FBI Illegal Disruption of Hawaii Republicans?
Maui Economy will get Worse in 2024
SA: … Visitor arrivals by air to Maui were expected to fall 17.8% in 2023, and the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization predicts that air arrivals to the Valley Isle will drop another 9.6% this year.
Convention bookings have already been canceled for the first six months of the year on an island that relies on business from convention attendees and their families….
The uncertainty of finding long-term housing for survivors means Maui’s “rebuilding path will be long, and there are considerable uncertainties about how it will proceed,” according to UHERO….
read … Hawaii economy top of mind in the new year
Ige Admin Tries to Destroy Digital Records of Governorship
CB: … The failure to transfer the entire archives alarmed Jansen and led him to go to great lengths to secure the data. He said it marked the first time that the state archives had not obtained all of the administrative files from a governor.
The documents requested included executive correspondence with state, federal and county government agencies; executive orders, briefing records and press releases; speeches, photos and websites and official personal folders.
The digital files were backed up by the state’s Information Technology department, the Office of Enterprise Technology Services and are now in the process of being taken into archives custody. That’s expected to be completed early this year….
read … A Cautionary Tale For Preserving Hawaii History In A Digital Age
Hawaii DOE Faces Roadblocks, Delays In Spending $2 Billion For School Facilities
CB: … DOE has over $2 billion in unspent capital improvement program funds at school facilities, but it remains unclear how — or when — the buildup of money will result in campus improvements….
read … Hawaii DOE Faces Roadblocks, Delays In Spending $2 Billion For School Facilities
Mental hospitals warehoused the sick. Congress wants to let them try again.
P: … Community-based care championed since the 1960s hasn’t stopped record overdoses — and constituents have had it with the brazen drug use and tent encampments in their cities. Some public health advocates agree that times have changed and the magnitude of the crises justifies lifting the rule.
“It is no longer the 1960s, and there is no longer the same stigma against the treatment of mental health,” said GOP Rep. Michael Burgess, a doctor representing Dallas’ affluent northern suburbs who sponsored a House bill to change the rule.
The House passed it Dec. 12. It would give states the option to treat Medicaid patients suffering from addiction for up to a month in a mental hospital on the government’s dime. The Senate Finance Committee approved a similar provision in November, so its prospects of enactment are good.
Burgess’ co-sponsor was Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York City’s poorest section, the South Bronx, who has spent time in the hospital for his own mental health struggles.
Public health groups including the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, as well as state Medicaid directors, support the change.
They say the 1965 rule barring Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor and lower-middle income, from funding hospital treatment has had unintended consequences: a lack of psychiatric beds for people who need them. Instead, they said, many vulnerable people end up on the streets, in emergency rooms, in jails or dead….
read … Mental hospitals warehoused the sick. Congress wants to let them try again.
Hawaii Prisons Need More Thorough Internal Investigations, Commission Says
CB: … The state commission that oversees Hawaii’s prisons wants corrections officials to beef up their internal investigations office after visits to facilities exposed problems ranging from padlocked fire exits to evidence of rats in a kitchen.
Such potentially hazardous conditions could trigger lawsuits over injuries to inmates or staff or the conditions of confinement, according to Hawaii Correctional Systems Oversight Commission Chairman Mark Patterson.
Patterson said in a Dec. 5 letter to Department of Public Safety Director Tommy Johnson that there is an urgent need to ensure the inspections and investigation office “be fully staffed and strengthened” to allow the department “to address issues of immediate concern efficiently and effectively.”…
read … Hawaii Prisons Need More Thorough Internal Investigations, Commission Says
State of Hawaii Moves Closer to Disposing of Historic Sailing Tanker
ME: … The Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) has prepared a draft environmental assessment (Draft EA) report outlining plans to remove the decaying Falls of Clyde from Pier 7 in Honolulu Harbor, where it has been docked since 2016.
In the report, HDOT revealed plans to issue a request for proposal (RFP) for the removal of the ship, which is severely corroded, leaking and has lost its structural and watertight integrity. The current state of the 1878-built ship, which is the world's last surviving sail-driven oil tanker, means that it poses a risk of structural failure and sinking. The agency warns that this could threaten harbor safety and maritime operations.
Plans to float an RFP for the removal of the ship come just a month after it was delisted from the Hawaii Register of Historic Places….
SA: Falls of Clyde delisted from historic register
read … State of Hawaii Moves Closer to Disposing of Historic Sailing Tanker
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