Miske Convicted
No Bankruptcy? Hawaiian Electric Among Firms in $4 Billion Maui Fire Deal
Jury Convicts Miske Of 13 Counts, Forfeiture Trial Next
CB: … HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu said in a previous statement the department knows of no connections between Miske and its personnel.
(IQ Test: How hard are you laughing?)
Ali Silvert, a retired federal public defender who broke open the Louis Kealoha conspiracy, said he doesn’t expect to see another criminal organization like Miske’s pop up in Hawaii any time soon. The island state is too small and close-knit to support the kind of activities Miske and his associates were committing, particularly the violence and intimidation of his rivals, he said.
“It’s that type of action that really sets him apart,” he said. “At least in the short term, I don’t see another group like Miske’s.”…
Silvert said the government decides what to do with the money from assets forfeited in a criminal trial. Some of it may go to the court and some may go to the law enforcement agencies that worked on the case, he said.
Miske’s forfeiture form lists dozens of assets, including two properties, three boats, a 2017 Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, other vehicles and cash from bank accounts owned by him and Kamaaina Termite. It also lists eight paintings by various artists and two sculptures by OG Slick, a Honolulu-born artist who now lives in Los Angeles and specializes in street and graffiti-style work.
Watson told jurors he did not expect the forfeiture trial to take long, and said they would likely have the case for deliberation by Wednesday….
read … Jury Convicts Miske Of 13 Counts, Including Murder In Aid Of Racketeering
Hawaii Supreme Court Will Review Judge's Decision To Withhold Abused Girl's Case File
CB: … The Hawaii Supreme Court has ordered parties to submit briefs in a case involving the child welfare records of Isabella Kalua, a Waimanalo girl who was placed by the state with a couple now accused of killing her.
The records would likely show why the state and Family Court chose Isaac and Lehua Kalua to foster and eventually adopt Isabella, whose birth name was Ariel Sellers, despite their criminal records and financial troubles.
Family Court Judge Matthew Viola rejected a petition by Public First Law Center to release the records, saying that the redactions necessary to protect privacy would render the documents “distorted and misleading.”
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued an order giving Viola and other respondents such as the Department of Human Services until Sept. 3 to answer Public First’s petition for writs opening up the records. Public First would have another two weeks after that to address the answers.
The Supreme Court’s order is significant because the state’s highest court could merely have denied Public First’s petition in a brief order without asking for further responses.
RELATED: Ariel Sellers Murder: Family Court Refuses to Release Secret Records “because of the impression of DHS and the family court that it might create”
read … Hawaii Supreme Court Will Review Judge's Decision To Withhold Abused Girl's Case File
Planning director: Bill could slow down permitting process
HTH: … Requests for zoning changes could become more complicated under a proposed Hawaii County bill, warned the county’s top planning official.
Bill 134 would require that every time a property owner seeks a change of zoning district, the Planning Department would have to compile a report of all buildings that are legally permitted to be built on surrounding properties within a quarter-mile radius.
Kona Councilman Holeka Inaba, a co-introducer of the bill, said at a July 1 Windward Planning Commission meeting that the purpose of the bill is to give the County Council and Planning Department “the most comprehensive information possible when we’re looking at change of zone ordinances.” (make housing more expensive so more people will move to Vegas.)
read …Planning director: Bill could slow down permitting process
Sen Dela Cruz Pushing State to buy Dole Lands
CB: … Dole Food Co.’s 2.2-acre parcel at the end of Holoku Place in Wahiawa is squeezed between modest homes and the waters of Lake Wilson’s spillway, which snakes through the area. Although the land appears to be merely a buffer between the homes and the water, offering little apparent additional use, Dole has a potential buyer: the state of Hawaii.
The public Agribusiness Development Corp. on Thursday voted to issue a letter of intent and and take a deeper look at buying the parcel from Dole, along with another 5.7-acre parcel nearby.
If the acquisitions go through, they’ll mark the latest in a long line of deals that define the symbiotic relationship between old pineapple companies and Hawaii taxpayers.
Dole’s long-time former parent Castle & Cooke once played a dominant role in Hawaii’s politics and economy — particularly central Oahu and the former plantation town of Wahiawa — as one of the state’s Big Five corporations. With Hawaii’s pineapple economy now a distant memory, the companies have unused former plantation lands on their hands, and the agribusiness corporation has stepped in to buy more than 2,000 acres from the companies in recent years.
Other state agencies have joined in the spending spree. In 2017, the Hawaii Technology Development Corp. agreed to pay Castle & Cooke $9.8 million for land where it hoped to develop a 150-acre campus for Oahu’s public safety workers.
The driving force behind much of the buying is Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz of Wahiawa, who plays a major role in steering money to the area as chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
Dela Cruz has been a proponent of the state buying unused land as part of his vision to rebuild Wahiawa’s agriculture economy by developing government-owned agriculture and food-processing facilities.
Among those projects is the one where Thursday’s Agribusiness Development Corp. meeting was held: a new $16 million Wahiawa Value-Added Product Development Center on the former site of an old warehouse. The agribusiness agency bought that land, too….
But it’s not just agriculture development. Dela Cruz is viewed as the brains behind another proposed land deal with Castle & Cooke: one that makes a perennial appearance in the state budget, only to be axed by the governor. The land in question is known as Lot 17.
Earlier this month, Gov. Josh Green vetoed a proposal to pay Castle & Cooke $19 million for Lot 17, which consists of two parcels with a total assessed value of approximately $10.4 million. The idea was to use the land as a Department of Education base yard….
read … The State Of Hawaii Keeps Snatching Up Land From Former Agriculture Companies
HECO Overuses Confidentiality to Hide Key Information
IM: … Hawaiian Electric Company reported that there were seven system interruptions in June 2024, five on the Big Island, and one each on Maui and O`ahu.
HECO asserted that the dates can be made public, but all information about the interruptions is so sensitive that which areas of each island were impacted and for how long needs to be confidential.
HECO asserted that disclosure “could increase the risk to the Companies’ facilities, jeopardize their emergency and disaster planning.”
HECO asserts that island maps of overhead transmission lines are also confidential….
read … HECO Overuses Confidentiality to Hide Key Information
Hawai‘i’s Film Feast Is Now a Famine. What Happened?
HB: … Only one major TV series is scheduled to be shot on O‘ahu this summer. Local crews and actors are struggling to find work….
REALITY: With Miske’s crew behind bars, there is nobody available to work on the sets.
July 19, 2020: Miske Mob Were All Union Drivers on Set of Hawaii 5-0
read … Hawai‘i’s Film Feast Is Now a Famine. What Happened?
More Delays on Maui Jail Project
CB: … Work on a $10 million expansion of the Maui jail has been stalled for months after a construction crew unexpectedly discovered buried conduit on the site designated for the new facility.
It is the second time in recent years that a Maui jail project has become mired in long delays.
Corrections officials broke ground on the 32-bed medium security women’s dormitory in 2022, and that jail expansion was supposed to be completed early this year.
But members of the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission visited the construction site at the Maui Community Correctional Center last month and, during a walk-through, commission staff essentially found a hole in the ground surrounded by yellow hazard tape….
read … Another Maui Jail Project Stalls After Underground Duct Work Is Discovered - Honolulu Civil Beat
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