Showdown of the Juggernauts
State Supreme Court: With Environmentalism Anybody Can Veto Affordable Housing
Hawaii Vaccination Percentages: State officials Just making it up as they go along
Borreca: … Tucked just below Oregon and above the District of Columbia, Hawaii ranks 13th in the number of people fully vaccinated. That’s 709,205 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration data tracker.
There is a caveat to that ranking, as the Honolulu Star-Advertiser recently pointed out, because of a discrepancy between the state of Hawaii’s calculations and the federal number.
A CDC spokeswoman said at the beginning of this month that the federal and state data could differ for reasons such as reporting schedules, data cleaning and lag time. In a follow-up inquiry June 9, she said Hawaii has the most current data and that the “CDC is working with Hawaii to address some technical issues,” the newspaper reported….
The big question, however, is when will Hawaii first hit 60% vaccinated and then, more importantly, 70%.
Lt. Gov. Josh Green late last week broke out his own calculations that show 60% is not far away. He predicted reaching that within a week….
“It is going to be a slog to get to 70%,” Green said in the news report….
Looking at the math, Green said it means that 82% of residents who are eligible need to get the vaccine for the 70% threshold to be reached…
Gov. David Ige has said that all social distancing restrictions will end once the state achieves a 70% vaccination rate, although he noted that the state Department of Health could establish new COVID-19 rules….
Green said if Hawaii residents just don’t get enough vaccinations to move the percentage, there are ways to readjust the calculations.
“I will propose to the governor a couple of other ways if we stall,” Green told the Star-Advertiser.
He figures that the base would grow if those vaccinated are combined with those safe because they have the virus — which includes “those now in the hospital with COVID, the existing case count now with COVID and people who have actually had COVID.”…
… Or the state could do as it has repeatedly done since the pandemic emerged more than a year ago, and just change the rules….
read … It’s a numbers game as Hawaii moves toward lofty COVID-vaccination goals, full reopening
Drug dealer only got Probation, so he Joined Miske gang
ILind: … Taboada was arrested in August 2018 after he was observed selling meth to a confidential law enforcement source. Then, while under court-authorized electronic surveillance during the period March through June 2018, Taboada continued to distribute meth to “numerous others” on Oahu, according to his plea agreement with prosecutors. Taboada admitted to selling methamphetamine daily from his home on Ko Place in Kaneohe during the period from January 2016 to August 2018. He told prosecutors that he was aware some of the drugs provided to him had been obtained in robberies of other drug dealers.
During most of the 2016-2018 period, Taboada was on probation after pleading guilty to charges of unauthorized entry into a motor vehicle, and promotion of dangerous drugs, both Class C felonies.
Two of Taboada’s main sources of drugs, Jacob “Jake” Smith and Hunter Wilson, have already pleaded guilty to being part of the “Miske Enterprise,” which prosecutors describe as a racketeering organization. Both also admitted to conspiring with others to distribute illegal drugs, including meth and cocaine. Smith and Wilson are both awaiting sentencing. The third source named by Taboada, Lance Bermudez, is one of Miske’s co-defendants and awaiting trial ….
read … Drug dealer linked to Miske gang sentenced in federal court
DOH: Preliminary numbers show coronavirus vaccine incentive campaign is working
KHON: … Just 52% of the state was vaccinated when the program was announced in early June. Hawaii stands at a 56% vaccination rate as of Saturday.
“The incentives are working people are seeing the prizes, and so a few more people are getting activated, I think we would benefit from a couple big prizes, like some big scholarships, but I know that it’s helping,” said Lt. Gov. Josh Green.
Over 18,000 doses were administered over the three-day weekend and just over 26,000 doses were administered from Tuesday, June 15, through Friday, June 18.
“We’re just a couple days away from touching that 60% threshold, that’ll happen in about a week,” he added ….
He anticipates Hawaii to be over the 60% threshold by Saturday, July 4, “By Labor Day, I do think we will be past the 70% threshold. But you know, people are eager to move past COVID and I understand that. So if our case counts are very low and our hospitalization counts are very low by Mid-July, I will personally ask the governor to drop the restrictions,” he said….
read … DOH: Preliminary numbers show coronavirus vaccine incentive campaign is working
HONU program ‘success’ – 44% still refuse shelter
SA: … The program has served more than 1,600 homeless people, 900 of whom have since moved to other services, like emergency shelters, medical services or even permanent housing…. (700 /1600 = 44% refuse shelter -- and that assumes ‘medical services’ is equal to ‘shelter’ which it isn’t)
“The working theory was that nobody would come if HPD ran a shelter, and that has been proven false,” Henderson said. “I think the police add a sense of security that you don’t find necessarily with other forms of security or when social workers intervene on our own.”
