Maui-Based Scam: Hunter Biden Partner Secured Millions from Businessman with Reputed Organized Crime Ties
Complaint: Manahan uses Council Email to Campaign for Amemiya and Cordero
COVID Count 83 new cases out of 3,408 tests
Elections, Anxiety and Non-Essential
OHA Races: Trask Endorses Akina, Alapa, Mangauil
Ige Seeks More 'Trusted Testing Partners'
89% of Hotels to Reopen this Month
SA: … Doug Chang, Ritz-Carlton general manager, said more employees are back on the job, too, after undergoing intense preparations to implement new safety protocols.
Chang said the resort’s occupancy in October, when it reopened for kamaaina travelers, was in the midteens and is expected to increase slightly this month when Hawaii allows trans- Pacific travelers from the U.S. and Japan, starting Friday, to use a pre-arrival testing program to bypass a passenger quarantine. The resort also has a base of business from its privately owned residences, he said.
“We’ve been able to bring back about 32% to 33% of our ladies and gentlemen,” Chang said….
Jack Richards, CEO and president of Pleasant Holidays, said Hawaii’s complicated pre-arrival testing protocol, especially where to find the right tests from Hawaii’s trusted partners, also has limited demand. Continued visitor industry closures, ranging from lodging venues to food and beverage places, as well as amenities and attractions, also have dampened bookings.
Richards said only about 60% of Pleasant Holiday’s 208 Hawaii hotel partners had opened in October. By the end of this month, he expects 89% will have reopened, with 96% slated to be operating in December….
read … Hawaii’s visitor industry slowly reopening
Glitches And Problems: My First Adventure With Hawaii’s New COVID-19 Travel Program
CB: … The process went like this: Click through every trusted partner website to see what can be covered by insurance. Nothing there for me. No available dates for one provider but another provider had time. Signed up for new accounts online for the state and the trusted clinical lab that did my COVID-19 test. Verified my identity so I could receive my test results online in a secure manner. Saved the PDF and re-uploaded it to the Safe Travels website for verification. Got the QR code via email, and saved it for arrival at the airport.
It’s pretty involved and at times pretty confusing. So I wasn’t surprised that 40% of travelers in the first week after the program began Oct. 15 showed up with the wrong kind of test results. Or that the airport check-out process was backlogged because many forms had to be read manually by airport agents.
Glitches and problems are a normal part of any new program, especially when we’re talking about government-made apps, I’ve come to realize. But it’s one thing to know that and another to see it in action.
When I landed in Lihue on a Friday evening, I joined a line of about a hundred people from what I’m guessing was a couple of different flights including my own. That line, for the next 30 minutes or so, would not budge at all.
There seemed to be only three officers — National Guard or Kauai Police Department — checking people out on their iPads.
Dozens of travelers in line clutched their paper results in their hands, which made me think a fair number of people didn’t know how to, or couldn’t, get the PDF to upload onto the Safe Travels website. Glitch? Those paper forms, of course, had to be read manually, and undoubtedly slowed things down.
Some people were in line filling out forms. What forms, though? I’m not sure. Were they forms for people choosing to quarantine instead? I asked one of the airport staff who didn’t seem to know….
By the time I actually reached someone with an iPad who scanned my QR code, it had been about an hour since I landed in Lihue. Normally it takes about 5 minutes from the time you get off the plane til you’re out the door.
Well, not this time.
After scanning the QR code, the National Guardsman asked to see my test result form. I literally blurted out, “But why?”
The program is designed to show “COVID-19 negative” if the result was indeed negative and from a trusted partner, both of which were true in my case.
Still, I pulled the PDF up from my smartphone files. But what if people don’t know how to do this? Quarantine? Detention? Glitch?…
read … Glitches And Problems: My First Adventure With Hawaii’s New COVID-19 Travel Program
Failing A Class Could Get Your Student Back To School Sooner
CB: … Students are several months into a mostly virtual academic year due to the pandemic, so first-quarter grades — recorded in mid-October — reflect that learning experience.
And while teachers are being more lenient with late work, flexible with open-note tests and creative with testing formats to account for the challenges of distance learning, they’re also gauging who needs in-person instruction the most right now based on early grades.
“For the F students, we request them to be the first to return to campus,” said Hannibal Starbuck, a science teacher at H.P. Baldwin High on Maui, which is still mostly online. “For some reason, the school environment helps them become more successful.”
