Here's Who to Vote for at OHA
Old federal maritime law holds back Hawaii tourism, new report shows
Low COVID: Ige Approves 'Tier 2' for Oahu
COVID News: Domestic Violence up 46% Since March
Measuring Climate Intentions, Not Results
UH Manoa ranked 378th by U.S. News and World Report
HART chief says Rail Line May be Cut Short
SA: … Honolulu transit chief Andrew Robbins acknowledged to a City Council committee Wednesday that his staff is now looking seriously at building the financially strapped rail project in phases, a move that may lead to construction halting short of Ala Moana or without 21 stations as has been envisioned for more than a decade.
The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation is under the gun to come up with a new plan in the coming weeks on how it intends to cover the cost of what’s now projected to be a $10 billion project, or risk losing $25 million in promised federal funds that will lapse on Dec. 31 if not released by the Federal Transit Administration.
Andrew Robbins, HART executive director and CEO, told members of the Council Budget Committee that discussions are already underway within the agency about a phased plan to help with the project’s financial issues….
While critics and lately even supporters have raised the possibility of stopping the line at Middle Street, Chinatown or somewhere else short of Ala Moana, Robbins’ comments Wednesday were the first by a HART official acknowledging that the agency is looking at a phased approach….
“We’re looking at different options, whether it’s stopping downtown in the first phase, or … deferring stations and building them later,” he said….
read … HART chief says plans to reduce the rail project’s scope are being discussed
40% of Hawaii businesses can't pay their rent, survey finds
PBN: … More than 80% of Hawaii businesses expect their revenue to decrease this year and in 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and one in four businesses expect they won’t be able to pay their rent between now and the end of the year, according to a survey of more than 1,400 businesses across the state.
The second commercial rent survey conducted during the pandemic found that more than 40% of commercial tenants did not paid their rent in full from April through September, and 9.4% made no payments at all….
SA: Hawaii business owners bracing for revenue crash
PBN: Facing 50% drop in donations, Hawaii's Salvation Army launches 'Rescue Christmas' campaign
read … One in 4 Hawaii businesses say they can't pay their rent, survey finds
Daily Tourist Count Drops off
SA: … The number of visitors coming for a vacation or to visit friends stood at 463 on Oct. 14, the day before Hawaii began its pre-arrivals testing program that gave travelers the opportunity to bypass a 14-day visitor quarantine. That number peaked at 5,124 on Saturday, but by Tuesday had dropped off more than 48% to 2,637.
Hawaii visitor industry leaders credit pent-up-demand for the better-than-expected traveler counts that came for the pre-arrivals program kickoff. Now, they say visitor arrivals are settling in closer to the 2,000 to 4,000 per day that the industry had expected, or even lower….
read … Hawaii’s tourism reopening off to choppy start
HD43: Will Downtown Lobbyists Win Race?
CB: … HD43 Republican Diamond Garcia, who will turn 23 on Election Day on Nov. 3, is a Nanakuli resident whose primary focus is homelessness, which he said has been steadily increasing on the Waianae Coast.
Garcia’s own family ended up homeless “multiple times” during his childhood, and he said he has two siblings who are homeless today. Garcia sold books door-to-door as a teenager to help cover the cost of his education at Hawaiian Mission Academy, and graduated from the Seventh-day Adventist Hartland College before returning to Hawaii.
He said his experiences growing up made him a Republican, and obviously influenced his policy proposals.
He recalls a time when most of the adults around him were selling their food stamps to get money for drugs. He still has friends who are addicts and have small children, and “they sell their food stamps for cash, and their kids go hungry, and to me, that’s just not acceptable,” he said.
One of the first bills he plans to introduce would legally mandate that cashiers demand identification from people who use electronic benefit cards under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as “food stamps.”
He also wants the Department of Human Services to sink more resources into helping the homeless, including helping them to obtain legal identification. The lack of ID cards for homeless people is a critical problem because it prevents them from applying for benefits and finding work, he said. They also need bus passes to get to job interviews and to help them apply for housing, he said.
“If you are on assistance, DHS should be helping you to get on your feet, period,” he said.
Garcia is also concerned about truancy, which has been on the upswing during the pandemic. He wants to find ways to get youth back in school, whether it be a hybrid online form of instruction or in-person classes.
