Nurses Locked Out: Green Calls for Federal Mediation
Registration Opens for 2024-2025 Hawaiʻi LifeSmarts Competition
Aloha Stadium Boondoggle Backfires: Hawaii left out of Pac-12?
SA: … After the Pac-12 was gutted with 10 departures the past year, holdovers Oregon State and Washington State have worked to restock the league.
On Sept. 11, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State announced their intent to secede from the Mountain West and join the Pac-12 in 2026. On Monday, Utah State also announced a move from the Mountain West, giving both conferences seven members. Eight football teams are needed to maintain FBS status and consideration for a playoff berth. UH has been a football-only member of the Mountain West since 2012.
A month ago, the third-party group initiated meetings with Pac-12 officials. Two weeks later, “I was concerned when the four schools announced (their departure from the Mountain West),” said Blangiardi, who was then told by the group, “we still have a chance. There are two more (spots in the Pac-12). Now there’s one.”
Last year, the Mountain West’s 12 members signed a loyalty agreement. A Mountain West school that seceded a year or more ahead of June 30, 2026, would have to pay a steep exit fee. For 11 schools, that fee is $17 million. But as a football-only member, UH’s exit fee would be about $3.5 million .…
(Too bad Aloha Stadium was sacrificed on the altar of politically connected graft. It will be decades before anybody plays football there, if ever.)
KHON: Hawaii focused on ensuring stable future amid latest chapter of college football conference realignment | KHON2
read … Blangiardi assembles team to try to gain admittance into Pac-12 for Hawaii football
Keeping Land Prices High-- Honolulu City Council's Bill 64
CB: … to replace, revise and update Oahu’s land use regulations… the last major update occurred decades ago… Last year, a broad coalition of agricultural stakeholders convened to thoroughly review the bill — formerly Bill 10 (2023) — and provide consensus recommendations to the City Council….
One key improvement is to maintain a clear distinction that prohibits inappropriate use development from encroaching on prime agricultural lands zoned as AG-1 and AG-2. ….
(TRANSLATION: KSBE, Campbell Estate, and other legacy landowners propose rules which will continue to artificially limit the availability of developable land, thus ensuring top dollar for subdivision homes at Koa Ridge and Hoopili. This is why you are moving to Las Vegas.)
Text, Status: Bill 64 (2023)
read … Breaking New Ground On Honolulu City Council's Bill 64
Hawaiʻi has yet to recover to pre-pandemic job numbers, report says
HPR: … Hawaiʻi is among just a handful of locations in the U.S. that still have fewer jobs than it did before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Louisiana, Maryland and Washington, D.C., are the only other areas in the nation that have yet to recover to their pre-COVID job numbers, according to the latest forecast report from the University of Hawaiʻi's Economic Research Organization.
As of July, the number of payroll jobs in the state was still about 3.5% short of where it was before the pandemic, said UHERO economist Carl Bonham ….
Background: Lagging Maui recovery, slower overall Hawaiʻi growth, UHERO forecasts
read … Hawaiʻi has yet to recover to pre-pandemic job numbers, report says
The University Of Hawaii Is About To Get Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars To Do Military Research – look who supports it
CB: …When the center was founded in 2008, the University of Hawaii became the nation’s fifth U.S. Navy University-Affiliated Research Center. The other so-called UARCs are located at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Washington, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Texas at Austin….
Nearly two decades later, the center and its Applied Research Laboratory, is a major source of funding for UH. In the past fiscal year, the Department of Defense provided about $65 million of some $615 million in so-called extramural funding the university brought in for research, Syrmos said. The research lab alone accounted for $15 million to $20 million he said.
Supporters include high-profile academics like Chip Fletcher, interim dean of UH’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. He cited ARL’s support of diversity, equity and inclusion in written testimony to the Board of Regents supporting the contract.
“By engaging with underrepresented groups and providing opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds to participate in high-impact research, the ARL is helping to build a more inclusive and equitable academic environment,” Fletcher wrote….
(Skip some student senators burbling about colonialism or something.)
Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercombie, a current university regent who also served nine terms a U.S. representative from Hawaii. It’s not uncommon for military information to be classified, Abercrombie said in an interview. That includes parts of the Pentagon budget, which he was responsible for passing as a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
But, Abercrombie said, simply because some UH research is classified doesn’t mean professors are developing weapons there. Syrmos and others insist that’s not happening at the laboratory.
“They kind of set positions,” Abercrombie said of the protesters. “And no one talks to each other about what it is and is not because that might interfere with their ideological perceptions. And I understand that.”
But to suggest university professors are surreptitiously developing weapons under a cloak of military secrecy is “offensive to the integrity of the researchers,” Abercrombie said….
read … The University Of Hawaii Is About To Get Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars To Do Military Research
Waianae Mass Shooting: Silva’s Father was a Murderer Too
SA: … Silva’s father, Jacob Frederick “Jake” Silva, and Alison’s father, Frederick “Freddy” Kauakahiokamakahikulani Keamo, were friends, after Keamo helped Silva through a difficult time after Silva was convicted in 1980 of killing his ex-wife in Nanakuli on March 23, 1980….
read … Man who killed charging neighbor: ‘I going stop him’
Retirement Planning: How many homeless people on Oahu are seniors?
SA: … An annual census of homeless people says 485 of 4,494 people counted on Oahu in January were age 60 or older, an improvement from 516 people in that age group counted in January 2023. Neither the overall 2024 Point in Time Count nor its kupuna subreport further specified that age range, but anecdotally we’ve heard from readers trying to assist homeless people in their 80s. The nonprofit organization Partners in Care, which coordinates the PITC, has a page on its website listing help for homeless people of any age; go to partnersincareoahu.org Opens in a new tab and click on “Get Help” at the top of the page.
Of the 485 older people known to be homeless on Oahu the night of Jan. 22, 52%, or 253 people, were unsheltered, meaning they were sleeping in places not meant for human habitation, including “streets, parks, alleys, parts of the highway system, transportation depots, all night commercial establishments (e.g., movie theaters, laundromats, restaurants), abandoned buildings, building roofs or stairwells, caves, campgrounds, vehicles, and other similar places,” according to the PITC’s definitions….
(CLUE: When bums get old, they finally agree to accept shelter after refusing help for decades. So any ‘voluntary’ homeless housing plan is a de-facto retirement system for chronic homeless. Homelessness can only be ‘solved’ with a vagrancy law and legal force to physically remove the bums from the streets and into shelters.)
read … Kokua Line: How many homeless people on Oahu are seniors?
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