators he couldn’t recall if he told Otake that Miske was involved in the drug deal, but said he “assumed that Otake knew of Mike’s involvement because Mike was the one who set up the meeting.”…

read … The Miske case started with a secret indictment (Part 2)

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