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Friday, September 21, 2018
September 21, 2018 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 5:58 PM :: 2977 Views

Hawaii district court strikes down law targeting pro-life pregnancy centers

GOP surrogates rally at UH event for Trump and right-wing ideas

Democrat Lawyers Tag Tulsi Gabbard 'CWILF'

Hirono Took Money From Democrat Who Admitted to Hitting Wife

Hawaii Student Debt Averages $25,125

UHERO: Hawaii's Growth Down, But Not Out

Bullying App to Bring Students into DoE Retaliation System?

Competitive Elections?  Hawaii Dead Last

CB: …The Hawaii Legislature will never place such an amendment on the ballot because it’s not in its self-interest to do so…..

Hawaii has arguably the least competitive state legislative elections among the 50 U.S. states. At its Aug. 11 primary, 96.2 percent of elected state legislators seeking re-election won. No incumbent is expected to lose in the Nov. 6 general election.

Another measure of competitiveness is the number of seats in a legislature held by a single party. In Hawaii, it’s 93.4 percent, the highest percentage in the United States. In the state Senate, one party holds 100 percent of the seats.

When the monetary advantage of winning candidates is factored in, Hawaii also comes out at the bottom. According to the National Institute on Money in Politics, 100 percent of Hawaii candidates with both an incumbency and monetary advantage won in the last general election — the worst among the 50 states.

In the 2018 primary, all three challengers who beat incumbents were backed by the Hawaii State Teachers Association, one of Hawaii’s most powerful trade associations. One was HSTA’s secretary-treasurer, one of HSTA’s top four positions; another had been deputy director of Hawaii’s Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Term limits for state legislators would reduce the excessive level of legislative entrenchment….

read … Want Term Limits? A Con Con Is Your Only Hope

HSTA chief should stick to the facts

SA: … The proposed constitutional amendment does not determine what constitutes investor property. It does not require they be out-of-state owners nor does it specify how the revenue will be used.

Rosenlee claims that Honolulu pays the lowest property taxes in the country, but we also have the highest valuations and are taxed on everything we touch, even Girl Scout cookies, health care and food….

read … HSTA chief should stick to the facts

Government Spending Will Not Solve Affordable Housing Problem

SA: … Hawaii’s leaders are attempting to put a dent in some of the cost-of-living challenges. For example, earlier this year the Legislature appropriated $200 million to help finance new affordable rental housing. And in July a state-led panel advised that an additional $1 billion should follow over the next decade to further address Hawaii’s shortage of affordable apartments.

But a big pile of cash alone will not bring about a quick fix. Not when progress has been stalled for decades by obstacles including a lack of affordable land, insufficient infrastructure, high development costs, government regulation, community opposition and environmental concerns. Still, state leaders must press forward in efforts to expand the affordable housing inventory as more residents are struggling to make financial ends meet….

Appleseed: Official poverty data obscures the reality faced by many Hawaii residents

read … Affordable Hawaii starts with housing

Hawaii County Vacation rental bill gets nod from panel

HTH:  …After a full morning of public testimony and discussion that went into Thursday afternoon, the Leeward Planning Commission voted to forward to the County Council a favorable recommendation on a vacation rental bill, along with some suggestions for changes from the Planning Department and the commission itself….

It’s a bid at stopping unhosted short-term rentals in the county’s agricultural and residential zones.

Owners of existing rentals in prohibited areas would be grandfathered in by applying for a nonconforming use certificate, which must be renewed on a yearly basis. The bill already went through the Windward Planning Commission and now returns to the County Council Planning Committee for another hearing and potential amendments. It then will be considered by the council for two more readings.

County Planning Director Michael Yee included a favorable recommendation for the bill in his report, but he outlined more than a dozen recommended changes, touching on matters of housekeeping to more substantive changes such as increased fines for scofflaws….

Diedrichs proposed the county consider a special designation for properties like condo-hotels so they are “aligned with their intent to serve the tourist community.”

When Unger returned to the point during the commission’s discussion, Yee said that given the bill’s intent of restricting vacation rentals in residential zones, “these condo-hotels got caught up because they were in the residential zone.”

Since the issue came to the department’s attention, he said, there had been much discussion on what to do about it, with options such as those concerning the General Plan as well as more procedural approaches such as considering condo-hotels as “hosted rentals,” which aren’t affected by the bill.

But, he said, the concern arose too late to come up with a fully vetted solution in time for the hearing.

Unger said he strongly supported addressing the issue in this bill rather than waiting for the General Plan, saying he thinks it’s unfair to the affected property owners and irresponsible to tell them it would be addressed in a review of the General Plan….

read … Vacation rental bill gets nod from panel

Second Amendment: George Young Heading for US Supreme Court

MN: … Two months ago, the appellate court announced its decision and Young enjoyed his first victory in court. The Hawaii statute, according to the court, is an unconstitutional infringement on Young’s right to bear arms. In other words, we have a right to carry firearms openly and in public for the purpose of self-defense.

The decision is controversial. Judge Richard Clifton, who is based in Honolulu, was one of the three judges who heard Young’s appeal. He sided with the county in his dissent. The statute, he wrote, has adequate measures that do not completely infringe on the right to bear and carry firearms.

One thing is clear: the case is far from over. The 9th Circuit may rehear the entire appeal by having a panel of 11 appellate judges. And after that the next stop would be the Supreme Court of the United States.

Young is not backing down. “I want to see it through to the end, which is the U.S. Supreme Court.” From the looks of it, the pro se litigant from Hilo might get his wish….

read … The State of Aloha

Hawaii County Resists transparency for reservoir evacuations

KITV: …Always Investigating researched the largest reservoirs on every island, and we asked each of those dam owners -- public and private -- to share the evacuation maps from the emergency action plans (EAPs) that state law requires they make.

Click here for a list of Hawaii's largest regulated dams.

Honolulu County provided all of their county-controlled plans. That includes the much larger Nuuanu Reservoir #4, and the even bigger Kaneohe dam, plus another in Waianae. Click to view:

The private owner of the biggest in Hawaii -- the Wahiawa dam -- didn't want the whole EAP shared, but we found the evacuation map portion within an 800-page county emergency plan from 2007.

The largest private dam owners on the neighbor islands, including Kaloko where a deadly 2006 flood happened, have not given us anything yet.

Maui County shared their big county dam's evacuation map for the Piiholo reservoir.

But Hawaii County and several state departments that own Big Island and Kauai dams resisted, some stating security, confidentiality and not wanting to scare residents as among their reasons to withhold….

In the April storm that flooded Kauai, police and firefighters went door to door to evacuate about 20 homes near Kalihiwai dam….

The DLNR points out that people can plug in an address to a mapping website to see if they live in a flood zone. DLNR says it “will be proceeding with discussions with the respective County Emergency Management Agencies on how to better advise the public on their risks for dam failures and the evacuation areas for these risks.” 

KHON: Board of Water Supply addresses community outreach over dam evacuation plans

Background: Evacuate? 'High Risk' Nuuanu Reservoir--What is Caldwell Administration Hiding?

read … More transparency ahead for reservoir evacuations

Feds Impose Big Fines over safety violations at Maui Community Correctional Center (again)

HNN: …The state has agreed to pay more than $22,000 for safety violations at the Maui Community Correctional Center.

The fines issued by the Department of Labor cover a wide range of violations at the 40-year-old jail.

They include:

  • Dormitory stairways that were in disrepair;
  • A malfunctioning fire alarm control panel;
  • Corrosion damage to a recreation yard exit door.

The Labor Department said the damaged door would make it difficult for inmates to evacuate during emergencies like a fire.

"This kind of situation is a prescription for disaster," said attorney Eric Seitz, who has sued the state over prison safety issues. "It's unsafe for everybody."

It's the second time in several months that the labor department has fined MCCC.

In the previous case, the Department of Public Safety paid more than $8,000 for shutting down a fire alarm control panel for more than a week.

read … State slapped with big fines over safety violations at Maui Community Correctional Center

Foreign homebuyers buy only 375 units in first half of 2018

PBN: …The number of foreign buyers (HSTA bogeyman) who bought homes and condominiums in Hawaii during the first half of this year was 25 percent higher than a year ago, but those buyers spent nearly twice as much as in the first half of 2017, according to data compiled by Title Guaranty.

In total, foreign buyers accounted for 3.9 percent of the 9,724 home sales during the first two quarters of this year, but their spending represented 6.8 percent of the $7.1 billion in dollar volume, according to Title Guaranty.

Taken together, the 375 sales to foreign buyers in the first half was a 24 percent increase from 303 in the first half of 2017, but still 17 percent below the 2016 mid-year high of 453.

The dollar volume for the first half of $485.4 million was a 74 percent increase from $278.5 million last year, but 10 percent below 2016….

read … Spending by foreign homebuyers in Hawaii rises 75% in first half of 2018

Finding farming matches for old cane fields not so simple

MN: …The head of Alexander & Baldwin’s diversified agriculture operations on Maui said Thursday that finding the right farming and ranching matches for its thousands of acres of former sugar cane fields “hasn’t been as simple” as the company thought it would be.

“Finding the right place and the right conditions with reliable water sources and suitable infrastructure with a farming partner, a ranching partner that we can see ourselves having success with hasn’t been as simple as I thought it would be and I think lot of people thought that might be,” Strand said at a meeting of the county Board of Water Supply. “There is a lot of obstacles, but having said that, there is a lot of people we are in contact with that have very promising outlook.”

Among the newer developments is the addition of a sweet potato farm on about 200 acres of former sugar cane fields, he said. This is in addition to A&B’s own projects, which include livestock pastures, feedstocks and energy crops….

read … Finding farming matches for old cane fields not so simple

Salary Database Now Includes Hundreds Of Hawaii County Employees

CB: …With the inclusion of Big Island data first requested in July 2017, only Honolulu police officers are still missing. A judge’s ruling is pending on that….

read … Our Salary Database Now Includes Hundreds Of Hawaii County Employees

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