Audit: Police Commission Gives 'inconsistent and ineffective oversight of HPD'
Tourist Count Down, Spending Up
$1.66B is just the ‘Base’--HART CEO announces dates for THREE cost overrun ‘surprises’
SA: … The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s $1.66 billion contract recently granted to Los Angeles-based Tutor Perini Corp. to design and build Skyline’s last 3-mile segment to Kakaako might mean related projects at the rail agency could be deferred.
Although it’s not been disclosed which projects might be postponed….
(TRANSLATION: ‘Deferred projects will cost more when completed. Therefore this is a hidden cost. Kahikina has a schedule for the announcement of cost overruns. Keep reading.)
The contract, awarded Aug. 15, is expected to be executed in mid-September.
At its last board of director’s meeting, HART Executive Director and CEO Lori Kahikina told the panel, “We did explain to you folks … the affordability of this,” referring to comments made in a recent nonpublic, executive session briefing related to the new contract.
Kahikina said Friday the $1.66 billion was “just for the base bid to get to Kakaako.” ….
(CLUE: A base is something for HART to add cost to.)
“But right now we have done the financial scenarios. We believe we will have no problems to fund the $1.66 (billion) based on how strong (the state’s general excise tax and transient accommodation tax) has been,” she said, noting the rail’s funding sources, which also include $1.55 billion in federal money. “However, we will need to temporarily defer some projects, and we will need the board’s approval to move moneys between” what the agency terms “contract packaging plans,” or CPPs, which feature their own individual yet smaller budgets related to rail construction.
(TRANSLATION: We are hiding the financing costs by shifting them to these other projects.)
Kahikina said by the first quarter of 2025, “we will be coming to the board to get that approval.”…
(TRANSLATION: Expect HART to announce cost overruns in 1Q 2025. But these will not be the first cost overruns announced. Keep reading.)
Moreover, she said that in October HART is set to meet with the Federal Transit Administration, which oversees the $1.55 billion full-funding grant agreement for construction of the CCGS project.
(TRANSLATION: The Feds have not yet agreed to pay for this boondoggle.)
“We do need to update all of the cash flows once we get approval or a concurrence from (FTA),” she said. “And then we will update all of our financials and present (to the board), either in November or December, all of our updated cash flows to you folks.”
(TRANSLATION: Expect HART to begin announcing cost overruns in Nov and Dec 2024—only after meeting with the Feds. So the schedule is Nov, Dec, and 1Q 2025. Mark those dates on your calendar.)
After the meeting, HART staff told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that a small number of specialized projects are being considered for the potential deferral, but final decisions about deferrals have not yet been made.
They said no project being considered for deferral will affect the CCGS timeline, nor are they part of the FFGA scope.
(QUESTION: Why not just eliminate these unnecessary projects? This is not a rhetorical question. A lot can be learned from the answer to this question. That’s why HART isn’t telling us which projects are to be delayed.)
Yet other issues about HART’s latest contract award — including its transparency — were also touched on at Friday’s meeting.
Prior to naming Tutor Perini as its next contractor, the HART board held a special meeting Aug 13, which included that closed-door executive session….
“Our intention is after award (of the CCGS contract) … we would release the recording of the executive session, because the executive session only needs to be confidential for as long as those procurement discussions are ongoing,” Gluck told the board at the time. “So the intention is not to keep this confidential forever, but only until award.”
(NOTE: Contract award has been announced but recording is still kept secret. They have to edit out all the secret stuff.)
The resignation of (Hanabusa crony) board member Michele Chun Brunngraber was also formally announced last week…. Blangiardi will pick a non-Hanabusa replacement….
(REMEMBER: $1.66B is already $360M above projection. And that’s just the ‘base’.)
read … HART’s $1.66 billion contract might delay related rail work, CEO says
Hawaiians Score Success when they get away from Hawaii (and Las Vegas)
WaPo: … Over the past decade, from 2012 to 2022, the share of Hawaiians in management or professional roles has skyrocketed, increasing faster than any of 20-plus other groups for which we have comparable data….
What’s behind the boom? It’s not any single job. Or industry. Or age group. Or gender. Or marital status. It’s not remote work. Having eliminated all else, we were only too happy to zoom back out and consider geography. …
today, most Hawaiians (about 53 percent) live outside their ancestral archipelago….
