Hawaii Worst State Economy in USA
Ige Signs Emergency Order Linking Reopening to Vaccination rate
Reform Jones Act and PVSA for Hawaii
HECO, Army Test Gigantic Bio-Diesel Plant
Convicted murderer hired by Child Welfare Services
HNN: … Advocates for victims of domestic violence are calling for change in the way the state hires people with access to vulnerable victims after a man who was convicted of and served time for murder in another state is now an employee of Hawaii’s Child Welfare Services.
Justin Boulay was 20 years old in 1998 when he killed Andrea Faye Will, his girlfriend at Eastern Illinois University. Boulay wrapped a telephone cord around her neck and strangled her. He was convicted of the high-profile murder and sentenced to 24 years but only served 12 before he was paroled.
In 2010, Boulay moved to Honolulu to be with his new wife, a University of Hawaii assistant professor who he’d married while in prison….
And in 2019, Boulay was hired as a special assistant with the state Department of Human Services in the Child Welfare Services division.
(HE STILL WORKS THERE. HGEA WON’T LET US FIRE HIM.)
His role gives him direct contact with foster kids and others who have been abused….
The special assistant also assumes care and custody and visits the child’s family in their own home….
HNN: Lawmakers (pretend to) look to close loophole that allowed murderer to work at Child Welfare Services
NYT 2018: NYC Investigates Hiring of Convicted Killer as Youth Counselor (fired after assaulting a 6-yr old boy)
read … Convicted murderer’s hiring in Child Welfare Services exposes background check gaps
Feds Charge Miske Accountant
CB: … Federal prosecutors allege that CPA Tricia Ann Castro conspired with Miske, along with two other individuals identified only by their initials, “D.F.M” and “J.Y.,” and others “known and unknown,” to prepare false tax returns covering up hidden income over at least an eight-year period, from 2010 through about October 2018.
…although “J.Y.” is not identified in the information, Jason Yokoyama was a longtime business associate of Miske. Honolulu Liquor Commission records identified Yokoyama as the majority 70% owner of Leverage Inc., which owned and operated the M Nightclub in downtown Honolulu. Miske, a former felon, was limited by law to a 20% share, although he appears to have had full control of the business.
M Nightclub was closed by the Liquor Commission in late 2016, but reopened as the Encore Nightclub, which prosecutors have alleged was also controlled by Miske.
Court records show that before forming Leverage Inc. and opening M Nightclub, Yokoyama appeared at a 2011 court hearing on behalf of Michael Miske, and identified himself to the court as “operations manager for Kamaaina Termite and Pest Control.”
In the document containing the charges against Castro, prosecutors added two companies to the already long list of those allegedly controlled by Miske as “de facto owner.”
One of the new companies, Da Poke Shack Honolulu LLC, was registered to do business on July 30, 2015, business registration records show. Its initial registration listed Yokoyama as both a member and agent for the newly formed LLC, which used the same Queen Street address as Kamaaina Termite and other Miske companies.
Da Poke Shack, which had a contract to operate a food truck outside the Home Depot store in Iwilei, sold poke bowls and plate lunches six days a week. The business, and its fully equipped mobile kitchen, was listed for sale the following year, Pacific Business News reported at the time. There is no indication the company continued under new ownership, and its business registration was canceled in June 2019.
A separate business, Da Poke Shack Haleiwa LLC, filed its business registration with the state on April 6, 2015, and listed Wayne Miller as its sole officer.
Miller pleaded guilty in December 2020 to being a part of Miske’s racketeering conspiracy. As part of a plea deal, he admitted agreeing to assist Miske in the kidnapping and murder of Fraser, although Miller said he hoped Miske would change his mind and not follow through on the plan. Miller also disclosed Miske had instructed him to arrange for the murders of five other people, although none was killed. Miller also admitted taking part in an attempted drug buy in California in 2014 that was financed with $400,000 allegedly put up by Miske.
Another company prosecutors now list among those under Miske’s de facto ownership is Laura Ann Fisheries LLC.
State business registration records show Laura Ann Fisheries was registered in August 2014 by Mike Miske, Jon Dahl and Jill Perry. The company was formed to take possession of and operate another tuna longliner, the 69-foot Fishing Vessel Laura Ann, and shared the same Queen Street business address as Miske’s Kamaaina Termite.
Miske was later dropped from the list of LLC members, and the company’s business address was moved to Perry’s residence in Kuliouou. It isn’t clear whether prosecutors believe Miske’s de facto ownership of the company continued after his name was dropped.