He also wants to overhaul the educational offerings in schools in the Leeward Coast to focus more on vocational and technical education, because 70% to 80% of the students in his community end up in blue-collar jobs, he said. The schools should be preparing them for that, Garcia said….
…a cadre of top-tier lobbyists who operate at the Capitol are backing Garcia’s opponent Stacelynn Eli….
read … Democrats Rally To Defend Leeward House Seat In Eli-Garcia Race
Bill 73: Don’t Let Bums Flop on Sidewalk
CB: … for City Council Chair Ann Kobayashi, the existing laws don’t go far enough. She introduced a measure last month, Bill 73, that would criminalize sitting or lying on a public sidewalk within 800 feet of a park or school from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Civil Beat plotted the property parcels of Oahu’s schools and parks on a map and circled them with an 800-foot perimeter to illustrate the impact of Kobayashi’s bill. It shows that the ban would be a massive escalation of existing sit-lie laws, making large swaths of the island off-limits to homeless people looking to rest. …
read … Bum Flop Bill
Honolulu resolution seeks to help NIMBYs Stop affordable housing
PBN: … A resolution scheduled to be heard in a Honolulu City Council committee Thursday would require developers seeking to build affordable housing on Oahu under Hawaii’s 201H law to mail notifications to all property owners within 300 feet of the proposed site.
Developers say Resolution 20-178, which would require the Department of Planning and Permitting to enforce the rule, adds more hurdles, barriers and cost to an already difficult development process that already requires extensive community engagement — at a time when Hawaii needs more housing for workers such as teachers, nurses, firefighters and retail workers and as some 9,000 tenants are at least two months behind in rent because of the Covid-19 pandemic closures….
Meanwhile: Kaua‘i County Council passes housing bill 2774
Meanwhile: Hawaii County Council members work with developers on controversial project
read … Honolulu resolution seeks to add to layer of rules for affordable housing developers
Hawaii Labor Department brings on 100 adjudicators to help process huge backlog of unemployment claims
SA: … Hawaii labor director Anne E. Perreira-Eustaquio said today that 100 new adjudicators have joined the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations starting today to help clear the backlog of thousands of unresolved unemployment claims.
“We have the adjudication issues for separation. Those are the voluntarily left issues or the misconduct issues. We also have a lot of what we call ‘DNAs,’ did not accept. So claimants are being called back to work or being provided with some hours during the week and they are not accepting for some reason or other,” Perreira-Eustaquio said this morning on Spotlight Hawaii.
Any of those issues can lead to a halt in weekly unemployment benefits and must be investigated by an adjudicator to determine if the claimant is still owed money.
She said that the agency has also been able to identify some fraudulent cases and have been turning them over to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.
Perreira-Eustaquio said that these 100 new adjudicators are being paid for by CARES funding and will work through the end of the year….
HNN: Despite new unemployment call center, many still struggling to get answers
NR: Adjudication unit for unemployment insurance claims launched
read … Hawaii Labor Department brings on 100 adjudicators to help process huge backlog of unemployment claims
14,494 people in quarantine right now
KHON: … State Senator Donovan Dela Cruz tells KHON2 there are 14,494 people in quarantine right now. Mayor Caldwell said that 75% of travelers coming into Oahu have a pre-test and 25% don’t and are subject to quarantine.
He met with the Honolulu Police Department and hotel security staff on Wednesday to enhance enforcement.
“Just having the police do it, and the good news is the hotel guys are stepping up and they’re calling up to rooms to make sure people are there three times a day,” Mayor Caldwell said. “If they don’t answer the phone they’re calling the room phone, not the cell phone, and they’re knocking on the door.”
Lokahi Keama, who is the Security Chief of the Hawaiian Monarch in Waikiki, says that visitors are required to show the hotel proof of a negative COVID-19 test via the state’s Safe Travels app. The security department does not have access to the list of quarantined visitors on the app. Keama thinks that it makes it more difficult to keep track and enforce.
Angela Keen of the group Hawaii Quarantine Kapu Breakers says that the Attorney General’s Office, who is in charge of enforcement on Oahu, should play a bigger role….
Hawaii, Maui and Kauai County Police are responsible for enforcing quarantine rules. Last week, state auditor Les Kondo said, “Law enforcement agencies likely do not have sufficient personnel to effectively monitor compliance.”
