Raising Taxes Means Decreasing Prices?
Coast Guard Reopens Honolulu Harbor
Josh Green: Carpenters Union Buys a Governor on Layaway Plan
Shapiro: …More than $1 million from a Carpenters Union super PAC helped Josh Green beat fellow state Sen. Jill Tokuda and three others in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. Green could be the first future governor bought on layaway.
State Rep. Andria Tupola won the Republican primary for governor, only to have her LG running mate, Marissa Kerns, demand that she apologize for her voting record in the Legislature. This is why there’s such a thin line between politics and comedy….
State Rep. Matt LoPresti won the Democratic state Senate nomination in Ewa Beach after getting caught on video stealing an opponent’s campaign flyer. Only in politics do you serve your four-year term for larceny in the Legislature.
Prominent former legislators Clayton Hee, Bobby Bunda and Jessica Wooley all lost by big margins in comeback attempts. Voters were in no mood for calls to “bring the rascals back.”….
read … Isles’ future put on layaway after voters deliver verdict
Brian Schatz is the Future of the Democratic Party
Borreca: … A New York magazine item last month said Schatz, without being a candidate, is a player in the upcoming presidential political season.
“Slowly and beneath the radar, the low-profile 45-year-old progressive senator from Hawaii has already started leaving his mark on that race,” said the profile written by Gabriel Debene detti.
It explains that Schatz, by pushing Senate Democrats to adapt progressive causes and sign on to positions that will write the 2020 presidential Democratic textbook, is causing “Democratic leaders (to) view his style as representative of the party’s future.”
“A young legislator from a deep blue state who could easily be reelected for years to come, it’s no stretch to think he could one day wield serious power in the Senate,” Debenedetti wrote….
2014: WaPo: Schatz Represents Hawaii's new White Ruling Class
read … Schatz
Measuring Anti-Geothermal Hypocrisy by the Ton
HTH: …Many Hawaii Island residents are familiar with the volcanic air pollution known as vog. The main culprit in the formation of vog is sulfur dioxide gas released from Kilauea’s eruptions (see vog.ivhhn.org/what-vog for more information).
Vog watchers might have noticed significant changes in air quality on the island since early May, when Kilauea’s extraordinary lower East Rift Zone eruption began. Revisiting how much SO2 has been released from Kilauea during the past decades helps us understand the island’s current vog situation….
Some residents might recollect clear skies in leeward Hawaii prior to 1986. During that period, Kilauea’s summit was the focus of gas release, emitting just a few hundred tons of SO2 each day, which primarily impacted areas near the volcano’s summit.
In 1983, Kilauea’s East Rift Zone eruption at Pu‘u ‘O‘o began, with episodic high lava fountains. During the fountaining, large amounts of SO2 gas (up to 30,000 tons) were released during a period of about a day, but only about once a month.
Prevailing trade winds cleared the air between episodes.
A few years later, the volcanic activity abruptly changed to nearly continuous eruption of lava and gas, with about 2,000 tons of SO2 released daily. The continuous gas release provided little opportunity for the air to clear, and vog became a common feature for leeward Hawaii, where the trade winds blew the emissions….
During the past several years, summit SO2 emissions averaged about 5,000 tons per day while Pu‘u ‘O‘o emissions progressively declined to less than a few hundred tons per day….
The latest measurements indicate summit emissions are now only a few hundred tons per day, a rollback to pre-2008 summit emission rates.
At Pu‘u ‘O‘o, SO2 emissions have rarely risen above a few hundred tons per day since May, a situation that continues as of this writing….
Flashback: Punatics Freak out over “unabated release of 39 pounds of hydrogen sulfide“ from Geothermal Plant
Do the Math: 30,000 tons x 2000lbs / 39 lbs = 1,538,461 Tons of Hypocrisy per day
read … Volcano Watch: Voggy skies from days gone by — reviewing Kilauea’s gas release
Making Housing More Unaffordable, DoE Imposes a $3,864 per unit tax on Home Construction
SA: …Residential builders will have to pay $3,864 as a school impact fee for each new housing unit constructed along the Kalihi to Ala Moana urban corridor starting Oct. 1, a big discount from the $9,374 estimate two years ago.
(IQ Test: Does that make you feel better?)
The fee will apply to developers of large projects as well as individual homebuilders, and will be levied even on accessory dwelling units, according to Assistant Superintendent Dann Carlson.
The amount dropped from the original proposal because the Board of Education changed the formula to require less land for schools in the urban core, where real estate is so costly and schools can be built vertically. Plans for Pohukaina Elementary School in Kakaako, for example, call for a four-story school….
read … Housing Tax
Hanalei Population Drops 45% Since 2010 as TVRs Take Over
KGI: …the Census figures. Between 2010 and 2015, the corridor’s permanent resident population dropped 45 percent from 1,199 to 658, while the number of residential living spaces grew 6 percent from 803 to 850…..
read … Airbnb’s silence raises more questions
1960s-era hippies were not welcome on Kauai
KGI: … pressure was put on hippies in April 1969, when 13 hippies were sentenced to 90 days in jail for vagrancy by Judge Norito Kawakami — a sentence that would be suspended for one year anytime the defendants wished to leave Kauai.
And, a “friendly cop” program, inaugurated in July 1969, whereby police officers would drop by ostensibly to hear hippies’ problems and offer aid, also forced many hippies to exit Kauai — reducing their presence from an estimated 250 to about 85….
read … 1960s-era hippies were not welcome on Kauai
Body Cams: Hawaii County PD Has Been Making Excuses for Five Years
HTH: …For at least five years, the Hawaii Police Department has been looking at ways to fund a body-worn camera program for its officers. However, with a “status-quo” budget, the department keeps coming up short.
Since Honolulu Police Department issued its first set of body-worn cameras to 35 officers earlier this month, Hawaii County is now the only police department in the state not to have a BWC program….
read … Excuses
Star-Adv: State Must Keep the Abortion Money Flowing
SA: Last month, Gov. David Ige joined a group of states in a fight against a proposal by the Trump administration to bar clinics that provide abortion services or referrals from receiving federal family-planning funds.
Fourteen states — Hawaii included — have threatened to sue, with attorneys general arguing that the proposed changes are unconstitutional. And in a principled move, Ige, along with Washington state’s Gov. Jay Inslee and Oregon’s Gov. Kate Brown, vowed to pull their states from the program in question, known as Title X, if the proposed changes are implemented….
However, while standing up against wrong-headed federal rules, he also stumbled.
Last week, in an article by Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s political editor, Sophie Cocke, the Governor’s Office said there were no specific plans in place to make up for more than $2 million in annual funding that Hawaii would forgo by rejecting Title X money….
Meanwhile: HHS agrees to investigate Hawaii for forcing pregnancy centers, doctors to promote abortion
read …Abortion
Hawaii County charter amendments promote transparency
HTH: Making county spending more transparent is the aim of two charter amendments scheduled for the Nov. 6 general election ballot.
One measure requires public notice and a chance for public input before raises are granted top county officials, while a second requires a financial impact statement be available to the public for any future charter amendment on the ballot. Thursday was the deadline for ballot language to be submitted to the state Office of Elections…..
HTH: Constitutional convention, tax increase for education on Nov. 6 ballot
read … County charter amendments promote transparency
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