Perry is the wife of Bruce Perry, a former stevedore who was tried on assault charges in the 1990s stemming from the beating of a co-worker while working on the Matson docks. Perry faced two trials, and neither jury was able to reach a verdict. A possible third trial was blocked as unfair to the defendant.
Dahl was the owner of Hawaii Film Trucks & Equipment LLC while Miske was reportedly a Teamster driver during movie productions. In 2009, Miske and Dahl registered another company, Kamaaina Rolloffs LLC, also using the address of the Kamaaina Termite office. There is no indication the company ever actually did any business, and it was terminated in 2012, state business records show….
read … An Accountant Is The Latest To Be Charged In The Miske Case
Hawaii restaurant reservations rival rental cars in scarce supply, high demand
SFG: … “The amount of demand we are seeing right now is pretty intense,” she noted. “We have 800 to 900 people on the waitlist daily, and our phones are ringing off the hook with people trying to get a reservation.” ….
read … Hawaii restaurant reservations rival rental cars in scarce supply, high demand
Maui Hotel Moratorium Designed to Juice TVRs
MN: … To shut down opportunities for investment when property owners “are inclined to engage at this particular moment when we are just getting things back on a roll, seems out of sync to me, to have that happen at this particular moment, that’s just the timing question,” Brewbaker said during the Maui County Council’s Infrastructure and Transportation Committee meeting Monday morning.
Brewbaker said that in the last 30 years, hotel units have grown from around 19,000 to 22,000 for Maui island and that hotel rooms for Molokai have actually decreased since the Sheraton left the Friendly Isle.
“Today, all of the growth in the lodging inventory are coming from vacation rental units,” he said….
read … Economist questions hotel moratorium
Rate Hikes Coming: HECO officially begins performance-based regulation
PBN: … HECO's January agreement with the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, capping a three-year process with stakeholders, was considered a watershed moment for shareholder-owned utilities nationally. For Hawaii, it could prove a necessity as the state heads toward increasingly higher benchmarks of green power generation between now and the 100% renewable requirement for 2045….
read … HECO officially begins performance-based regulation
The Bus Ridership Running 50% of Pre-Pandemic Levels
CB: … In pre-pandemic days, TheBus saw close to 200,000 average daily rides across Oahu. Those transit numbers plummeted after the outbreak, as ridership similarly collapsed across the nation.
At its lowest point, in April 2020, Honolulu’s public bus system saw just 57,200 rides a day on average.
The numbers have been slowly climbing out of that hole ever since. By the end of May, ridership was back around 105,000 average daily rides, according to DTS, which oversees TheBus for the city. That’s about half of the Oahu-wide system’s pre-pandemic ridership….
At its pre-pandemic peak, Biki had nearly 1,300 bikes in service, but the recent damage has reduced the fleet to fewer than 900 bikes, he said….
SA: TheBus to stop using paper passes, sees steady increase in Oahu ridership
read … Biki And TheBus
Audit calls for more data on domestic violence on Oahu
SA: … Streamlined data collection on domestic violence cases was the center of a report released Monday by the Honolulu Office of the City Auditor.
The audit called on the Honolulu Police Department and Department of the Prosecuting Attorney to implement data collection practices that would integrate both departments to reduce redundancy.
One of the recommendations called on both departments to create an official understanding of “categories to be reported under domestic violence; and provides consistent and uniform definitions, terms, and jargon that facilitate domestic violence reporting and communications.”
Tiffany Kaeo, division chief of the Family Prosecution Division in the prosecutor’s office, said data is collected on violation of Hawaii Revised Statues 709-906, regarding abuse of family or household members. However, other violations of law could be a domestic violence case….
PDF: Audit Report
read … Audit calls for more data on domestic violence on Oahu
Public access to Honolulu police and fire scanners to end
SA: … The public’s long-standing access to routine radio communications by Honolulu police and firefighters is coming to an end as the city nears completion of a $15 million system overhaul that will encrypt the frequencies used by nine city departments, preventing objective monitoring of the transmissions.
The conversion from an analog system to a P25 Motorola digital system will allow the departments to talk to each other on a single channel and is part of a national move away from analog radio systems by county, state and federal agencies. The move is intended to make operations quicker and more efficient by providing first responders with more bandwidth.
For decades reporters have been able to listen to police and fire department scanners to be alerted to major accidents, fires or crimes in progress and alert the public. In a 1997 article the Society of Professional Journalists said police and fire scanners are “about as necessary in a newsroom as is the pen and notebook.” ….
read … Public access to Honolulu police and fire scanners to end
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