In regards to the Safe Travels app requiring check-in’s, Kondo said it “can be answered from any location, doing little to verify that travelers are indeed self-quarantining.”…
YGI: Kouchi calls for more visitor info
Background: Auditor Reports on Hawaii COVID Quarantine System
read … Mayor Caldwell looks to boost COVID enforcement, which state auditor finds insufficient
State’s secondary surveillance testing hasn’t yet caught any positives
HNN: … Ten percent of all travelers who tested negative in their pre-travel test are being asked to take a voluntary second coronavirus test four days after arrival.
It’s part of the state’s surveillance testing program which launched on Monday….
Miller said it’s a way to see if any infected passengers are slipping through the cracks….
read … State’s secondary surveillance testing hasn’t yet caught any positives
Kauai County has spent 66% of CARES Act funds
TGI: … As of the end of September, the County of Kaua‘i has spent about 66% of its state-allocated federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds.
Between August and September, the county had spent $919,915.56, including $500,000 for small-business grants and $100,000 for the Rise to Work program that has hired displaced workers into paid employment.
The county received $28,715,55 in CARES Act funds, a sub-recipient of the state’s $862.8 million. These federal funds have a Dec. 30 expiration date….
The county has expended $13,982,533 and earmarked $4,953,883 for $18,936,416 spent or to be spent. The county has a remaining balance of $9,779,135 to be used in the next two months.
read … County has spent 66% of CARES Act funds
PUC Seeks Updated Status of Na Pua Makani Windfarm
IM: … On October 17, 2019, Na Pua Makani invoked Section 21.4 declaring Force Majeure due to work delays resulting from public protests that blocked the transport of equipment to the Project site.
On March 23, 2020, Hawaiian Electric invoked Section 21.4 declaring Force Majeure due to the COVID-19 pandemic and required quarantine/safety procedures impacting Hawaiian Electric’s resource availability.
On March 27, 2020, Na Pua Makani acknowledged the foregoing Force Majeure events and also invoked Section 21.4 declaring Force Majeure due to the COVID-19 pandemic and required quarantine/safety procedures impacting Na Pua Makani’s resource availability
On April 1, 2020, Hawaiian Electric gave notice to Na Pua Makani that Hawaiian Electric would invoke Sections 13.4 and 13.5 and Daily Delay Damages from Na Pua Makani would begin to accrue in March 2020 for its delay in meeting the GCOD, following the expiration of the 90-day grace period per Section 13.3(A) ….
read …PUC Seeks Updated Status of Na Pua Makani Windfarm
Councilman calls for release of fire chief’s performance evaluations
HNN: … Honolulu Fire Chief Manuel Neves' annual evaluations have not been submitted to the City Council in five years, according to Councilman Tommy Waters.
Waters, head of the Public Safety Committee, sent a letter to the Honolulu Fire Commission earlier this month requesting the evaluations from calendar years 2016 to 2020.
He cited a charter requirement that says the annual performance review is supposed to be submitted to the mayor and council, and noted the last evaluation the council received was in April 2015.
Neves became fire chief in 2013 and in the early years, he was proud of the marks he was getting from the fire commission, said Bobby Lee of the Hawaii Fire Fighters Association.
“The first two, three years he put out press releases on how good his evaluations were and then all of a sudden that stopped and when we tried to go further we were getting blocked,” Lee said….
read … Councilman calls for release of fire chief’s performance evaluations
Honolulu Gun Permits up 40%
SA: … Oahu has experienced a spike in firearm permits issued and firearms registered this year, the Honolulu Police Department has reported.
HPD said that through September there have been 10,485 annual firearms permits issued on the island, up from 7,566 permits issued through September of last year — a nearly 40% increase.
The department also reported that 21,214 firearms have been registered through September, up from 18,672 through September of last year. That’s about a 14% increase.
At those rates, just over 14,000 firearm permits would be issued and nearly 28,400 firearms would be registered by the end of 2020 on Oahu. The city hasn’t issued that many firearm permits in at least eight years…
July, 2020: HPD System Prevents Gun Owners from Registering Guns
CB: Federal Bailout Money Is Speeding Up Gun Permits
read … Election, coronavirus pandemic may have led to growing interest in firearms on Oahu
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