Cost-free ways Hawaii can increase its housing stock
Voluntary tax incentives could encourage landlords to house displaced Lahaina residents
Public asked to participate in survey on next UH President
Drugs Behind 50% of Traffic Fatalities
Lahaina: “Impatient to move back onto the property”
CB: … Mario is ready to grant his permission to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to demolish and clear his lot. The sooner, the better.
He’s impatient to move back onto the property. As soon as the government allows, he figures he’ll buy and park a trailer on his land and resume living on his own terms.
“I just want a new, clean start,” he says. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but we just have to hold on. It’s going to be a long road, man.”…
read … Even Rubble And Ash Couldn't Shake A Longtime Lahaina Man's Sense Of Home
Lahaina: ‘We want to return to work’
SA: … HTA board will consider putting a new malama campaign out for bid that concentrates on amplifying the local voices that want to return to work.
“As much as we have focused on messaging the proper ways to come back to Maui with the respectful, mindful traveler and so forth, I really feel that it is time to pivot off that message and do one that is heavily concentrated on our local (population) to demonstrate to people that still may be resistant to tourism at the local scene that people want to go back to work,” Hannemann said.
He envisions a pivot that is similar to the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association- and other business partner-led campaign Makaukau — We Are Ready. That campaign encouraged the reopening of travel to the islands in October 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 shutdown and sent out the message that Hawaii workers were ready to get back to work.
“I really believe that there is a silent majority, who is not as vocal, who are concerned about housing and child care, but if you rank the priority they’ll say that they want to work,” he said. “We can’t just have local people patronize (Maui tourism and businesses); we need visitors from afar — that’s why Maui’s hurting so much. I’m really excited about getting this message out. I think it’s going to be really clear that people — whether they be Filipino, Japanese, Tongan, Samoan, Portuguese, Hawaiian, Caucasian — they all want to go back to work.”…
read … Hawaii Tourism Authority to vote on Maui recovery plan
Hawaii State Hospital Workers Were Assaulted More Than 1,700 Times Over The Past 11 Years
CB: … Over the past 11 years, workers at the Hawaii State Hospital have been assaulted by patients at a rate of about three times per week, or once every other day, according to data from the Hawaii Department of Health.
The data shows that between fiscal years 2013 and 2023 there have been at least 1,207 assaults on staff and another 507 attempted assaults.
The attacks have ranged in severity — from kicking, hitting and spitting that requires little in the way of treatment to other more serious affronts that require outside medical intervention. …
In 2013, he was one of several employees who spoke out about safety concerns at the hospital. Then, as now, the rate of assaults on staff was about once every three days.
(TRANSLATION: After the report, assaults increased 50%)
The state Senate had launched a special committee to investigate the attacks. That committee, which was co-chaired by then Sens. Clayton Hee and Josh Green, who is now Hawaii’s governor, ultimately found that the hospital was not properly equipped to handle a new breed of patient, one that had been committed there by the criminal courts and that comprised almost the entire population. …
Keanu said he had worked with patients who had been arrested for rape and murder.
He’d lost count of how many times he’d been assaulted, but knew that it was in the dozens. At least twice he missed work for months at a time due to injuries, including one instance in which he suffered a concussion after being punched in the back of the head.
“Ultimately, it just wasn’t safe,” Keanu said. “I didn’t want to put my family through it anymore.”…
(REALITY: Thanks to defense attorneys and soft-on-crime judges, hospital is crowded with ordinary criminals so genuine mental patients can’t get the treatment they need.)
read … Hawaii State Hospital Workers Were Assaulted More Than 1,700 Times Over The Past 11 Years
Another Day in the DoE: Autistic student beaten at Kailua-Kona high school, mother speaks out
KITV: … A mother in Kona is speaking out to Island News. Her autistic 15-year-old son was beaten this fall in the stairwell of a public high school.
The beating took place in September at Kealakehe High School. The administration has since gone quiet about the incident, which hospitalized a freshman and led to the arrest of at least one student in a group.
"They planned this -- to get my son in a staircase and start beating on him," Chevone Pack told Island News….
"He told me that he had a job in the cafeteria. I thought, oh wow, you know, he picked up something new," Pack said.
But after some other students were making trouble, her son found himself targeted.
"He told the cafeteria lady something that he'd seen that these boys were doing. So while they were beating him, they called him a snitch," Pack added.
A right eye swollen shut, stitches, a broken nose were among the injuries including profuse bleeding.
"I just kept praying and praying that he was OK. I got to the hospital and his whole face was rearranged," said Pack.
Pack says the school never issued any letter to parents following the incident nor addressed it with students.
"The only thing they told me was they're going to talk to their parents, the one that was lookouts, and then the one assailant, he's going to get arrested and his parents would have to pick him up from school," Pack explained. "But when they did arrest the boy, he looked at us and he smiled."…
read … Autistic student beaten at Kailua-Kona high school, mother speaks out
Corrections Panel Crumbling
SA: … The first blow came last month, when state Public Safety Director Tommy Johnson told the commission that he, or anyone from his staff, would no longer be attending the agency’s meetings. That raised red flags, since a high level of engagement with the commission is needed for DPS to improve conditions — for its staffers and inmates alike, and for better facilities operations.
The second blow to the five-member commission came on Dec. 4, when Ted Sakai, 76, an inaugural commissioner and former DPS director with much institutional knowledge in corrections, announced his resignation due to health problems. His knowledge and sense of urgency for DPS to make improvements — especially on inmates’ reentry into society — will be sorely missed. “Our job is oversight, and oversight is a way to shine light,” he stated at the commission’s Nov. 16 meeting, and he’s right….
Johnson told the Star-Advertiser that he now will attend the commission’s next meeting on Dec. 21 — expressing optimism that friction spurred by two commissioners’ “disrespectful,” “unprofessional”and “snarky” comments in previous meetings will ease after discussing his concerns with the commission’s coordinator and chairman. Also at issue for Johnson was how meetings were run: what he perceived to be a public “free for all,” with questions about non-agenda items being put to him directly and spontaneously, instead of the proper statutory process of channeling through the commission first. “I didn’t want the department to get ambushed with questions that we were not prepared to answer” because the issues weren’t on the agenda, he said….
read … Editorial: Corrections panel needs full support | Honolulu Star-Advertiser (staradvertiser.com)
Is Miske somehow behind recent shooting deaths?
ILind: … At the FDC, Miske has his own room own computer and access to a phone daily claiming attorney client privilege….Judge Watson agreed that the normal restrictions on computer use withint the Federal Detention Center would deny Miske a fair trial….
A preliminary list of witnesses was prepared during the summer naming prospective witnesses. It was presented to possible jurors so that they could say whether they knew any possible witnesses. The list was around 700 people, more than will be on the final witness lists, which are due in the next couple of weeks.
But as far as I know, no one on that list has been shot or assaulted, so the shooting rumor doesn’t appear to be true.
And one of his co-defendants, Preston Kimoto, was busted for making verbal threats against a witness expected to testify against him, a woman who knew about a kidnapping Kimoto had helped plan. When he was charged with obstruction of justice, he finally had to plead guilty. So at this point the feds are all over any hints of witnesses being threatened or pressured.
It doesn’t look like Miske has any troops left on the streets. Those previously associated with him are now more likely to be fighting over the territory he used to control.
There are now only four defendants remaining–Miske, John Stancil (his brother), Delia Fabro Miske (who was married to his son), and Jason Yokoyama, his business partner and front man.
Nine others have pleaded guilty and most are expected to testify against him at the trial. And an equal number of people were charged separately and have already admitted being part of Miske’s racketeering organization….
read … Is Miske somehow behind recent shooting deaths? | i L i n d
State firework drop off doesn’t spark much interest
KHON: .. On Sunday, the state Department of Law Enforcement hosted a firework amnesty event where people could drop off unwanted fireworks to four different fire stations across Oahu; Mililani Mauka, Waipahu, Kapolei and Kakaako.
The Dept. of Law Enforcement held a similar event back in October. The gun buyback event brought long lines of cars waiting to drop off their unwanted firearms in exchange for gift cards. That event brought in over 500 firearms ranging in all types of guns including semi-automatic rifles and ghost guns.
On Sunday, each fire station accepting unwanted fireworks was empty with no lines.
“People can possess firearms legally, but most fireworks, most of the illegal ones, are violation of the law so it’s been a little slower than we anticipated,” explained Department of Law Enforcement Director Jordan Lowe. “Although we have recovered about 400 pounds so far this morning.”
He said Mililani Mauka had the most drop-offs.
Over the four hour period, the Dept. of Law Enforcement collected 515 pounds of fireworks and firecrackers.
The firework task force, which started up five months ago, has already seized over 3,000 pounds of fireworks, and because possessing fireworks is illegal, the state said it was not going to offer up any type of incentives….
SA: Amnesty nets over 500 pounds of illegal, unwanted Oahu fireworks
read … State firework drop off doesn’t spark much interest
EMS staffing shortage leaves one-third of Oahu’s rigs out of service for 12-hour period
HNN: … A temporary staffing shortage at Honolulu Emergency Medical Services had left one-third of its rigs out of service for a 12-hour period, officials confirmed to Hawaii News Now on Sunday.
EMS said 7 of its 21 units sat idle from midnight until noon Sunday.
Officials said reasons include a combination of approved holiday vacation leave, maternity leave and illness….
Data from EMS show Central and West Oahu were hit especially hard. Areas like Waipahu, Wahiawa and Ewa that usually have five active ambulances for the region, only had two.
“Having a unit close on the west side of the island can actually affect the call volume for an ambulance on the windward side of the island because everyone will have to start moving to the busy side,” said a paramedic, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
It’s not the first time EMS has seen a significant portion of their ambulance fleet idle due to staffing shortages.
Around the same time last year, 14 out of 22 ambulances went unstaffed over two 12-hour shifts. Both instances on a Sunday, right before the holidays….
read … EMS staffing shortage leaves one-third of Oahu’s rigs out of service for 12-hour period
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