Final Interior Dep't Rule Allows OHA Hawaiians to Steal Land from DHHL Hawaiians
Study: High Costs Make Hawaii second-worst for entrepreneurs
TTIP: Europe to Negotiate for Jones Act Reform?
BBC: Upcoming election highlights deep disagreement between native Hawaiians
BBC: An upcoming election has highlighted the deep disagreement between native Hawaiians over what the future should look like. For some, it's formal recognition of their community and a changed relationship within the US. Others want to leave the US entirely - or more accurately, want the US to leave Hawai'i.
When US officials came onto the stage that June night, they must have known they would be hearing from a hostile audience.
Speaker after speaker came up to the microphone, decrying a rigged process and an occupying government with no legitimacy.
"We do not need you here. This is our country."
"Get out of our house! Go home."...
A year later, the interior department has made it official - publishing a proposed "procedures for re-establishing a formal government-to-government relationship"....
read ... Aloha to the US
Star-Adv Pushes Massive Tax Hike on Vacation Rentals
SA: ...Still untapped is the state's home-based rentals, or transient vacation units (TVU), which comprise 25 percent of all lodging units, with hotels accounting for 50 percent, and time shares and condos contributing 12 percent each. TVU owners should pay the transient accommodation tax, or TAT, just like any other visitor-lodging operation.
An attempt to regulate that cottage industry by establishing a system of state licensure petered out during the last legislative session. Lawmakers will need to revisit the issue come January to ensure that this potential reservoir of tax dollars is tapped....
A Hawaii Tourism Authority study put the statewide total at more than 22,000 home-based lodging units, including condominiums, houses and bed and breakfasts....
read ... TAT should apply to non-hotels, too
Kondo to Spot Check Grifting Legislators
SA: State lawmakers need to think twice before using their annual $13,008 taxpayer-funded allowances for items such as meals, hotels and event tickets. In reviewing expenditures from late January to early June, the state Ethics Commission staff found some questionable expenses. But Les Kondo, its executive director, said rather than burning too much time digging into lawmakers' expenses, there'll be spot checks for violations....
read ... Grift Check
Honolulu Charter Comm. Considers Easing Public Records Access
CB: The Honolulu Charter Commission is considering several amendments that would make it easier for people to get access to public records.
read ... Charter Commission
Strive HI System for Driving up Test Scores
KGI: “The implementation of good teaching and data teams, Common Core state standards, comprehensive student support, academic review teams, educator effectiveness system, and new teacher induction and mentoring contributed to the success of our students and schools,” Arakaki said.
The Strive HI System was created in 2013 as a way to monitor school success in Hawaii. It rates schools on a five-level system based on what is called the Strive HI Index.
The lowest level of the system is the Superintendent’s Zone, which requires a lot of involvement and intervention from the state Department of Education. The next step up is Priority, then Focus, and Continuous Improvement. Recognition is the top level of the system, where there is little or no need for state intervention.
The Strive HI Index arrives at a score for each school, taking into account achievement measured through statewide assessments, growth indicated through improvement in state scores over time, college and career readiness, and achievement gaps between those students considered high-need and students considered low-need.
read ... System
700 Kids to Be Booted from Preschool Because Hawaii Congressional Delegation is a Joke
SA: Two-thirds of a nearly $15 million federal grant awarded to Hawaii to fund public pre-kindergarten classrooms at charter schools has been slashed from spending bills in Congress — a move that officials warn would cut off preschool access for more than 700 isle children from low-income families.
Funds for the federal Preschool Development Grants, a program aimed at building and expanding high-quality preschool in more than 200 high-need communities across 18 states, have been eliminated from House and Senate spending bills....
read ... Hawaii Congressional Delegation is Useless
Chasing Vaporware: Ige Still Sure Battery Technology Breakthrough is 'Right Around the Corner'
CB: Ige says the bigger challenge facing the utility business going forward is storage.
“If we had a solution today for storage, then game over; 2045 would not be an issue at all,” the governor said.
Reliable and cost-effect storage isn’t available yet, and utility-scale storage is too expensive to be viable, he said.
Home storage systems are being developed and are coming down in price, although some are within reach of only wealthy customers. But competition within the battery storage industry is expected to bring costs down, Ige said.
“I guarantee you that the price of storage in the next 30 years will get to a point that will make it economically viable,” he said. (Another vaporware true believer exposed.)
Google: Battery Vaporware
read ... Gov David Ige Talks About The State’s Energy Future
Charities Help People Teetering on Edge of Homelessness
SA: Catholic Charities Hawaii has the state contract to offer rental assistance and other services to prevent at-risk families from becoming homeless on every island except Oahu, where the contract is run by Helping Hands Hawaii.
For the fiscal year that ended July 31, Catholic Charities Hawaii distributed 102 grants worth just under $80,000 that helped 96 households.
At the same time, Helping Hands Hawaii provided $353,000 worth of similar emergency financial assistance to more than 270 households. The 385 grants helped 525 adults and 400 children stay in their homes.
Most of the money went to help Oahu families with rent, utility deposits or catching up on overdue housing and utility costs.
"The majority of them were either at imminent risk of eviction or imminent risk of their utilities being shut off, which also puts them at risk of homelessness," said Jan Harada, CEO of Helping Hands.
Catholic Charities and Helping Hands will now divide the additional $300,000 from Ige's proclamations and can use it to help both homeless people and those at risk of becoming homeless, said Scott Morishige, the state's homeless coordinator....
read ... Homelessness
Hawaii Co Councilmembers are Dead Weight, Should be Reduced 50%
WHT: ...we have way too many members on the County Council. I believe they are dead weight. They never come up with anything that is useful. They didn’t protect the homeowners on Hamburger Hill. They were quick to give themselves and their assistants raises. I do not understand why they even have assistants. They do not even attend all the County Council meetings. They take unnecessary trips at our expense. They now want to ship garbage from Hilo.
Let’s wake up and amend the law to cut the number of potential members in half.
Let’s stop giving away money. They have done nothing about the mayor’s trips to the bars....
read ... Deadweight
1,400 ‘Gang’ cesspools still in use despite longtime EPA ban
SA: ...3,292 large-capacity cesspools, or 70 percent of the systems in Hawaii, have been shut down....
read ... ‘Gang’ cesspools still in use despite longtime EPA ban
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