Affordable Housing: $2940 for 2br Apartment
Ala Moana Satellite City Hall temporarily halts HOLO card service Because they Have too Many Customers
Bill 22 Better Buildings Benchmarking
State Seeks Applicants for Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority
Hawaii Unemployment Rate Increases to 4.3%
CNHA Money Spinner: “Mandatory certification in Native Hawaiian culture for all hospitality industry employees”
CB: … Wednesday’s panel was important because it marked a rare opportunity to hear from leaders such as Chang, who is the head of the Council for Native Hawaiian transition team as the organization prepares to take over the contract.
With the contract award being protested by the venerable Hawaii Visitor and Convention Bureau, which marketed Hawaii for more than a century until the council snatched the contract away earlier this year, the council has been tight-lipped about its plans until it hears from the final arbiter of the procurement challenge: the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism and its chairman, Mike McCartney.
Although Chang didn’t discuss specifics on the contract or the council’s plans, he kicked off Wednesday’s talk on culture by calling the changes “a revolution” and exhorting those assembled to seize the opportunity and stay engaged.
“This is a rallying cry,” Chang said. “We have to take this torch.”
Often in the past, Chang said, tourism has shaped Hawaiian culture.
“We’re at a point where this needs to flip, and culture needs to shape tourism,” Chang said.
Following Chang, Hannemann was more specific. He called for mandatory training and certification in Hawaiian culture for everyone working in the hospitality industry.
“Anyone who works in tourism needs to go through a program to be certified in Hawaiian culture,” he said. “What’s wrong with being certified? What’s wrong with taking refresher courses?”…
(CLUE: This is a scheme to make work for CNHA insiders.)
read … Charting A New Course For Tourism In Hawaii
Iwi Repatriation trips planned around Pearl Jam concerts
HM: … “If this is a case where you want to find really nice things to say about Eddie Ayau, you’re talking to the wrong person,” says La‘akea Suganuma, who has battled Ayau in and out of court…..
So when I meet Eddie Ayau one morning over breakfast at Zippy’s and find out he’s heading on another repatriation trip later that week to California and Ohio, I ask if I can come. He says no. We continue to talk, and he tells me that on the same trip, he’ll be attending Pearl Jam concerts in Dana Point in Orange County. That Pearl Jam’s keyboardist, Boom Gaspar, is a friend who also grew up on Hawaiian homestead land in Moloka‘i and gives him passes to concerts.
“Wait, do you plan your repatriation trips around Pearl Jam concerts?” I ask.
“You’ve figured out the method to my madness,” he says. I ask if I can go to the Pearl Jam concerts then. He laughs, like it’s a joke. I say I’m serious. The next day, he emails to say that if I really am serious, I can come on the trip, all of it, the concerts and the repatriations. Later, he tells me he’s impressed with my persistence, that “history favors the bold.”
Three days later, we are at a rooftop bar at a West Hollywood hotel, where Ayau’s friend works and invited him to stay….
read … The Mission: Bringing Home Native Hawaiian Remains
Kunia land occupation: ‘Duped into believing otherwise unbelievable things’
ILind: … In this story, I didn’t try to assess whether the four who appeared in the videos so far, who appear to have been the leaders of the takeover, were themselves duped into believing otherwise unbelievable things, or whether they are deliberately misleading others and game the system. Nor did I try to weave in some of the group’s court filings, which borrowed heavily from the language used in documents available online going back to anti-tax and anti-government extremists on the U.S. mainland, and are just strange, convoluted pseudo-legal nonsense….
CB: How The Story Of The ‘Army’ That Illegally Took Over A Kunia Property Is Playing On Social Media
read … Those arrested in the Kunia land occupation speak out
Hospitals ask for emergency proclamation
KHON: … The Healthcare Association of Hawaii says hospitals across the state are reaching capacity, not because of COVID patients, but because so many healthcare workers aren’t able to work because of COVID.
“We have on any given day over 1,000 frontline healthcare workers out because of exposure to COVID because of testing positive or because they have symptoms,” said Hilton Raethel, Healthcare Association of Hawaii President and CEO.
That includes long term care facilities like nursing homes. So hospitals aren’t able to discharge patients to the nursing homes. And with the hospitals full, patients at emergency rooms are taking longer to process and put in a regular hospital bed.
“Because our hospitals are so full, we have patients sitting in our emergency rooms for much longer than they should be because we don’t have available beds,” said Raethel.
Kona Community Hospital on the Big Island is near capacity and has set up what’s called a Blue-Med tent to triage incoming patients….
read … Hospitals ask for emergency proclamation
Molokai’s unemployment rate rises to 13.9 percent
MN: … Molokai’s unemployment rate jumped to 13.9 percent in June, the highest in the state and nearly double the island’s unemployment rate of 7 percent a year ago, according to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
Molokai’s unemployment has risen since the start of the year, going from 5.2 percent in January to 10.5 percent in May and 13.9 percent in June. During the same period of time, Maui’s unemployment rate has mostly stayed under 5 percent, while Lanai’s has fluctuated from 7.3 percent in January to 3 percent in April and 4.5 percent in June.
In May, when asked about Molokai and Lanai’s higher unemployment rates, a University of Hawaii economist cautioned against putting too much stock in the data, pointing out that both islands have experienced fluctuations in data before and that economic conditions follow slower cyclical patterns rather than month-to-month changes.
As a whole, Maui County’s unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in June, the second highest after Kauai County at 5.1 percent, according to the report. Hawaii County’s unemployment rate was at 4.4 percent, followed by Honolulu County at 4 percent….
read … Molokai’s unemployment rate rises to 13.9 percent
Glitches in state’s victims notification network leaves rape survivor in the dark
HNN: … Back in 1982, she was raped at knife point by the so-called Manoa rapist.
The victim — now in her 60s — said that over the years she relied on the state’s online victims notification network to keep tabs on her attacker, John Freudenberg.
Freudenberg had pleaded guilty to raping or attempting to rape 15 women in the Manoa neighborhood during the early 1980s.
But when the woman recently checked on his status, she was horrified that there was no information on him
“I felt really stunned, felt really angry, feel really upset, felt really disappointed,” the woman said.
She recalled the horrific memory.
“He had a knife to my throat. When I screamed, he said I’m going to kill you. He hoisted himself up on my chest and he took the blade of the knife and went from my chin up to my forehead and back down and to the left and to the right. “
The Department of Public Safety apologized for the problem. It said it recently migrated its victim’s notification database to a new technology platform, resulting in glitches which are now being addressed.
“PSD apologizes for any confusion and concern that users may have and appreciates everyone’s patience as the department works through the glitches,” the safety department said in an email.
The woman said her search uncovered another problem — Freudenberg was transferred from Halawa Correctional Facility to Kulani Correctional Facility in Hilo with no public notice ….
read … Glitches in state’s victims notification network leaves rape survivor in the dark
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