Clark County, Nev., has more Hawaiians — both overall and as a share of the population — than any county outside Hawaii. Heck, it has more Hawaiians than Kauai. But Hawaiians there aren’t succeeding at much higher rates than the friends they left behind at home.
But in mapping their populations, we noticed Hawaiians spread far more widely across the mainland than other Pacific Islanders. And when we accounted for that breadth by comparing Hawaii to all other states combined, everything snapped into focus. We found that the rise in Hawaiians in management came entirely outside of Hawaii….
Furthermore, it wasn’t all Hawaiians outside of Hawaii who were climbing corporate ladders. The climbers were, specifically, Hawaiians born outside the state.
the trend… is starting to look to us like a classic immigrant story….
Folks who grow up in (Hawaii’s) system might have a limited view of where their lives can take them, Fernandez said. But to their kids raised on the mainland, almost any promotion seems possible….
Many folks in Hawaii do not, of course, make enough to afford those homes. Since 2008, the state has been consistently cursed with the worst relationship in the nation between annual median household income and home prices. In related news, the state has lost population in six of the past seven years….
“Every single Hawaiian I know that moved, including family, went because they knew they could never buy a house here, and were tired of the struggle,” Fernandez told us ….
FLASHBACK: Micronesians: “Its just better in Arkansas”
read … Census data shows rise in Native Hawaiians' professional success
Honolulu City Auditor Resigns Nearly Halfway Through Her 6-Year Term
CB: … Kumar — the third person officially appointed to the job since it was created — was selected after a search that lasted more than two years. She replaced Edwin Young, who retired in February 2019. Shimasaki, who has been with the office since 2004, also served as interim auditor during that period….
read … Honolulu City Auditor Resigns Nearly Halfway Through Her 6-Year Term
Activist Grabs for Control of New East Maui Water Board
CB: … Maui County Council Chair Alice Lee and the two other members of the Government Relations, Ethics and Transparency Committee who voted against her — Yuki Lei Sugimura, who represents Upcountry, and Tasha Kama, whose district covers Central Maui — brought concerns over a potential conflict of interest and the need for a broader feasibility study before hiring the director.
Young is seeking an opinion from the county ethics board on whether her position as executive assistant to Maui County Council member Shane Sinenci, whose district covers East Maui, gave her an unfair advantage over other candidates as the council members alleged.
The ethics board plans to take it up Sept. 11 and issue an advisory opinion. Lee said she’ll vote to confirm Young when the full council takes up the appointment if the board declares her free of any conflicts of interest. Sugimura and Kama did not respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, Young said she is eager to lead the fledgling water authority, which voters created by charter amendment in 2022….
read … Gina Young Wants To 'Fix The System' If Confirmed As East Maui Water Board Director
Maui County Shocked that its Homeless Tent City is full of Drugs, overdoses, and deaths just like a regular tent city
HNN: … Drugs, overdoses, and deaths are just a few of the complaints emerging from a homeless shelter on Maui.
The state opened Puuhonua o Nene near the corner of Hana Highway and Mayor Elmer F. Cravalho Way in Kahului one month after the wildfire disaster.
“Governor Green is focused on ensuring that people have suitable housing solutions,” said Joe Campos, State Department of Human Services Deputy Director. “Puuhonua o Nene is just one of the mechanisms to ensure that we could provide suitable housing for the homeless population.”
However, some say it is a waste of money and it is safer and cleaner to live on the streets….
(IDEA: Don’t let the lunatics run the asylum.)
HNN: Iwilei is getting more kauhale for the homeless. But residents say it’s unsafe and unfair (hawaiinewsnow.com)
read ... Former Maui homeless shelter resident says it’s safer and cleaner to live out on the streets (hawaiinewsnow.com)
'Automated abandoned callback' feature added to 911 system
KHON: … HPD said it needs to fill about 50 vacancies at the Joint Traffic Management Center, and they said the new system will help maximize resources out in the field and also at dispatch.
Starting Sept. 5, if a call is dropped, you’ll get a call back from 808-768-0000, with an automated message that says, “this is HPD don’t hang up. Your phone dialed 911, if you’re reporting an emergency press 1 and stay on the line, if this was a misdial press 2 otherwise you’ll be called again.”
If a caller doesn’t answer, the automated message will try again, on the third attempt it will be an operator to see if you’re okay. If no one answers a third time, officers will be sent to your location….
read … 'Automated abandoned callback' feature added to 911 system
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