While many state Department of Education schools plan to gradually bring students back to campus this month, most of the 294 public schools are still largely online for the majority of kids….
read … Failing A Class Could Get Your Student Back To School Sooner
U.S. Surgeon General, aide arraigned in Hawaii for alleged emergency order violation
SA: … An arraignment was held today for U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams and an aide for allegedly violating an emergency order while at a beach park on on Oahu in August during a COVID-19 emergency order-mandated closure of the island’s beach parks.
Attorney Michael Green, who is representing Adams and his aide, Dennis Anderson-Villaluz, entered a not guilty plea on behalf of both men before Circuit judge Shirley Kawamura.
The court waived appearances for Adams and Anderson Villaluz, who were not present….
Related: Shapiro: Surgeon General Deserves Thanks, Gets $5,000 Ticket Instead
read … U.S. Surgeon General, aide arraigned in Hawaii for alleged emergency order violation
Easy Targets? Some Oahu Homeless Have Been Ticketed Dozens Of Times During The Pandemic
CB: … Sept. 18 was a rough day for Jay Sohl, a homeless man who spends his time in the Waikiki area.
That day, five different Honolulu police officers ticketed him for 14 COVID-19 violations, including not social distancing, not wearing a mask and gathering — two of those within 19 minutes of each other.
“It’s too much,” Sohl said. He accrued so many tickets — 35, totaling nearly 80 violations — that he just threw them out. …
(But at least the HPD made their quota for OT.)
(Idea: Let the homeless wipe away one ticket for each month they accept housing.)
Video: OVER 52 TONS OF HOMELESS RUBBISH CLEARED FROM AREA NEAR KEA'AU BEACH PARK CAMPGROUND
read … Easy Targets? Some Oahu Homeless Have Been Ticketed Dozens Of Times During The Pandemic
Dubin request for delay in disbarment denied by Justice Elena Kagan
ILind: … U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan today denied an application for a legal “stay” to temporarily halt the disbarment of controversial Hawaii foreclosure attorney Gary Victor Dubin.
Kagan’s denial of Dubin’s appeal was reported today on the Supreme Court’s website.
The Hawaii Supreme Court’s Order of Disbarment becomes effective next Monday, November 9, and Kagan’s decision appears to mean Dubin will soon lose his license to practice law….
The bad news for Dubin doesn’t necessarily stop there. The Office of the Disciplinary Counsel accused Dubin of making “false and misleading” representations when appealing to the U.S. District Court in Honolulu and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for a stay.
In an October 19 document filed with the Hawaii Supreme Court, ODC alleges the attorney essentially tricked the two federal courts into delaying reciprocal disbarment proceedings.
On or about October 3, 2020, Respondent produced what appeared to be a filed “Application for Emergency Stay Submitted to the Honorable Elena Kagan Pending the Filing of Petition for Writ of Certiorari.” The document was signed electronically by Respondent and dated October 3, 2010.
Both courts had responded by approving the temporary stay. However, ODC subsequently found Dubin’s application had not actually been filed or had been pulled back.
“But in either case, Respondent represented to both federal courts that he had filed the Application when he either had not done so or had withdrawn it,” ODC argued in its opposition to granting a stay. “Those courts relied at least in part on his false or misleading representation in staying their reciprocal proceedings.”
The U.S. Supreme Court docket for Dubin’s application to Justice Kagan shows it was filed last Friday, October 30, nearly a month after Dubin said it had been filed….
Further, ODC disclosed there are current “20 pending disciplinary complaints against Respondent, and there are nine pending claims with the Lawyer’s Fund for Client Protection.”
In another filing with the Hawaii Supreme Court, the Office of Disciplinary Counsel said Dubin had missed the deadline to pay court-ordered restitution of $19,885 to clients in one case. As as result, “ODC needs to take action to reduce the restitution order to a judgment to pursue collections.”…
read … Dubin request for delay in disbarment denied by Justice Elena Kagan
Kauai Bets Big With CARES Money To Boost Local Beef Industry
CB: … Kauai County has committed a huge stake — $1.75 million — in CARES Act funding to a gamble that growing alfalfa cheaply enough on Kauai can permit the island’s beef industry to go to scale….
read … Kauai Bets Big With CARES Money To Boost Local Beef Industry
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