OHA 2016 Legislative Package: Telescope Rent Money, Control of Mauna Kea Tours
‘Santa Claus Came Early’ for Hawaii’s Politically-Connected Marijuana License Seekers
Hawaii Pesticide Complaints: Urban Homeowners are #1 Violator
DoTax Claims IT System Success
Looking Forward to 2016
Hawaii Air National Guard destroys Islamic State targets
SA: …Hawaii National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Chuck Anthony asked that the crew member’s name not be used because of the “high visibility of being an F-22 pilot” and Islamic State’s use of social media to threaten service members and their families.
“The F-22s have been pretty instrumental in taking out a lot of high-value targets,” Anthony said.
At the midpoint of the deployment, the Hawaii fighter and strike aircraft have flown more than 100 sorties in combat or in a combat support role, dropping more than 130 GBU-32 1,000-pound bombs in Syria and Iraq.
“We have generally been tasked to target and destroy Daesh (another term for Islamic State) training camps, vehicle-borne improvised explosive device manufacturing and storage facilities, fighting areas, various Daesh headquarters facilities and Daesh-controlled oil distribution capabilities,” said the pilot….
read … target and destroy Daesh
Secret Cabal of Insiders Plot Electric Rate Hikes, Tax Increases
IM: The Hawaii Energy Policy Forum (HEPF) is conducting an energy survey and planning a 2016 legislative briefing to be held on January 22, 2016.
The organization has held debates between candidates running for office, issued white papers, and facilitated dialogue between specific energy stakeholders.
The Forum has stimulated discussions.
At the same time, the forum has created controversy.
Almost half of the 40-member forum are representatives of the government (federal, state and county legislators, agencies and regulators), and a third come from industry. The third largest group of Forum members are affiliated with the University of Hawai`i at Manoa.
At most there is at most one member that could be considered a member of the public, community, environmental and/or cultural sectors.
Members include Randy Iwase, Chair of the Public Utilities Commission; Maria Tome, an engineer with the Public Utilities Commission; Consumer Advocate Jeffrey Ono; and Hawaii Gas Senior Vice President of External Affairs Joseph Boivin.
Forum meetings are generally not open to the public, nor to non-forum energy stakeholders, nor to the media.
In former years the Forum discussed the importation of LNG, and developed legislation for the Inter-Island Cable.
The Hawaii Energy Policy Forum grew out of HECO’s failed three decade long desire to erect the Wa`ahila Ridge (Kamoku-Pukele) 138kV Transmission Line. HECO wanted the run the line from near `Iolani School to the mauka region of Palolo.
The Forum was initiated when HECO gave $250,000 to the University of Hawai`i (UH) Social Science Research Institute (SSRI). For the first year of so the meetings were secret, the public was banned, and HECO had to approve all members.
Initially the trail of money used to support the organization was easy to track: HECO, UH, and the Legislature. That is no longer the case. At most one forum member has any clue where the money is coming from and they are not talking.….
read … Tax Hikes and Rate Hikes
Thanks to Fracking, Hawaii drivers saved more than $400 on gas in 2015
SA: …“Hawaii’s average gas price for all of 2015 is $3.10 per gallon for regular unleaded, which is $1.05 lower than the $4.15 average price for all of 2014,” said AAA Hawaii General Manager Liane Sumida. “For the Hawaii driver who travels 8,000 miles a year in a car getting 20 miles to the gallon, on average he or she spent $420 less on gas in 2015 than in 2014.”
Nationally, drivers saved a collective $115 billion plus this year on trips to the gas station. The average licensed driver pocketed more than $550. The average price for a gallon of gas never broke $3 this year, and it dipped below $2 in December, the first time that’s happened since the Great Recession in 2009.
Hawaii is among five states where gas costs $2.47 or more. The others are California, Nevada, Washington, Alaska.
Unlike previous years, Hawaii wasn’t the most expensive place to buy gas in 2015. No one paid as much as Californians for gas this year….
read … Thanks to Fracking
Telescope Faces Years of Delay
SA: The Hawaii Supreme Court has finally sent off its Thirty Meter Telescope judgment to the 3rd Circuit Court after voiding the project’s conservation land use permit Dec. 2.
The judgment, remanded Tuesday, instructs the lower court to return the case to the state Board of Land and Natural Resources for a new contested case hearing and possibly “other proceedings consistent with the opinion.”
