‘Sacred’ Greenmail: OHA urges Legislators to charge observatories higher rent
Low Income Tax Relief: Hawaii Earned Income Tax Credit
Jones Act Shipbuilding: Only the Price is American
Everything you need to know about Zika, virus that’s spreading like wildfire
Hawaii Obamacare Exchange -- 20,000 bogus enrollees
SA: …The nonprofit Connector, assigned to enroll Hawaii residents in medical insurance under the Affordable Care Act, repeatedly said it signed up nearly 40,000 people in coverage last year, despite federal reports stating otherwise….
“The 40,000 just is not a real number,” said Laurel Johnson, Ige’s deputy chief of staff. “It’s so high as to be ridiculous. The prior estimate of 40,000 cannot be verified by any state or federal database.”
Hawaii’s Obamacare enrollment numbers have been all over the place depending on the source. Hawaii Medical Service Association confirmed it enrolled approximately 12,000 members on the Connector last year, while Kaiser Permanente Hawaii said it signed up 7,300 individuals on the exchange. Combined, HMSA and Kaiser signed up about half the number Connector officials have claimed.
Ige’s representatives told lawmakers at a briefing Wednesday that the latest federal figures show 16,803 people were covered under Obamacare in 2015 and that 15,400 have signed up for coverage so far this year….
Charles Gaba, a Michigan Web developer who tracks nationwide ACA enrollments, has written at least a half-dozen times about Hawaii’s fuzzy Obamacare numbers on his blog at ACASignups.net.
“Hawaii: 8,200 enrollees. Or 38,000. Or somewhere in between. I think,” Gaba wrote in a post last year. “One day it’s 16,000 (more than twice 2014’s total), a month later it’s only 13,300, then just hours later, I receive ‘confirmation’ (directly from the exchange director, supposedly) that it’s actually 23,000 specifically for 2015 policies. What the heck is going on here?”….
Ige’s administration was forced to abandon the troubled Connector, which had struggled since its launch in October 2013 to meet enrollment targets, provide satisfactory service and raise enough money for operations. The Connector burned through $130 million of $204 million in federal money granted to the state to build the exchange.
Administration officials told lawmakers this week they will need $6 million annually to continue the outreach, call center and other functions. Open enrollment for Obamacare coverage began Nov. 1 and concludes Jan. 31.
read … Liars Busted
Is Hawaii in danger of losing the Thirty Meter Telescope? (duh)
SA: …the TMT International Observatory board of directors remains frustrated that it has not been given any direction from the state more than seven weeks after the Hawaii Supreme Court invalidated the project’s construction permit.
“We were frustrated to have lost the permit after having spent eight years doing what we were asked to do,” he said. “And, of course, it’s frustrating now that we haven’t been told what it is that we need to do again to get a permit.”
Stone, who joined a Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii panel discussion in Honolulu Friday, said the board continues to wait for the state to outline a new permitting process and projected timetable.
“We need the information and we haven’t gotten it,” he said. “Clearly, the (TMT) partnership is concerned about the spaces that we are currently in without a permit and a plan — or any indication of what the plan will look like.”
The court in December ruled that the state Board of Land and Natural Resources erred in approving the project’s conservation district use permit before holding a contested case hearing. The court revoked the permit and sent it back to the board for a new contested case hearing, with a stop first at circuit court.
But the case, which was remanded by the high court at the earliest date permitted by law, now sits in the possession of Circuit Judge Greg K. Nakamura. The judge has held onto the case for more than three weeks.
Tammy Mori, Hawaii state Judiciary spokeswoman, said Friday afternoon that Nakamura is in the process of scheduling a status conference with the parties to discuss the order and next steps.
Earlier Friday, state Attorney General Doug Chin issued a statement that said, “As of today, the circuit court has not remanded the case. BLNR cannot take action or provide instructions to anyone until this happens. It is not accurate to conclude from Mr. Stone’s reported statements that either state or university officials are holding up the process.”
Stone, who helped oversee the construction of the Keck Telescope on Mauna Kea, said the TMT board doesn’t want to go through another eight-year permitting process, and he’s really hoping the state will say it will take months rather than years to complete.
A time period measured in months, however, might be optimistic as project foes have promised to oppose and appeal the telescope at every step….
Reality: ‘Sacred’ Greenmail: OHA urges Legislators to charge observatories higher rent
read … Losers Who Can’t Face their Enemy, OHA
HB1525: Sit-Lie Ban on State Land
AP: Sitting and lying down on state lands in Hawaii could become illegal under a proposal in the state Legislature, and homelessness experts say they don't know of any other state with such a ban.
