August 15, 2024 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

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Thursday, August 15, 2024

August 15, 2024 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 4:09 PM :: 2511 Views

Eight Hawaii hospitals at risk of closure

Hawaii Community Colleges Ranked

Honolulu 5th Highest Inflation in USA

Hawaii Ranks 49th for Invasive Plant Presence

Kauai: One guest house per dwelling another way to add housing

Big Isle poised to ‘free the bees’ while Oahu mulls clampdown

Criminal Kaniela Ing Refused to be Fingerprinted—finally complied under threat of jail

SA: … (‘Clean elections’ activist Kaniela) Ing still faces $18,250 in fines from separate complaints by the state Campaign Spending Commission. He previously paid off $22,000 in fines.

The criminal complaint against Ing dismissed Tuesday was filed Feb. 15, 2023, alleging he “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly failed to timely file a supplemental report” with the commission by a July 31, 2023, deadline for the first six months of 2022.

The commission accused Ing of using campaign funds to cover $2,125 in rent for homes on Oahu and Maui and paying $219 on his domestic partner’s credit card account. He also allegedly deposited a $2,000 campaign check into his personal checking acccount and failed to document it on his campaign spending reports.

He faced a sentence of a possible year in jail and a $2,000 fine, but instead changed his not guilty plea on Aug. 28, 2023, to a no-contest plea. Judge Myron Takemoto accepted a deferred acceptance of no contest plea, an opportunity for the conviction to be expunged under certain conditions.

Ing failed to report to authorities for fingerprinting in a timely fashion, missing three deadlines under threat of being held in contempt, but ultimately complied.…

(IDEA: Run those fingerprints thru the FBI database.)

PDF: Kaniela Ing Criminal Complaint 2023

Kaniela Ing: The Grift That Just Keeps on Grifting

read … Criminal case against former Maui lawmaker is dismissed

In just one year, A Maui County Appointee Oversaw $1.4M Grants To Profitable Nonprofits Tied To Her Family Members

CB: … Two nonprofits with family ties to Luana Mahi, an economic development director for Maui Mayor Richard Bissen, won more than $1 million in county grants overseen by Mahi since she was appointed in 2023.

Mahi’s husband Kalani Mahi was paid directly under a county grant for a watershed project. A company owned by her son, Keokoa Mahi, was hired to manage that grant. And another one of her son’s nonprofits got a $44,000 grant from the county to build a “Maui Wall of Fame” now in the Kahului Airport.

In addition, a county employee in Mahi’s office was paid to moonlight as an administrative assistant for one of the nonprofits tied to her.

The Maui Board of Ethics ruled in early July that Mahi’s oversight of those grants amounted to a conflict of interest. …

Two nonprofits that were grant recipients had ties to Mahi: Brilliant Minds Media and the Maui Food Technology Center….

Heavily Redacted PDF: Advisory-Opinion-24A-08 (mauicounty.gov)

read … A Maui County Appointee Oversaw Grants To Nonprofits Tied To Her Family Members

Four More Days: DoJ Extends Review of Alaska-Hawaiian Air Merger

R: … Alaska Air said today it has agreed to further extend the review period of its proposed $1.9 billion acquisition of peer Hawaiian Holdings with the U.S. Department of Justice.

The companies will extend the review period with the DOJ until 12:01 AM ET, Aug 20 (6:01 p.m. Hawaii time on Monday).

On Wednesday, the airlines had said the review period was extended until 12:01 AM ET on Friday….

BH: What Another Delay On Hawaiian Acquisition Really Means - Beat of Hawaii

CLUE: HA Stock up 6.5% today

read … Alaska Air, Hawaiian further extend review period of proposed deal

New Law: Five vote margin = No Recount

CB: … For District 30, approximately 175 votes were left blank and five were “over” votes, meaning those voters screwed up some part of their ballot such as by voting for more than one candidate in a specific race. In District 22, there were 129 blank votes and two over votes.

Hawaii’s elections guru Scott Nago did the math and concluded that, in order to trigger the recount, the Ganaden-Templo would have to be just four votes apart — that is, by a margin of 0.25%. Meantime, the Gates-Eli match would have to have been just 10 votes apart — 0.25% of the total.