No further specific instructions on how to proceed were attached to the judgment.
The state, however, had still not received the case from the Circuit Court as of Wednesday.
Joshua Wisch, special assistant to state Attorney General Doug Chin, said it’s possible the lower court could provide further direction to state officials.
The TMT International Observatory Board indicated last week it was waiting for the state to outline a new permitting process and projected timetable before deciding what to do next.
A spokeswoman for the Hawaii State Judiciary said the delay in sending the judgment was procedural as required by law.
According to state rules, the parties involved in the case can file a motion for reconsideration or to seek clarification from the court within 10 days after the filing of the opinion. The parties may also seek to recover fees and costs no later than 14 days after the time for filing a motion for reconsideration has expired….
The ruling likely means the $1.4 billion next-generation observatory, advertised as one of the most powerful ground-based telescopes in the world, is looking at years of delay as it faces the same legal and cultural forces it ran into during a seven-year regulatory process leading to this year’s scheduled, and ultimately aborted, start of construction.
read … Years of Delay
Mobi PCS President Wants to be Your Dope Dealer
PBN: Mobi PCS President and CEO Bill Jarvis, who plans to apply for one of Hawaii's eight medical marijuana dispensary licenses in January, says the medical marijuana industry is a lot like the telecommunications industry.
“It's ironically similar to the wireless communications industry,” Jarvis told PBN. “It's highly regulated and rapidly changing — you never know what’ll change, whether it’s the market, regulatory climate, or the economy — all those factors can heavily influence your business.”
KITV: Mobi PCS President to apply for marijuana dispensary license
read … Wannabe
Annual Budget Pitch for DHS
SA: …According to The Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, 96 cents of every federal and state taxpayer dollar spent on addiction pays for health care, crime and social consequences — and only 2 cents goes to prevent and treat the disease….
Being penny wise but pound foolish has exacerbated the homeless situation, with states of emergency issued not only in Hawaii, but on the main-land as well, such as in Seattle, Los Angeles and Portland.
Cutbacks in social services during recession years now mean that millions of dollars are being pledged toward homelessness services over the next few months, including law enforcement diversion, housing vouchers and shelter beds. These programs, while necessary, treat the symptoms rather than the causes of issues like homelessness.
These are funds that could have been invested instead and sooner for mental health, job training and family strengthening services that help families to not only support themselves but also to create promising futures for all family members….
read … Annual Budget Pitch
Maui Hospital: ‘Extremely complex negotiations’ drag on into 2016
MN: The state and Kaiser Permanente apparently will need more time to finalize an agreement for the health care provider to take over operations at Maui Memorial Medical Center and Kula and Lanai community hospitals.
"This is an extremely complex negotiations that has never been done before," said Hawaii Health Systems Corp. Maui Region Chief Executive Officer Wesley Lo via email Wednesday.
He added that the governor's office; HHSC, the quasi-government entity that currently runs the hospitals; its Maui Region officials and Kaiser "have made substantial progress over the last several weeks.
We are hopeful to have something to report to the Legislature prior to the opening of the legislative session in January."
The session's opening day is Jan. 20….
Once negotiations are completed and a definitive agreement is executed, Kaiser will become the new operator of the Maui Region facilities. The HHSC Maui Region board will serve as the custodial caretaker of the property with oversight over the performance of the terms and conditions of the lease, officials said.
Oct, 2015: "The state hopes to finalize an agreement by the end of the year"
Dec 13, 2015: Ige: UPW, HGEA to Represent Workers at Kaiser-Controlled Maui Memorial Hospital
read … Hospital negotiations extends over into 2016
Minimum Wage Hike May Result in Fewer Employees
SA: …About 10,000 people in Hawaii earned $7.25 an hour in 2013, representing 3.1 percent of the state’s 325,000-person labor force, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another 1.5 percent, or 5,000 people, earned below the minimum.
In 2014, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earned $15,080 in a year. This figure rose to $16,120 in 2015 and will rise to $17,680 this year.
Employees who earn tips, and the businesses who employ them, also will be affected by the minimum wage law change taking effect today.
Tipped employees can be paid 75 cents below the minimum wage starting today as long as the employee’s total pay from the employer including tips is at least $7 more than the minimum wage. Last year, this so-called “tip credit” was 50 cents. Before that the tip credit was 25 cents.