Henderson said the HONU program is the only one in the nation that shelters homeless people and helps them navigate to other programs that are also run by a police department….
read … Homeless outreach Evaluator touts HONU program as a ‘success’
Crime falls during pandemic but Honolulu police, officials expect a surge as restrictions continue to ease
SA: … There were 27,467 index crimes in Honolulu in 2020, the lowest in five years — compared to 31,934 in 2019; 31,091 in 2018; 29,916 in 2017; and 32,990 in 2016, according to the Honolulu Police Department’s annual report….
Police patrol District 1, which covers downtown Honolulu and the Makiki area, saw the highest amount of crime in 2020, with 6,642 reported offenses, 35% of which were thefts. Patrol District 5, which includes Kalihi, Palama and parts of Moanalua, had 5,235 crimes, 45% of which were thefts….
read … Crime falls during pandemic but Honolulu police, officials expect a surge as restrictions continue to ease
Kalapama TOD: Gigantic Rail-Oriented KSBE Development Plan
SA: … The biggest private landowner in Kapalama has identified initial pieces of an envisioned long-term transformation for much of the area between Kalihi and Iwilei. (All of which is beyond Middle Street, hint, hint….)
As Explained, 2017: Rail Stations Designed to Profit KSBE, HECO, First Hawaiian
read … Kamehameha Schools envisions phased redevelopment of Kapalama
UH Law Prof Helped Launch ‘Critical Race Theory’
VP: … in the 1970s, you find Derrick Bell, a Black civil rights scholar, advocating these ideas as a critique of the civil rights movement itself. Did it get the job done? Or does American require an all-inclusive way of framing its long, contradictory history?
It caught on. Come November 1990, there were 115 professors and students gathered in Madison for the “Wisconsin Conference on Critical Race Theory.”
“In unity there is strength, but alone we are not strong enough to fight the power,” said University of Hawaii law professor Mari Matsuda in an address. “We must link oppressions and understand the connection between all forms of subordination.”
Still, it remains a little vague. “Critical race theory is so new that its adherents insist it is not a movement, and its critics say they are not sure what it stands for,” wrote The New York Times in 1992.
By 1997, however, CRT was taking shape and in portentous ways. “Critical race theory wants to bring race to the very center of the analysis of most situations,” said Prof. Anthony Cook, a member of the Georgetown University Law School faculty.
The working assumption: Race has affected our perception of reality and our understanding of the world — in almost every way.
Nothing is as it seems, in other words — and racism is the culprit.
“Critical race theorists,” the 1997 article claimed, “are on the faculty at almost every major law school and are producing an ever-growing body of scholarly work….
And (in 2021) the public just caught on….
(Translation: They’ve been planning this bs for 30 or 40 years.)
read … Your Tuition at Work
Infighting Amongst Animal Liberation Nuts leads to Chaos for Big Island Animal Control
WHT: … Weeks after transitioning into full services for Hawaii County’s animal control contract, abrupt changes have been made in leadership for the Hawaii Rainbow Rangers.
Out are director of operations Nick Lippincott, deputy director of operations Gina Burrows and the partnership with Best Friends Animal Society: a nonprofit no-kill animal sanctuary based in Utah. In are new chief operations officer Lev Yarborough and a new executive leadership team (ELT) formed after the dissolution of the previous ELT….
(Translation: To get the contract, they were brought in as window dressing by the hard core animal liberation nuts. Now they are no longer needed.)
The sudden switch came as a surprise to both the Hawaii Police Department and Hawaii County Council. Kona Councilwoman Rebecca Villegas and HPD is Major Aimee Wana, who oversees the animal control contract for HPD, each stated they had been given no insight from HRR about the changes.
In a four-page document – dated June 3 and signed by Mary Rose Krijgsman– a litany of violations including staffing and labor law issues, personal issues and lack of commitment to HRR’s no-kill policy are cited as justification for terminating the agreement….
The rigid no-kill stance has ultimately led to current overpopulation in HRR’s shelters. Multiple sources confirmed that the shelters are at or over capacity, with animals regularly held beyond the timeframe allowed by the contract using county funds, many for months at a time.
“Mary Rose is someone who is diametrically opposed to any type of euthanasia that is behaviorally based, length of stay or space,” Orr said, whose comments were made prior to being fired by HRR on Friday.
“I saw cats missing half their face,” said one worker. “Mary Rose and others refused to euthanize.”
read … Out of control: sudden shift in leadership raises concern within Hawaii Rainbow Rangers
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