Foster Care Rape Room: Police Report Blows Away CWS Coverup
Will Front Street become just a fond memory?
Hawaii National Parks Attract 4,764,320 Tourists
Green: After reading Secret Fire Report, I know State will have to bail out Maui County
SA: … What happens next following the Maui wildfires could once again profoundly affect Hawaii’s insurance market, which continues to see the price of condo insurance skyrocket.
Following Hurricane Iniki in 1992, insurance companies stopped issuing hurricane insurance policies in Hawaii, prompting the state to create the Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund. A decade later, in 2002, insurers resumed writing hurricane insurance policies.
(TRANSLATION: By soaking the insurers, Green’s fake Maui settlement would drive those insurers out of Hawaii.)
More recently, following the 2018 eruption of Kilauea Volcano on Hawaii island, Universal Property and Casualty — the last company issuing lava insurance for Puna’s Lava Zones 1 and 2 — pulled out, and as of Saturday, homeowners in those zones no longer have lava insurance.
(TRANSLATION: By soaking the insurers, Green’s fake Maui settlement would drive those insurers out of Hawaii.)
Janet Ruiz, director of strategic communication for the Western United States for the Insurance Information Institute, said that each year of insurance claims and payouts has to be looked at individually, versus “a 20-year compilation or a span of years” to determine whether a company makes a profit or not.
Taking into account for company overhead or expenses in paying out claims, Ruiz said, “If they pay out more than $1 per a $1 claim, then there’s no underwriting profit.”…
(A corporation making profits. Shocking. Just shocking. We should steal its money. That’s the solution.)
(Green) expects the official cause of the fires to be released by Attorney General Anne Lopez in mid-September.
“Let me be blunt with you,” Green told the Star-Advertiser’s editorial board last week. “The report is going to say what everybody knows: Wires came down, a fire started. A fire got put out and then they (Maui firefighters) went to fight three other fires. The fire that was put out in Lahaina had some embers which, because of the winds of 74 mph, sent them up into the air. That’s what it’s going to say….
(TRANSLATION: I’ve read the secret AFT report on the Maui fires from front to back. It blames 1-HECO, 2-Maui County, and 3-KSBE.)
Asked about the response of governmental agencies, the governor said the Maui Emergency Management Agency “was not as good as the local firefighters and police that day. That’s evident. I don’t think anyone is disputing that.”…
Attorneys representing the insurance companies previously told the Star-Advertiser that their investigation found the wildfires were sparked when an aging, wooden utility pole overloaded with telecommunications equipment snapped in high winds in Lahaina, causing it to land on neglected, overgrown brush belonging to landowner Kamehameha Schools across from Lahaina Intermediate School, mauka of Lahaina town.
The attorneys said the fire later reignited and shot embers into the sky and triggered a path of flames all the way to Lahaina’s historic Front Street and the water’s edge, where panicked evacuees leaped into the ocean to escape the inferno….
A filing by the insurance companies’ lawyers in Honolulu Circuit Court placed the blame on Hawaiian Electric and the telecom companies for ignoring warnings and industry standards, and for following a policy the lawyers called “a ‘wait until it breaks’ plan” of maintaining their wooden power poles and overhead power lines.
(TRANSLATION: We’ve come to the same conclusions as the secret AFT report on the Maui fires. We also blame HECO, Maui County, and KSBE.)
(CLUE: Due to interlocking Boards of Directors, KSBE and HEI are really just One Thing.)
After the fire, an inspection of the Kamehameha Schools land found that Kamehameha had failed to properly maintain firebreaks it had been ordered to create three years before, according to the filing.
GREEN BROKERED the proposed settlement and said he had to work hard to convince the parties not to sue one another in order to prevent catastrophic lawsuit judgments that the governor said would likely bankrupt Maui County and Hawaiian Electric and make it financially harder for Kamehameha Schools to educate Native Hawaiian children.
The state likely would have to bail out Maui County at a cost to taxpayers, he said.
“I pushed us right to the breaking point of each of the institutions,” Green said….
(TRANSLATION: The entire purpose of my phony ‘Settlement’ is to save Hawaiian Electric from bankruptcy. HEI is part of the local power structure and 1,000s of local stockholders would lose everything in a HEI bankruptcy. As Governor, I have to give the appearance that I put it all on the line for them. Otherwise they would Primary me in 2026.)
(CLUE: HEI is doomed anyway. Any plan to save it outside of Bankruptcy would leave HEI saddled with too much debt. It is time to accept the inevitable.)
REALITY:
Trustees Raid KSBE -- 9% of Trust Burned to Save Hawaiian Electric
Hawaiian Electric shares “could go to zero”
Bankruptcy News: Hawaiian Electric Admits Company may not be a 'Going Concern'
Full Text: Insurance Company Lawyers Debunk Green’s Fake Lahaina Fire Settlement
read … Disaster insurance drove billions in revenue for companies
Negotiations: Insurers Would Settle for $1.2B
Seeking Alpha: … Last month, Wells Fargo upgraded Hawaiian Electric (HE) to equal weight from underweight, writing that there's a high probability that a wildfire settlement moves forward in the coming weeks.