The next two years will bring additional rises in the minimum wage — to $9.25 in 2017 and to $10.10 in 2018.
Some businesses and trade associations expressed concerns about or were opposed to raising the minimum wage in 2014.
The Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii opposed the bill shortly before it was passed, and described the $2.85 hike over four years as a “huge increase” that would harm local businesses, job creation and the state economy.
“With this large increase in the minimum wage, some businesses may have to cut back hours, reduce benefits, or limit hiring of new employees,” the Chamber, which represents 1,000 Hawaii businesses, said in written testimony on the bill. The Chamber was supportive of a more gradual minimum wage increase over a longer period of time.
The Department of Labor figured that this year’s 10 percent increase potentially could add $1.6 million to the payroll of the University of Hawaii.
Cheeseburger Restaurants Inc., which has five Hawaii restaurants and more than 500 employees, projected that taking the minimum wage from $7.25 in 2014 to $9.25 in 2017 would add about $500,000 to its annual labor cost, according to written testimony the company submitted on the bill.
Some businesses and trade groups also noted that higher pay would trigger higher employer taxes and fees for unemployment insurance, workers compensation, Social Security, Medicare and temporary disability.
Richard Parry, president and CEO of Aloha Petroleum Ltd., had estimated that last year’s minimum wage increase would cost his company more than $300,000 and that it would increase to $1.7 million by 2018, according to his written testimony on the bill.
Aloha Petroleum has more than 500 employees, with roughly 360 working at 42 convenience stores. Parry wrote that hourly starting pay ranges from $8 to $10, and the company would have to increase pay for all its convenience store workers to avoid an inequity.
To compensate, Parry said Aloha Petroleum likely would reduce its number of employees. “The economics of the convenience store industry in Hawaii do not support the type of wage increase proposed in this law,” he wrote….
read … Wage Hike
City Refuses to Take Responsibility for Dozens of Roads
HNN: Rhoads said he's identified 26 privately-owned roadways in need of upkeep in Kalihi alone.
Rhoads says trying to track down the owners of privately-owned roads is a tedious and lengthy process.
When he sought to figure out who owned Rawlins Lane, he combed through tax records and even tried paying for a title guarantee search.
"The last person they know owned the lane was a guy named William Achi who died in 1947," Rhoads said. "When we got up to 60 possible heirs we gave up."
The city or state can claim abandoned roads if there has been no ownership activity for five years. But government isn't interested in taking on privately-owned roads in need of major upkeep.
City Department of Facilities Maintenance Director Ross Sasamura said the city just can't afford to make the necessary improvements to private roads that haven't been maintained for decades.
"Many of these private streets don't have any drainage. There's no gutter, there's no curb, there's no sidewalk," he said. "In situations like that the city cannot make improvements to the street. The owner themselves would be left to fund all the work that would be required."
When the owners are absent, business and residences along privately-owned roads are left to tackle the problems on their own.
read … Roads
Hawaii County Council Debates Agricultural Property Tax Exemptions
WHT: Owners of vacant land in agricultural zones would get a break on their property taxes even if they’re not actively farming the land, under a bill to be considered Tuesday by the County Council Finance Committee.
Bill 126 is a remake of a bill considered early last year after it was proposed by a task force charged with recommending changes to the county’s property tax code. While the new provision adds a benefit for vacant land, the bill also tries to curb fraud and abuse by requiring farmers and ranchers to make a commitment of at least three years in order to qualify for a tax break and submit documents proving they’re commercial farmers.
At a Finance Committee hearing in May, some County Council members balked at an attempt to close the loopholes for those claiming generous tax breaks for agricultural use of their property.
Among the many members of the public testifying were farmers who worried losing their tax breaks would force them out of business.
The issue is especially important in West Hawaii, where market values of property tend to be higher than on the rest of the island.
Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille, chairwoman of the task force and bill sponsor, said she’s taken the comments to heart, and her new bill would give those who commit to keep land in agricultural districts vacant for 10 years a 30 percent reduction of the market value of their property for tax purposes.
“The exemptions are intended to promote agriculture, not to force people to develop their land,” Wille said Wednesday.
At the same time, she added, those taking the current agricultural exemptions who don’t qualify are costing taxpayers millions.
read … Property Tax
QUICK HITS: