Sen 19 Loser Lopresti Claims Golojuch Altered Ballots--Demands Recount
The County Strikes Back (part 1)
Council Resolution: Ban Cars, Buses from Waikiki by 2030
Inspector General Releases False Missile Alert Report
4 Problems With the New Climate Change Report
Plastic Straw Ban Crusades Are About Progressive Virtue Signaling, Not Practical Solutions
Professor Thinks Banning These Words Would Fix Free Speech on College Campuses
Connected: Rail, Pensions, and Vacation Rentals
Caldwell Claims: ‘No More Important Issue’ Than Climate Change – While Building Rail in Inundation Zone
CB: … In some areas, such as the North Shore, Caldwell predicted “we may have to give up homes, we may have to give up roads” because of rising seas. … (But we won’t give up rail!)
The mayor said he plans to devote his next State of the City address entirely to climate change, and was in meetings Monday morning discussing how much of the budget should go toward the issue….
The mayor made it clear that Honolulu will need to be hardened in some areas. Buildings and roads will need raised in other parts of the city.
“It does not mean that we retreat from the urban core,” Caldwell said.
The tourism hub of Waikiki will remain in place, he said, as will other south shore areas such as burgeoning Kakaako. The mayor said moving the city landward would be prohibitively costly….
Huge shipping vessels carrying containers of goods from the mainland cruised into the harbor. A 666-foot U.S. Navy ship served as the backdrop on one side and a fossil fuel-burning power plant bookended the other side. Towering skyscrapers and hotels lined the shore and a steady stream of commercial and military planes flew overhead.
And while the state has committed to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2045, there are serious questions about how quickly the transportation sector can shift away from oil….
Hawaii tourism officials expect a record 10 million visitors next year to the islands…. (Flying on electric airplanes, natch!)
News Release: Caldwell and city officials respond to recently released National Climate Assessment (Admits buildings in indundation zone gained $600M value in just 2 years. This is only possible if nobody believes in sea level rise.)
Reality for those few who can handle it: Sea Level Rise? Nonsense, Oahu is Rising From the Sea for Next 1.5M Years
read … Honolulu Mayor: ‘No More Important Issue’ Than Climate Change
Proposed Palehua Wind Farm May Violate State Law
IM: …Eurus acquired Waianae land in 2013, began advancing a wind farm project in 2015, signed a letter agreeing to terms and conditions with Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) in 2017, and recognized that it needed to file an environmental assessment for its proposed use of conservation land.
Eurus needs to file a Habitat Conservation Plan with the Hawai`i Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) to acquire an Incidental Take License to be able to kill a few threatened and endangered species.
Eurus needs the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to approve the contract to sell wind energy to Hawaiian Electric Company.
The project has segments (construction, incidental take, selling power), none of which provide any value without the others. To consider one in isolation from the others is to engage in illegal segmentation.
Hawai`i Revised Statutes HRS §343-5(e) Whenever an applicant proposes an action specified by subsection (a) that requires approval of an agency and that is not a specific type of action declared exempt under section 343-6, the agency initially receiving and agreeing to process the request for approval shall require the applicant to prepare an environmental assessment of the proposed action at the earliest practicable time.
Knowing that the Makakilo/ Kapolei/ Honokai Hale Neighborhood Board is on record opposing the project, Eurus made the choice to first apply for the PUC approval but excluded the filing of a draft environmental assessment with the filing….
Big Q: What do you think of the Palehua Wind wind-energy project proposed for West Oahu?
read … Proposed Palehua Wind Farm May Violate State Law
Windfarm to be built on top of Hawaiian archaeological site?
HNN 10-17-2017: ...Another important aspect of the site is a two-acre archaeological site.
"It's very much in the infancy stages of trying to understand what was it used for." said Thomas "Anu" Anuheali`i, the property's Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner.
The Gills have commissioned archaeological digs at the property, but there's much that still remains a mystery.
"The possibility is that there's a substantial population up here. Never been studied before. That's our job," Gill said....
read … In the mountains of Waianae, a restoration project that could take centuries
Kurt Fevella: From school custodian to sole Republican in the state Senate
HNN: … For Republican Senator-elect Kurt Fevella, there’s excited anticipation following his general election win.
He’s now hiring staff for his office and the minority research office. His wife, Donnalee is helping until the staff is in place.
“I know Christmas is coming around, but I really feel like a little kid waiting to open up that gift,” Fevella said. “I just feel blessed to be here. I just feel honored to represent my community and my state."
Fevella had been a working as a full-time custodian at Ewa Makai Middle School. It's a job he took pride in and fills him with emotion when he thinks about leaving at the end of the month.
"I prayed for that job. That's why it was harder for me to leave because I really felt that God blessed me with that job," he said.
Fevella says the state would have allowed him to keep his DOE job, but he called it quits on his own.
“I felt that it would be selfish of me to keep the position open for me when there’s another community member that could have an eight hour job and provide for their family,” he said.
Fevella says he hopes to bring more resources for crowded and aging schools in fast-growing Ewa and wants to work on traffic solutions. As the only GOP senator, he's ready to work with Democrats.