The recount law was changed at the request of the Office of Elections, which said in its testimony that since the implementation of automatic recounts there have been 11 recounts triggered, most of them in the primaries….

SA: New law prevented recounts in 2 tight races | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

read … The Sunshine Blog: Primary Saw Some Tight Races, But No Recounts Coming

Hawaii Police Department wants state Supreme Court to block judge from releasing new details in Dana Ireland investigation

HNN: … “They set a fast track for people to answer and respond,” Black said about the deadlines the court put in for Judge Kubota and the Hawaii Innocence Project to respond to HPD’s claims.

“It will be interesting to see what the court does,” Black said the justices could decline to weigh in at all if they don’t think that the police department has met its burden.

That would leave Kubota’s decision in place to release the information as part of a subpoena filed by the Hawaii Innocence Project on behalf of two men who were wrongfully convicted of killing Dana Ireland in 1991.

Kubota vacated the convictions last year. Now, the two men, brothers Albert Ian and Shawn Schweitzer, want Kubota to declare them ‘innocent’ so they can apply for compensation….

read … Hawaii Police Department wants state Supreme Court to block judge from releasing new details in Dana Ireland investigation

Business Leaders Say Profits Are Down and Optimism Is Falling

HB: … Twice a year, Hawaii Business Magazine asks the Anthology Marketing Group to take the pulse of the local business community. This spring, owners and executives of 407 companies each had unique stories to tell about their firms’ financial situations – ranging from awesome to awful and everything in between.

When taken as a whole, the results of this latest BOSS Survey are worse than last fall’s survey. Much more disturbing is that optimism about the local economy’s future fell dramatically….

read … Business Leaders Say Profits Are Down and Optimism Is Falling

Fuel in Well: BWS Faking it?

SA: … the Navy Closure Task Force-Red Hill essentially dismissed BWS’ findings, saying it “does not concur with their conclusions,” based on its own sampling of area monitoring wells. State and federal regulators are now questioning BWS about its data and methodology. …

read … Off the news: Chemical plume data requires follow-up

Evictions Due to Delays At The State Public Housing Agency

CB: … “Maybe from 2021, 2022 onward, the processing times with the Section 8 office have become incredibly slow,” said Fernando Cosio, an attorney at the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children in Hawaii. “Months and weeks go by without a response.”… He explained that such delays often do more than just create an inconvenience — they leave tenants with big bills that threaten their housing security and put them at risk of an eviction….

“Everyone’s like, ‘what are we going to do about homelessness?’” he said. “Well, starting, let’s keep people housed.”…

read … Staffing Shortages Plus More Cases Are Causing Delays At The State Public Housing Agency

Clayton Hee Burned $200K of his own Money in Senate Primary Loss

CB: … the Democratic primary for Senate District 23 was expected by many politicos to see Clayton Hee on his way back into elected office. He previously held the same seat from 1984 to 1988 and from 2004 to 2014 as well as stints in the Hawaii House of Representatives and on the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees.

Nope. Ben Shafer won the race in a landslide and now faces incumbent GOP Sen. Brenton Awa for the district that runs from Oahu’s North Shore down into Kaneohe.

It proved a costly loss for Hee. According to his most recent campaign finance report, he finished $78,419 in the red. And more that half of the nearly $200,000 he raised for his race came from his own pocket via loans.

Notable donors in the waning days of Hee’s campaign included his would-be colleagues in the Senate Michelle Kidani, Donna Kim and Jarrett Keohokalole, attorneys Jim Wright and Mitchell Imanaka, Ben and Vicky Cayetano and the ILWU Local 142 and United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 48.

The Blog noticed that Hee also spent $93,000 to run political advertisements on Hawaii News Now and its affiliates and another $19,000 to produce the ads….

read … The Sunshine Blog: Primary Saw Some Tight Races, But No Recounts Coming

Lahaina Future: Modular units for Kapalua Employees

SA: … Since workers cannot afford to live here we will create modular homes for them to use while working for us. Meanwhile Lahaina town will be rebuilt with luxury villas like Wailea ….

read … Modular homes for Maui fire survivors unveiled at Kapalua | Honolulu Star-Advertiser (staradvertiser.com)

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