Hawaii Primary Election Results 2022
Plague, Frogs, Fire and Cracks: Eleven Years of HART Excuses
Honolulu announces free week of fares for TheBus
A GE Tax Exemption for Food
Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted August 13, 2022
Carpenters Own Josh Green -- but Smear Job Against Luke Fails
Borreca: … Hawaii state Rep. Sylvia Luke this year has been the victim of some of the lowest attack ads of the campaign year, thanks to the Hawaii Carpenters union.
(But she won the Dem LG nomination so the Carpenters’ dream of total control via a Green-Anderson ticket has only become half-truth.)
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that Luke said she was the target of “a pretty aggressive smear campaign” by the political arm of the Hawaii Carpenters union because of her opposition to long-term state funding for the city’s troubled rail project.
For more than a decade, Luke has been a low-key but effective opponent to the rail project. The Carpenters, always hungry for more development-fueled construction jobs, have a history of savaging politicians fighting the controversial, long-stalled, over-budget rail project.
The union did the same thing when former Gov. Ben Cayetano ran for mayor of Honolulu and threatened to shut down the rail project. The union did not run commercials defending rail; it attacked Cayetano personally, much like how it worked over Luke this year.
The difference now is that politically powerful interest groups are out in the open: You can trace the money, although the Carpenters and their allies don’t leave a clear path….
As Explained: Josh Green Owned and Operated by Carpenters Union, PRP
read … It is ‘not the Hawaii way,’ but negative, hardball campaigns go back decades
Voting is easier than ever, yet democracy fights to live on
Shapiro: … I’ve seen elections morph from celebrations of democracy in which most gladly took part and felt good about the process, to today’s extremes of vicious blood sport and numbing apathy that leave just about everybody frustrated except the special interests that pay to get their way.
There’s no election night excitement. We vote by mail instead gathering with neighbors at polling places and get results the instant polls close. We’re peeved if we have to wait a couple of hours for a second printout to settle a close race. …
read … Voting is easier than ever, yet democracy fights to live on
Another Miske co-defendant wants out of detention
ILind: … Attorney William L. Shipley Jr. filed a motion this week calling for the release of his client, Jarrin Kalani Young, “on the basis that continuing to detain him pending trial is a violation of his right to due process under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”
Young, 28, was arrested on July 15, 2020, the same day a sweep by federal agents nabbed Miske and most of the ten original co-defendants. According to the motion, Young had been in custody at Honolulu’s Federal Detention Center for 24 months and 26 days as of August 10, 2022, the date the motion was filed.
Three other Miske co-defendants have previously been released on bond pending trial, and three others who have pleaded guilty have been released on bond pending sentencing.
Young is charged in three of the 22 counts of a second superseding indictment in the Miske case, which was handed down by a federal grand jury last summer. He faces charges of being a participant in a racketeering conspiracy allegedly controlled and directed by Miske, of conspiring with Miske and others to distribute drugs, including methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and oxycodone, and with using a firearm in the course of a drug trafficking crime.
At least two of those who have already pleaded guilty to being part of Miske’s racketeering conspiracy have named Young as part of what prosecutors refer to as the Miske Enterprise….
One of Mike Miske’s lead attorneys, Lynn Panagakos, disclosed in a court filing that an unidentified defendant told prosecutors that a another person who witnessed the 2016 murder of Jonathan Fraser had named Jarrin Young and Jake Smith as having taken part in Fraser’s kidnapping and murder….
read … Another Miske co-defendant wants out of detention
Federal law could lead to more Solar Subsidies on Kaua‘i
TGI: … One feature of the bill, direct pay, would for the first time give nonprofit cooperatives like KIUC direct access to tax credits when they invest in renewable-energy infrastructure, which would assist KIUC in developing energy projects….
The act would extend tax credits that are being used for the West Kauai Energy Project, a partnership between KIUC and AES.
These credits will be realized as long as the project becomes operational prior to Dec. 31, 2025. If the operational date slips into 2026, though, the benefit from the credit would be reduced without the extension included in the Inflation Reduction Act….
read … Federal law could lead to lower energy prices on Kaua‘i
Oahu farmland protection ruling heads to state court
SA: … A city agency is asking a state judge to overrule a state commission’s decision earlier this year that upended a plan to preserve 41,407 acres of Oahu farmland under private ownership.
The city Department of Planning and Permitting recently filed an appeal in state Circuit Court seeking to reverse a state Land Use Commission decision that rejected a DPP recommendation to protect agricultural land amounting to 11% of Oahu’s landmass from future conversion to other uses.
DPP’s appeal was filed July 29 in response to a June 30 written LUC decision that followed a unanimous vote by commissioners in January against the city agency’s recommendation to designate the land held by 1,781 private owners as “important agricultural land” deserving protection possibly in perpetuity….
read … Oahu farmland protection ruling heads to state court
City proposes more than $11.67 million in upgrades to Waikiki Shell
SA: … The city is proposing more than $11.67 million in improvements to the Tom Moffatt Waikiki Shell that would include installation of a tensile structure over the main seating area and an additional 2,000 fixed seats.
The outdoor venue at Kapiolani Park, which has hosted major concerts, high school graduations and other events, remains in much the same condition as when it was completed in 1956, according to a draft environmental assessment on the planned upgrades….
read … City proposes more than $11.67 million in upgrades to Waikiki Shell
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