"The stigma that people have of me being the only republican senator, that I want to clear up. I want to work with my counterparts," he said….
CB: School Custodian Gets A New Job As Hawaii’s Only Republican Senator
read … Kurt Fevella: From school custodian to sole Republican in the state Senate
Losers LoPresti, Waters Sue for Recount
CB: … City Council candidate Tommy Waters and a group of 30 East Honolulu voters separately filed complaints with the Hawaii Supreme Court Monday contesting the District 4 council race that ended with incumbent Councilman Trevor Ozawa beating Waters by just 22 votes.
Both complaints request hand recounts of the nearly 40,000 ballots cast in the district and argue some ballots are invalid.
Former state Rep. Matt Lopresti also filed a complaint with the court asking for a hand recount of all the ballots cast in state Senate District 19, which covers Ewa Beach, Iroquois Point and Ewa Gentry. He lost by 116 votes. …
LoPresti’s complaint alleges that poll workers at the Ilima Intermediate School polling place tampered with ballots. LoPresti writes in the complaint that he was told about the alleged tampering by the precinct captain at the polling place and other elections officials, who were not named in the complaint.
LoPresti alleges that Michele Golojuch, an LGBT activist, was one of the poll workers who participated in manipulating ballots….
read … Loser
Marriott-managed hotels, union reach agreement, vote set today
SA: … Hawaii’s striking hotel workers and the owners and managers of the properties where they work reached a tentative agreement today after a marathon bargaining session on Monday.
Union members said that they’ve been invited to vote on a proposed agreement today at the Ala Moana Hotel. Voting will take place at 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. with a tally expected by 7:30 p.m. tonight.
Monday’s bargaining session went from approximately 10 a.m to 1 a.m. and resumed again at 10 a.m. this morning….
read … Marriott-managed hotels, union reach agreement, vote set today
Police Security Cameras May Soon Blanket Waikiki
CB: …There is just no reason for Big Brother tactics like this in Waikiki...Carpeting our public spaces with permanent 24/7 government video surveillance poses grave concerns for individual privacy and due process rights that all of us care about.” … ACLU Hawaii
read … Police Security Cameras May Soon Blanket Waikiki
CPB Raises Minimum Wage to $16—Socialists Still Dithering on $15, Just Can’t Keep up with Trump Economy
SA: …Central Pacific Bank said it is increasing its starting pay rate for the second time this year and raising it to $16 an hour from $15.25 an hour effective Saturday. In addition, the pay scale for progressive positions will be adjusted accordingly.
The bank previously boosted its starting pay to $15.25 an hour from $12 an hour on Jan. 1….
SA Editorial: Continue review of minimum wage
Hooser: Push for Minimum Wage Hike this Session
Big Q: Should Hawaii’s minimum wage be increased to $15 per hour?
read … Donald J Trump
Star-Adv: Affordable Housing Plan ‘Scary’
SA: …The image is scary, especially to residents who remember how Honolulu once looked, and still harbor hopes of keeping some vestige of that small-city ambience.
The drawing, presented at a recent conference held at the state Capitol, depicted a massive condominium cluster, consisting of double-decked high-rise towers strung together, linked by sky-high promenades. It was the design for Pinnacle@Duxton, a public-housing condo complex that has been developed in Singapore, stretching for seven city blocks.
The density of such a project, some 67,500 units, is visually startling and would pose a considerable strain on infrastructure, perhaps an insurmountable hurdle. Anything Hawaii contemplates may not be quite of this scale….
the undeniably imposing appearance of the project… (Rally? Are we already set on a specific architectural plan? Who knew?)
these are units for purchase, not the rentals that those most in need of housing would require…. (Translation: We want more renters, fewer owners.)
The second drawback, of course, is that leasehold model. Hawaii labored to get beyond the dominance of leasehold ownership and most assumed the state had moved beyond that point…. (Translation: We want more owners, fewer renters.)
read … Big ideas needed for more housing
HPD Calls for Massive Festering Homeless Tent Cities
CB: … For more than a year, Honolulu Police Capt. Mike Lambert and his team of plainclothes officers have teamed up with social workers to help homeless individuals find shelter, medical care and substance abuse treatment.
But with more help on the ground, there’s a bigger need for more shelter than Honolulu can accommodate.
To deal with those spikes in demand, Lambert and HPD are working on their most ambitious plan for homeless individuals to date. The department wants city leaders to relax or “lift” overnight camping rules in local parks, creating “lift zones” where they would locate inflatable industrial-grade tents for the homeless when shelters fill up…..
The way HPD envisions the $3 million program, the lift zones would not be based in one park or one area of Honolulu. Lambert said the department is meeting with City Council members later this week to talk about their vision and what public parkland could be used.
Once a park site is selected, HPD would bring up to 10 inflatable tents made by Pennsylvania-based FAST Shelter that can house 54 individuals or more than 100 family members.
The tents would remain between 60 and 90 days and health care and other social service partners would be based there to help individuals move into a more permanent living arrangements elsewhere. The tents, which cost $15,000 each, can last up to six years with daily use, Lambert said….
Every 60 to 90 days, the tents would relocate to a different part of Honolulu. And when the zone moves, so do the service providers….
Lambert said unlike safe zones, this would be a temporary homeless location, not a permanent one. (WRONG> Safe Zones constantly move around.)
Reality: Homeless tent cities: Seattle’s decade-long nightmare coming to Honolulu?
read … HPD Wants Inflatable Tents In City Parks For Temporary Use By The Homeless
Enviros Prepare to Launch Fake Humpback Hysteria
AP: … Researchers are gathering to compare clues on the reasons behind a significant decline in the number of sightings of North Pacific humpback whales in their traditional breeding grounds in waters around Hawaii….
But the apparent disappearance of many whales from a historically predictable location is causing concern and some researchers (to) believe there’s a (grant-money opportunity in pretending there’s a) link between warmer ocean temperatures in Alaska and the effect that has on the whales' food chain.
While scientists say it's (never) too early to draw any conclusions (whip up hysteria) about the phenomenon, the decline has sparked enough interest that a consortium of whale experts will meet Tuesday and Wednesday in Honolulu to compare data and attempt to better understand what's happening and what to do about it (how to hype this). The drop in sightings is estimated at 50 percent to 80 percent (Translation: They’re just making these numbers up as they go along) over the past four years. ….
read … Clues sought for decline in Hawaii humpback whale sightings
Honolulu mayor exploits Thanksgiving to spin Iwilei homeless center debacle
HHC: … More than two years after announcing Honolulu’s $6.3 million purchase of an old industrial building in Iwilei to serve as a “state-of-the-art” homeless center, the city’s mayor still can’t give a specific date for the center’s opening. …
read … Honolulu mayor exploits Thanksgiving to spin Iwilei homeless center debacle
Board of Water Supply starts new push to redevelop downtown parcel
HNN: The Board of Water Supply is taking a second shot at generating additional revenue by pursuing the redevelopment of part of its Beretania Street site.
The goal is to offset some of the costs for the agency’s operations and capital improvement program through a maximum 65-year lease.
The project area covers three acres of land currently used for employee and fleet parking lots.
On part of the property, the agency wants a new 10-story office building for its employees.
“We want to ramp up and increase and accelerate our capital improvement program, and in order to do that we need to expand our current staffing requirements,” said Kathleen Pahinui, BWS information officer.
The agency will evaluate three possible concepts for the rest of the site: an assisted-living facility and a commercial parking structure, rental apartments for seniors and a commercial parking structure, or just a parking structure.
All of the scenarios feature 10-story buildings that meet current zoning requirements….
read … Board of Water Supply starts new push to redevelop downtown parcel
Kauai Council Chair Chosen: Anti-GMO Freaks Lose 5-2
KGI: … Kauai County Councilman Arryl Kaneshiro will almost certainly be the next council chair despite overwhelming public support for Councilman Mason Chock at a meeting Monday among the council’s newly elected members.
About 50 Kauai residents attended the “Council-Elect” meeting at the Historic County Building — the vast majority in favor of Chock as council chair, or at least vice chair. But barring some unforeseen and unlikely circumstances, that will not be the result.
After over an hour of public testimony — 18 residents spoke, mostly Chock supporters — the seven-member quorum decided in a preliminary “straw vote” to elect Kaneshiro council chair in a 5-2 vote, with Chock dissenting in a silent vote, along with newly elected council member Felicia Cowden. The council-elect then voted to keep Council Vice Chair Ross Kagawa in his current position.
Both decisions will be finalized Dec. 3, when the newly-elected council meets for the first time to officially decide on its leadership….
KGI: Gary Hooser is not Happy
Meanwhile on the Big Island: Hawaii County Council names Chung chairman
read … Anti-GMO Freaks Lose
Black Market Babies from Marshall Islands
CB: … The Republic of the Marshall Islands, a string of low-lying coral atolls halfway between Hawaii and Papua New Guinea, had no law governing international adoptions in the 1990s…..
There were no systems in place for the RMI to track or regulate the number of foreign adoption agencies setting up shop. No legal remedy for the growing drama at the airport, where American families and adoption agents were often seen leaving the country with crying children.
“These children, they just didn’t stop crying,” says Daisy Alik-Momotaro, a senator in the Marshallese parliament. “Nonstop crying.”
By the time the Marshallese government instituted a temporary moratorium on adoptions in 1999, the remote island nation had the highest per-capita adoption rate in the world.
But even that failed to stem the tide. A Hawaii lawyer and her adoption facilitator came up with a plan for circumventing the moratorium by flying pregnant women to Hawaii to give birth here….
read … Black Market Babies
Port of Honolulu Master Plan Being Updated
SA: …According to the process for updating the plan, which is being jointly managed by DOT and a private contractor, alternatives will be ranked by stakeholders. However, decisions will generally be made by those who have a seat at the table. To provide comment, send e-mail to info@HonoluluHarborMP.com; a website is at www.honoluluharbormp.com….
read … Port of Honolulu needs thoughtful development for future
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