Hawaii’s Puzzling Coronavirus Rules; Government Leaves Public in the Dark
COVID-19 vaccination required of all UH employees in 2022
Coastal Erosion: No Easy, Inexpensive, or One-Size-Fits-All Solutions
Hawaii Entering Depression? 14% of Jobs Disappear
SA: … Carl Bonham, executive director of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, warned that the loss of federal dollars is creating a potentially perilous situation in Hawaii, particularly as tourism remains depressed due the national surge in cases and calls from Ige for tourists to stay away.
“Hawaii’s situation today is still one of really needing a tremendous amount of recovery,” said Bonham. He noted that jobs are still down 14% from before the pandemic.
“The crisis for many of these households is actually just now beginning, or it’s beginning in a much more pronounced way,” Bonham said….
HPR: Bonham says he’s expecting September numbers to show the loss of between 6,000 and 10,000 jobs, on top of losses in August.
CB: Experts: It’s Time To Learn To Live With Covid -- Before the pandemic, families at the ALICE level or below represented 42% of households, including 9% in poverty. Since the pandemic, the situation has gotten worse. Mugiishi noted that now almost 60% of households are at or below the ALICE, the Aloha United Way reports. In addition, Mugiishi said, 50% of the state’s children receive government subsidized health care.
read … Pressure mounts in Hawaii to ease COVID-19 restrictions
Hawaii Officials: Vaccinations now Make COVID Less Dangerous than Flu or Poverty
If you were thinking yesyterday's Star-Adv banner headline was a glitch, think again. This stuff 'flu is more deadly' crap is suddenly all over the local media. It is absolutely false. It's all coming out of Monday’s meeting of the 'House Select Committee on COVID-19 Economic and Financial Preparedness':
REALITY: “There was one confirmed influenza death in Hawaii between Sept. 27, 2020, and Oct. 2, 2021. This is compared to 608 COVID-19 deaths-- Sara Kemble, DoH
REALITY: Health officials debunk false report. say COVID is far deadlier than the flu
SA: Flu, pneumonia deaths in Hawaii over past 12 months exceed all local COVID-19 fatalities (This was corrected Thursday AM.)
CB: Experts: It’s Time To Learn To Live With Covid--Medical professionals say Hawaii’s social and economic threats are now greater than those posed by the virus.
SA: Pressure mounts in Hawaii to ease COVID-19 restrictions--“Given where we are at, in this course of the pandemic and the course of the vaccination rollout, I think the much greater risk to the public health of this community are those social and economic factors beyond the virus itself,” said Raymond Vara, president and CEO of Hawaii Pacific Health, during a briefing Monday before the state House Select Committee on COVID-19 Economic and Financial Preparedness. Vara warned that “poverty is the greatest risk of public health.”
SA Editorial: Move with care to the new normal -- at every step along the way, there will be masking, vaccination requirements and social distancing against the dreaded COVID-19.
UH Football's Safe Again? It's Time To Open Up The Capitol
HART: Howard Hughes To Seek $200 Million In Rail Condemnation Suit
CB: … The HART board is poised on Thursday to approve an additional $7 million in legal fees for its eminent domain lawsuit against Howard Hughes Corp. and the Texas-based company’s local subsidiary, Victoria Ward, Ltd.
The new total for those fees will exceed $23 million with the board’s approval. Initially, the HART board approved just $4.6 million for the legal effort, according to a slide presentation prepared for Thursday’s board meeting….
read … HART: Howard Hughes To Seek $200 Million In Rail Condemnation Suit
HPD officer facing criminal probe after near-fatal crash previously accused of civil rights violations
HNN: … Nahulu was already accused of violating the civil rights of a Waianae man, Sefo Fatai.
Fatai ended up homeless, living in a truck on Oahu’s west side, after he was wrongfully arrested and held at the Oahu Community Correctional Center for years for a drug crime he did not commit.
Fetai filed a federal lawsuit in 2019 against the city, HPD, and several narcotics officers individually, including Nahulu. That case is moving toward trial….
read … HPD officer facing criminal probe after near-fatal crash previously accused of civil rights violations
RFP for redeveloping land around Aloha Stadium
SA: …State officials are scheduled to publish a request for qualifications from prospective developers and preliminary information about what a developer would propose and how it would complement a new stadium to be built under a separate prior offering to private developers.
The state Department of Accounting and General Services is calling the new invitation a “two-stage” request for proposals, or RFP, in which a committee of state officials and development industry experts will determine which responding bidders are qualified to advance to a second phase where more detailed proposals would be sought and lead to a winning bidder….
The state is offering a long-term lease for the 73 acres currently used mainly for parking, and the resulting development is expected to cost more than $1 billion.
Redevelopment ringing the roughly 20-acre stadium site in Halawa is expected to stretch over two decades or so and could include around 3,300 homes, 650 hotel rooms, retail space approximating the size of Kahala Mall and offices for roughly 800 workers, based on a state-commissioned market study....
read … Invitation to come today for redeveloping land around Aloha Stadium
Building permit applications pile up in EPIC system
HTH: … A backlog in building permits was expected, but it’s worse than contractors suspected — and the county previously reported — in the transition to an online permitting system for two county departments.
As of last week, only 110 permits of the 1,700 permit applications received since the system went live in July have been issued and there’s another 1,500 pending permit applications that were submitted prior to the new system going live, Public Works Director Ikaika Rodenhurst told the County Council Committee on Public Works and Mass Transit at a Tuesday briefing.
Permits were issued for 554 of the earlier permit applications in August and September, he said.….
read … Building permit applications pile up in EPIC system
More State-funding for ‘Ohana Zone’ homeless projects?
KITV: … more than 1,100 people placed into permanent housing statewide through Ohana Zones projects….
The state's homeless coordinator Scott Morishige said the creation of 20 different Ohana Zone sites has added more permanent housing and increased outreach and shelter capacity.
But he said much more needs to be done, including the building of additional affordable housing units.
"Although we have a focus on permanent housing and creating that pathway, it's more than just the physical structures or the services provided," Morishige said. "All of these projects have a component of really building relationships and trust with the individuals encountered."…
SA: Potential extension of Hawaii homeless program being considered by lawmakers -- “The administration is potentially looking at a legislative proposal for the upcoming session to ask for the continuation of the Ohana Zones program, and possibly additional funding to support certain programs for which other federal funds can’t be identified.”
read … State-funded homeless projects help get more people off the streets
Crews begin massive clean-up of burned out auto graveyard in Central Oahu
HNN: … Crews crushed and collected several junked cars at Poamoho on Monday to make way for the massive clean up of an estimated 1,000 burned out and derelict vehicles.
“This is a monumental task given all of the cars and how they are randomly placed and stacked on one another,” said environmental activist Carroll Cox.
A wildfire last month on the state-owned land exposed just how large illegal junkyard had become.
After Hawaii News Now aired video of the auto graveyard, local metal recycler Schnitzer Steel Hawaii agreed to haul away the vehicles at no cost to taxpayers ― in exchange for the scrap metal….
read … Crews begin massive clean-up of burned out auto graveyard in Central Oahu
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