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Friday, July 26, 2019
July 26, 2019 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 5:16 PM :: 3237 Views

Imua TMT: Video from Pro-Telescope Rally

OHA Trustees Call on Ige to Rescind Emergency Proclamation

Trustee Keli'i Akina Urges OHA to Recognize its Duty to Native Hawaiians Who Support TMT

Military Consumers Target for Scams and Unethical Business Practices

Telescope: Vast Majority Want it to Stay in Hawaii

HNN: … Thirty Meter Telescope supporters also sought to have their voices heard Thursday, with rallies at the state Capitol building and in Hilo.

Gordon Squires, vice president of external relations for TMT, told Hawaii News Now on Thursday that the “vast majority” of people are asking them to stay and “that’s what we’re committed to do.”

“We have a lot of support here and it may not seem that way on social media,” he said. “This is an unprecedented situation. We don’t have a timeframe before making any decisions (but) we are committed to Hawaii. It is important for us to get started as soon as possible.”…

read … Vast Majority

What did we Get from Kahoolawe Protests?

ILind: … in many ways, the current uprising is similar to the movement that grew after the first public protest landing on Kahoolawe at the beginning of the American Bicentennial year of 1976 which aimed at stopping the U.S. Navy’s use of the island as a bombing range.

I found myself among the group of nine people who successfully made it onto shore on January 4, 1976 in a direct nonviolent challenge to the bombing. The protest had been launched by Maui resident Charles Maxwell, who put out a call to Hawaiians across the state to join him in the protest landing.

Dozens of people responded to his call. I described my experience in a column written to mark the 40th anniversary of that first landing (Civil Beat,” Kahoolawe 40 Years Later“)….

That initial civil disobedience was followed by a series of protest landings which led to arrests and criminal trials, all of which continued to focus growing public awareness not only of the issue of Kahoolawe, but the broader issues facing Hawaiians.

Just two years later, this public awareness contributed to several dramatic pro-Hawaiian constitutional amendments proposed by the Constitutional Convention of 1978 and approved by voters.

These constitutional amendments created the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to manage and administer resources to be held in trust for the Hawaiian people, including a share of ceded land revenues to be set aside for the benefit of native Hawaiians. A separate provision recognized the inadequacy of funding for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, and spelled out a directive that the legislature “shall make sufficient sums available” for the development of lots to be made available to qualified Hawaiian lessees, to carry out rehabilitations programs to raise the status of Hawaiians, and to fund “the administration and operating budget of the department of Hawaiian home lands…by appropriating the same in the manner provided by law.”

And a final amendment called for protection of customary and traditional rights “exercised for subsistence, cultural and religious purposes and possessed by ahupua’a tenants who are descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778, subject to the right of the State to regulate such rights.”

Today, after four decades have passed, these lofty goals have not been met, despite being enshrined in the State Constitution, and despite the millions of federal and state dollars invested in Native Hawaiian programs. The long list of qualified applicants waiting for Hawaiian Homes leases has not been eliminated, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs has failed to provide the hoped for leadership in developing overall policies to raise the status of Hawaiians, and the state has fought a long-running legal battle to avoid providing those “sufficient sums” to operate the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands without the agency having to lease prime properties to private commercial interests simply in order to provide operating funds.

More generally, Hawaiians continue to trail other ethic groups in income and economic well being. A 2013 OHA study reported that Hawaiians have the lowest median family income of all major ethnic groups throughout the state, with all the problems that engenders. Hawaiians are are also overrepresented among our prison and jail population while face unique health challenges.

So while opposition to the TMT sparked the current demonstrations, the real issues are deeper and broader-based. Like Kahoolawe in the 1970s, Mauna Kea and the TMT have become the symbol of a generalized concern that Hawaiians are still carrying more than their fair share of the community’s social burdens, and that something must be done….

read … For what it’s worth

Anti-Telescope Protester Caught in Identity Trap

KITV: … Emotions ran high inside OHA's board room Thursday morning with the message from some trustees and testifiers to keep the kia'i safe.

"When we let that go where are we going to be as Hawaiians, where is our identity? Is it in a telescope, not for me," Kumu Hula of Halau Mohala 'Ilima said.

(That’s the identity trap.  Its like a poverty trap.) 

The newly-approved resolution now allows OHA to advocate for the health and well being of demonstrators, which includes releasing funds to provide supplies for protectors at the base of the summit.

Trustee Carmen Hulu Lindsey was among the more than two dozen kupuna who were arrested on the mountain last week.

She says she plans to stand on the front lines again.

"I think the love that I saw, the aloha was so heartwarming and I thought to myself that's our people that's what Hawaii is all about," Hulu Lindsey said.

OHA maintains that it does not have a position on the TMT project, however the agency is in current litigation with the University of Hawai'i stating that the school mismanages the land. 

During Thursday's meeting Trustee Keli'i Akina did point out that not all Hawaiians are opposed to the telescope. Akina stated that it was important that OHA recognize both sides. 