The bill seeks to align Hawaii's policies with a sit-lie ban enacted by Honolulu in 2014, said state Rep. Isaac Choy, a Democrat. That city ban, which focused primarily on sidewalks, was first enacted in Waikiki and then was expanded to other parts of Oahu.
But when the city enforced its ban, homeless people often just moved to nearby state land, because city crews typically wouldn't clear state-owned properties, Choy said.
"They cross this imaginary line, and they go, 'Oh, this is state property,'" Choy said.
Under the bill when crews clear homeless encampments, "it's going to be seamless," Choy added. "They can't jump over this imaginary line and say, 'Hey, I'm on the state land now.'"
The bill, HB 1525, also would ban camping on state property. It makes some exceptions, including people taking part in permitted festivals, children or babies in strollers, and those engaging in authorized activities that have proper permits….
HNN: Caldwell: Feds working to help Oahu address homelessness
read … Force them to accept shelter
No Tent City for Big Island: Hawaii County Council Votes for Homeless Micro-Units
HTH: Over objections from Kailua-Kona business interests, the Hawaii County Council agreed Friday to spend $650,000 for homeless housing in the Old Industrial Area.
The council voted 8-0 to move Bill 136 to a final reading next month. Hilo Councilman Aaron Chung was absent.
“With our homeless issues, we have to start somewhere,” said South Kona/Ka‘u Councilwoman Maile David.
The 32 micro housing units for chronically homeless, which could be shipping crates gussied up with basic amenities or some other kind of housing, will be purchased by the county in anticipation of getting operating funds from the state. The project will be paid from bond proceeds, fund balance and other sources.
The vote came after Kailua Village Business Improvement District Executive Director Debbie Baker and four business owners in the Old Industrial Area raised safety concerns about more homeless people being added to the Friendly Place, an emergency homeless shelter currently in use there.
Business owner Greg Slingluff said his 30-year-old family business is already suffering because of the nearby shelter. He said he often encounters feces in the doorway of his shop….
Meanwhile on the Little Island: Homeless tent cities: Seattle’s decade-long nightmare coming to Honolulu?
read … Hawaii County Council Smarter than Tom Brower
HB1740: Medicare Doesn’t Pay Enough—So Lets Force Doctors to Work
AP: …Democratic House Speaker Joe Souki introduced HB1740 Friday, saying it would ensure that all people get medical treatment, regardless of their income. Souki says that if passed, physicians who refused to take Medicare patients wouldn't be able to reapply for their state medical license, which must be renewed every two years.
Souki says he expects push back from physicians who complain about Medicare's low reimbursement rates.
Hawaii's Medicare enrollment data shows a 30 percent increase from 2010 to 2012 in the number of seniors relying on Medicare for health insurance.
A 2012 study published in the journal Health Affairs shows that 69 percent of Hawaii doctors accept Medicare patients….
read … Recipe for lousy medical care
HB1532: UH Regents’ Finances None Of Your Business
CB: Hawaii lawmakers are expected to consider a bill this session that would exempt members of the University of Hawaii Board of Regents from a law making their annual financial disclosure statements public.
House Bill 1532 is the brainchild of Rep. Isaac Choy, chair of the House Higher Education Committee. Sen. Brian Taniguchi, who heads the Higher Education and Arts Committee, has introduced the legislation in the Senate at Choy’s request. He said he supports it for similar reasons — namely, he said, to improve the quality of applicants to serve on the board….
The Legislature unanimously passed a bill in 2014, which Gov. Neil Abercrombie let become law without his signature, that added 15 powerful state boards, including the Board of Regents, to the list of those whose members must publicly disclose their financial interests. Members of the Public Utilities Commission, Land Use Commission and Hawaii Community Development Authority were among those added.
Members of these boards already had to submit financial disclosure forms to the Hawaii State Ethics Commission, but those forms remained private. The commission said, in its support of the 2014 law, that it lacked the resources to review the hundreds of filings on its own, and that making the forms public would improve accountability…. (which is why they remain private)….
Big Q: Should the Legislature commit funding this session for the UH Cancer Center?
read … Hide the money
Only a few early bird legislators have filed personal financial disclosures
ILind: …To check the current list of filers, click here. The links on that page will also take you directly to the online forms.
Remaining to be seen–how many legislators will miss the February 1 deadline altogether….
read … Only a few early bird legislators have filed personal financial disclosures
HTA Secretly Refinances convention center debt
SA: …Hints of the project’s shaky financial plan seem to have been there as early as 1999, when the former convention center authority restructured the debt to extend the repayment period to 25 years from 20, adding to the interest debt.
Then in 2001 and 2002, the HTA made no payment on the debt “because there was a certain degree of uncertainty on who owed the debt, between us and the Department of Budget and Finance,” said Marc Togashi, HTA’s vice president of finance.