The Wells Fargo analysts wrote that the insurers may be willing to settle for $1 billion to $1.2 billion, or 30%-35% of $3.3 billion estimated insured claims, compared to $600 million reportedly offered initially….
read … Judge agrees to move wildfire settlement questions to Hawaii Supreme Court
Miske Investigation: Unsealed Affidavit Offers New Clues In Killing Of Son's Friend
CB: … According to the affidavit, which was only recently made public, Kelii Young, now known as Kelii Foster, was allegedly heard talking about the murder during a casual conversation at a Windward Oahu cockfight less than two weeks after Fraser disappeared.
It is the first time his name has been publicly linked to the Fraser’s disappearance, but he is by no means the first suggested to have participated or necessarily considered the most likely. Confidential witnesses previously have suggested several other Miske associates may have been responsible….
Young, 34, and five co-defendants were indicted in November 2022 on drug charges apparently unrelated to the Miske case. He pleaded guilty last September as part of a deal with prosecutors, who dropped several additional charges in exchange for Young’s agreement to cooperate by testifying truthfully against his former co-defendants or any others charged later in the investigation.
Although he was indicted under the name of Keliikoa (“Kelii”) Kaimana Foster Young, he corrected the record during a plea change hearing in September 2023, telling Judge Jill Otake his full legal name is Kelii Kaimana Foster. …
Foster, who worked for a construction company as a heavy equipment operator, faces a mandatory minimum 10 year sentence for drug conspiracy. He is free on $50,000 bond pending sentencing, which is scheduled for Dec. 3….
ILind: More on the Miske case | i L i n d
read … Miske Investigation: Unsealed Affidavit Offers New Clues In Killing Of Son's Friend
Local 5 union workers at 8 Hawaii hotels go on 3-day strike
SA: … About 5,000 hotel workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 5 went on a limited 3-day strike at 4 a.m. today over the busy Labor Day Weekend, which is expected to set traveling records.
Workers authorized a strike at the Sheraton Kauai Resort and seven Waikiki hotels: the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort; Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort & Spa; Moana Surfrider — a Westin Resort Spa; The Royal Hawaiian, a Luxury Collection Resort; Sheraton Princess Kaiulani; Sheraton Waikiki; and the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa.
They are among over 10,000 UNITE HERE workers in several U.S. cities who went on strike today after contract talks with hotel operators Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, and Hyatt Hotels reached an impasse…
read … Local 5 union workers at 8 Hawaii hotels go on 3-day strike
Contract awarded for teacher housing at Mililani High campus
SA: … The state School Facilities Authority has awarded a contract to the nonprofit Pacific Housing Assistance Corp. for a workforce housing development at the Mililani High School campus aimed at providing housing for state Department of Education teachers and staff.
The public-private project will be the first workforce housing development in the state specifically for teachers and education staff, offering multifamily rental units that include both one- and two-bedroom options.
The housing development’s 65 one-bedroom units and 44 two-bedroom units will be available to anyone affiliated with DOE, not just those employed at Mililani High….
HSTA: State awards first contract to build 100+ educator rentals in Mililani - Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association (hsta.org)
read … Contract awarded for teacher housing at Mililani High campus
Chemophobia Leads to Decade of Inaction on old Navy landfill under Radford HS
SA: … The schools were built over a parcel of land the Navy used during World War II as a salvage yard and waste dump, leaving behind heavy metals and toxins in the soil that today make excavation hazardous for workers. Some state officials are also concerned about the possibility of unexploded ordnance, or UXO, buried in the ground below as well.
The dump was rediscovered in 2013 as Radford began renovations around its running track. It has now fallen to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to determine the scope of contamination, how to tackle it and to ultimately clean the area.
A USACE team has been digging through thousands of pages of archival documents and taking soil samples, and has produced thousands of pages worth of data on its findings. The agency says coming up with a viable cleanup plan will take time. But after more than a decade, staff at the school are beginning to lose patience.
Sinkholes have developed around Radford’s grounds that Principal James Sunday says currently can’t be fixed due to concerns about toxins or potential bombs buried in the soil. A wide range of projects are indefinitely on hold.
“We’re a school, we want to get projects done,” Sunday said. “We can’t do anything with our practice fields now, we can’t even dig down to fix our sprinkler heads, we can’t change the plumbing … we can’t touch the portables that are over 50 years old (and need to be) replaced. We can’t schedule any projects in that area.”
Lt. Cmdr. Matty Haith, an engineer from the U.S. Public Health Service who serves as USACE’s project manager for the cleanup, said he understands the frustration. “It’s always hard to go before stakeholders and say, ‘Hey, it’s gonna be a few years until we’ve characterized this risk properly and developed what that solution is going to be,’” he said….
(SOLUTION: Conclude that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, Navy personnel would not toss bombs in their garbage, so there is no UXO. Then conclude that any chemical hazards are long-ago mitigated by being washed away in the groundwater. Then begin working on backlogged projects. Remember that inaction is a form of action and inaction has a cost, including a health and safety cost.)
read … Forgotten Navy waste dump holds up repairs at Radford High School
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