"Many Native Hawaiians affirm the value of TMT for education for culture for the economy," Akina said….

read … Identity Trap

Journalist: Building the Telescope is Like the Holocaust or the Election of Trump or Something

CB: … greedy corporate profiteers — and their enabling state governor — feeding the state university’s coffers ….

it isn’t just the American president’s words — and the thousands of our fellow-citizens chanting with deranged grins, “Send her back!”

And it isn’t just the spineless U.S. representatives and senators fearing for their own exalted position while the edifice their job is built upon crumbles.

It’s reliving this horror with a Holocaust-referencing “Never Again” button tucked safely inside my dresser drawer. It’s a memory of inaction in the face of the final “victory lap…”

It’s the rest of us — feeding babies, paying rent, buying groceries, marching off to our 9 to 5, watching the news – and feeling utterly powerless. The rest of us fearing that democracy — and any voice we once imagined that we had has been utterly drained of meaning and purpose….

After the tidal wave of impotence, what remains? Only this. The gut-deep memory of what we value, collectively and individually. And the raw (sometimes hopeless) courage in the face of a seemingly intractable avalanche of oppression. Nothing less will do….

read … Cliches and Straw Men

Gov. Ige accepting comments regarding TMT on his official website

KITV: … As of Wednesday afternoon, we’re told that his office has received more than 14,000 responses.

To submit a form and leave a comment, click here….

read … Gov. Ige accepting comments regarding TMT on his official website

Oahu: Letters sent to possible violators of new short-term vacation law

KITV: … The Department of Planning and Permitting sent out the letters about two days ago to property owners they believe may be operating short-term vacation rentals illegally. Letters were sent to approximately 5,000 property owners.

The letter details what to do and also the notice of violation that advertising a vacation rental for less than 30 days, hosted or un-hosted outside of resort area without a non-confirming use certificate is against the law beginning on August 1. …

CB: More aggressive enforcement of laws against unpermitted short-term rentals begins Aug. 1

read … Mayor Caldwell discusses letters sent to possible violators of new short-term vacation law

State Aims To Reduce Unnecessary ER Visits By Empowering Paramedics

CB: … When Gov. David Ige signed Act 140 into law June 25, it marked the latest development in an effort to make Hawaii’s emergency response system run more smoothly. Starting as early as next year, the law will allow paramedics or other medical professionals to treat some patients at the scene of an emergency — or nonemergency —  and navigate them to appropriate care at other clinical sites.

The Hawaii Department of Health has until July 2020 to outline the program’s parameters, such as how many additional people will be hired, what kind of vehicles it will require and how to delegate medical treatment.

It likely won’t provide service 24 hours a day. A 2016 Community Paramedicine Working Group recommended the program involve certified health workers, social workers, doctors and a medical director.

Officials say the program could alleviate pressure on overloaded ERs and save the state money, but it will require careful planning, training, partnership-building and vetting. And no one knows exactly how it will be structured yet, especially without a monetary appropriation from the state….

The state is losing money on emergency transportation, and the health department is currently under a mandate to improve its billing collection.

“We collect about $45 million a year and (emergency transport services) cost the taxpayer about $90 million,” Bronstein said, noting that collections are returned to the state general fund. “We need to optimize.”

The department must draft rules for the program by July 2020 to serve as interim guidelines until 2023. The rules must determine the price for paramedic calls that either involve transport to facilities other than ERs, or treatment at the scene with no transport.

Once those are adopted, the state can bill for those services for the first time, said Rep. Della Au Belatti, the state House majority leader and a member of the House Health Committee. Currently, Hawaii patients who elect not to be taken to the ER are not billed and the state swallows the cost….

read … State Aims To Reduce Unnecessary ER Visits By Empowering Paramedics

Medical home concept undermined by HMSA

SA : … Drs. Calvin C.J. Sia and Galen Y.K. Kwock clearly outlined the negative effects of HMSA’s payment transformation (PT) on the medical home concept, widely recognized as a model for all primary care, especially in pediatrics (“Family-centered medical home eroding,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, July 14).

Then, Dr. Mark Mugiishi of HMSA described PT as an important solution to control health care costs and necessary for a healthier Hawaii (“Dr. Mark Mugiishi,” Star-Advertiser, Name in the News, July 19)….

One glaring example: HMSA no longer reimburses pediatricians for providing vaccinations (or office testing) for serious infectious diseases, demonstrating its apparent disregard for the value of comprehensive preventive primary care in our population….

read … Medical home concept undermined by HMSA

Tulsi 3rd-party campaign feared by campaign observers

TO:  … This criticism of Harris -- and right-wing media’s increasing embrace of Gabbard, an avowed progressive who supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries -- has led to some fearful forecasting this week.

“Hot take/prediction: Tulsi Gabbard is going to endorse Trump in the end,” The Hill correspondent Reid Wilson tweeted on Tuesday.

Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, weighed in as well:

“My prediction: Tulsi runs as third-party Green candidate to help Trump win. I will take bets on this.”…

ILind: Tulsi 3rd-party campaign feared by campaign observers

read … Democratic activists worry Tulsi Gabbard will launch third-party presidential run ‘to help Donald Trump win’

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