In those two years the department made payments on the bonds that financed the center — and in 2011 state budget officials again restructured HTA’s repayment schedule, adding two more years of payments to recoup that money.
House Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke correctly said the debt and the payment history deserve more scrutiny.
If the current payment schedule stands, the center will be paid off in 2027. That’s more than three decades after payments began in 1995, for a convention center budgeted at $350 million.
The convention center might well be a valuable resource for the state, but 20 years in existence, it has yet to live up to expectations. The center has continually operated in the red, to the sum of about $4 million per year. Under a new management team, however, losses are expected to lessen, to about $2.6 million….
read … Put controls on convention center’s debt
DLNR Officer Allegedly Demanded Sex, Drugs or Money after Catching Girl Smoking Weed
HTH: A 16-year-old girl told police a state enforcement officer accused of a New Year’s Day sexual assault forced himself on her after he caught her smoking marijuana at a Hilo beach, according to court documents.
According to the just-released redacted version of the probable cause documents in the Ethan Ferguson case, the alleged victim told officers an on-duty, uniformed Department of Land and Natural Resources officer saw her smoking marijuana in a pipe at Lalakea Beach Park in the Keaukaha area.
The girl told police the DLNR officer then gave her the option “for payment not to be taken to the police station of either money, drugs or sex,” documents state.
Documents state the teen told the state enforcement officer she didn’t have money or drugs and was unwilling to have sex with him.
One of the documents states “the defendant however removed the victim’s clothes and performed said sexual acts on her unwillingly,” while three other versions state “the defendant however made her undress and performed said sexual acts on her unwillingly.”
The alleged victim identified the 39-year-old Ferguson from a photographic lineup, documents state.
Ferguson, a former Honolulu Police Department officer, was fired by the state’s largest law enforcement agency before his 2013 hiring as a DLNR Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement officer.
Pursuant to its own rules, HPD shredded Ferguson’s disciplinary files 30 months after the investigation….
read … Sex assault victim claims extortion attempt
Anti-GMO Activists Very Very Happy After Kauai Pesticide Blunder
CB: …Syngenta farm workers are required to wait a full 24 hours after chlorpyrifos application before re-entering a field, pursuant to the product’s label.
Joshua Uyehara, Syngenta Hawaii’s continuous nursery site manager, said in a phone interview that a field supervisor realized that the employees shouldn’t be in the field within a few minutes after they entered it.
He said the employees were taken back to the Syngenta offices, cleaned up and offered medical assistance.
The company drove 10 people to the Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital. Three remained overnight and were released Thursday morning.
By Friday, six had returned to work. All employees have been cleared to return to work on Monday, Uyehara said.
He declined to say what symptoms the employees were exhibiting that led to their hospitalization, noting privacy concerns….
(Be sure to check out the ecstatic response from anti-GMO activists in the comments section)
Reality: 1 dead in listeria outbreak linked to ‘all natural’ lettuce
read … Very Happy News
20 Acres and a Mill: Sugar making Comeback on Kauai (sort of)
PBN: “We realized that the availability of sugar produced would at some point stop, so two years ago we began planting our own sugarcane on Kauai, and we have approximately eight acres of mature sugarcane growing on former Gay & Robinson plantation land,” he said.
The company is looking into planting 10 to 12 more acres near Koloa town on Kauai and has been experimenting with pressed cane juice rather than sugar to make its rum.
“With Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. closing, we’ve begun to accelerate our cane cultivation activities in terms of planting and also rum production and we are hopeful that we’ll be able to at some point transition from using raw sugar from HC&S to cane juice from sugarcane that we have grown and crushed on Kauai,” he said.
The company is also exploring the idea of constructing a small sugar processing facility that could also supply other sugar businesses, such as beverage companies and bakeries. The company's sales increased by 26 percent in 2015, compared to 2014….
read … 20 acres and a Mill
Luxury Kakaako condo project cancelled after slow sales (Rising Dollar Claims First Victim?)
HNN: In a statement Friday, development firms Kobayashi Group and The MacNaughton Group said sales for the project would be stopped immediately.
The decision comes among a construction boom in Kakaako.
Sales for units began in May, with potential buyers waiting in long lines. However, a statement from the developers said that after 40 percent of the units sold, sales had slowed in recent months.
“Despite strong marketing efforts, community outreach and education about the up-and-coming Kakaako community, the market feedback indicated that it was premature to proceed with the Vida project at this time,” the statement said.
Deposits will be refunded to all buyers, and they have been released from their contracts….
Prices for two-bedroom units start at $998,000, and three-bedroom units started at $1.6 million….
read … It Begins
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