Gov Green 2025 State of the State Address Live
Hawaii 7th-Worst State to Start New Business
Court Rejects Biden's 'Project Labor Agreement' Mandate
David K. Porter Named Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Honolulu Field Office
Trump Orders Temporary Withdrawal of Offshore Areas from Wind Leasing
President Trump pardons 2 Hawaii men involved in Jan. 6 Capitol riot
HNN: … Two Hawaii men were among those pardoned.
Former Proud Boys Hawaii Leader Nick Ochs was arrested by the FBI the day after the insurrection, upon landing at Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.
In 2022, Ochs was sentenced to four years in prison for obstructing an official proceeding and throwing a smoke grenade with another co-defendant.
U.S. Army soldier Alexander Poplin, of Wahiawa, was also arrested at Schofield Barracks in September last year for allegedly assaulting a law enforcement officer with a flagpole during the riot….
OCHS: “Register Number: 12336-122 Age: 38 Race: White Sex: Male Not in BOP Custody as of: 11/04/2024”
POPLIN: “ALEXANDER CAIN POPLIN Register Number: 11322-506 Age: 31 Race: White Sex: Male. Not in BOP Custody as of: 09/11/2024”
CB: Hawaiʻi 'Proud Boy' Founder, US Army Soldier Get Jan. 6 Pardons From Trump - Honolulu Civil Beat
CN: Trump issues sweeping pardons for 1,600 Jan. 6 defendants, commutes Oath Keepers’ sentences
read … President Trump pardons 2 Hawaii men involved in Jan. 6 Capitol riot
Crisis fund access stirs feud between HTA and DBEDT
SA: … The Hawai‘i Tourism Authority’s attempt to dip into another $5 million from its Tourism Special Emergency Fund after declaring a continued tourism emergency related to the softness following the Aug. 8, 2023, Maui wildfires has been blocked.
Business, Economic Development and Tourism Director James Kunane Tokioka, who is a voting member of the HTA board that voted to seek emergency funds for the second time since its creation in 1998, said the application to release the funding needs his signature to advance, and ultimately he doesn’t believe that the continued downturn rises to the level of an emergency.
“Nobody wants to say that we are not all in anymore — because we still are. We are doing a lot of different things that are all in with housing and other things, but if you ask me if it’s an emergency, it’s not. An emergency is when somebody is hanging off a cliff and we have got to save them right now,” Tokioka said. “This is 18 months later, and it would be hard for me to support something that says that it’s still emergency funding that is needed.” …
Meanwhile, the newly appointed chair of the House Committee on Tourism, Rep. Adrian Tam (D, Waikiki), on Friday introduced House Bill 447, which cuts the minimum balance maintained in the Tourism Emergency Special Fund to $3 million from $5 million and amends the types of occurrences for which HTA may request the governor to declare a tourism emergency.
(CLUE: HTA gets to grab $2M now.)
Tam says when the fund was created by former House Committee on Tourism Chair Rep. Ryan Yamane, the intent was to use it for relocating visitors in a natural disaster, and over the years its allowable uses have become too broad. His bill strikes specific language from Hawaii Revised Statutes 201-B9, which applies to a tourism emergency, including “world conflict” and “national or global economic crisis,” and eliminates a clause that allows funding for a “substantial interruption in the commerce of the State and adversely affecting the welfare of its people.” …
Jan 5, 2025: HTA Declares ‘Tourism Emergency’ (again)
HB447: Text, Status
read … Crisis fund access stirs feud between HTA and DBEDT | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
STEM Education Begins to Draw Boys Back into Academia
CB: … When Jeremy Seitz began teaching engineering and design technology classes at Farrington High School in 2008, all his students were boys. Roughly a quarter of students in the school’s engineering program are now girls.…
(CLUE: US University students are about 60% female.)
CB: What The Data Shows About Gender Inequality In High School Career Prep
read … Girls Are Losing Out In Hawai‘i’s Push To Train Kids For High-Paying Jobs
200 Bums Removed from Chinatown: ‘Arresting can be a real answer to all of this’
SA: … Downtown Honolulu, once bustling with office workers who frequented eateries at lunchtime, has seen a downturn in office space occupancy since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and needs revitalization, say businesses and developers.
But even if they build change, they fear people won’t come, so they would like to create a business improvement district to help with first sweeping out crime, grime and the homeless….
It’s first objective: “Clean and Safe.”
“It’s great to have festivals and events, but they cost money,” Avalon Group CEO Christine Camp said. “We need to focus on cleanliness and safety. That’s what we have to start with.”
Two hundred stakeholders — residents, business and property owners, developers, government officials — filled the Laniakea YWCA auditorium last week to hear panelists touting the plan, with many weighing in….
Waikiki BID Association President and CEO Trevor Abarzua said the Waikiki BID spends 70% of its budget on keeping it clean and safe with 60 Aloha Ambassadors, some focused on safety and others on hospitality.
He boasts the BID’s success in Waikiki’s reduction of crime from its first year to its second year (beginning September 2021), citing a 67% reduction in drug and alcohol crimes, 35% reduction in robberies, 32% reduction in burglaries and 27% reduction in criminal property damage.
Its success is due to partnering with police, prosecutors, homeless outreach workers and its Safe &Sound initiative funded by grants from the Kosasa Foundation and the city.
Waikiki has seen a 27% reduction in homelessness, Abarzua says, and the initiative is “not just to push them out; it’s to get them housed, get them medication or to send them back to the mainland if that’s where they’re from.”
Since there aren’t enough police to patrol closed parks at night, the city helped provide for outreach workers to help clear the beaches and those sleeping near storefronts.
“If (they) don’t want to keep getting poked and poked and poked,” they leave; otherwise, the workers warn they will call police, and “they get up and move,” he said.
Moderator Chris Fong asked, “Where do they go after they get poked and prodded? Downtown?”
That drew a huge laugh from the audience.
Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm said police arrested 200 in Chinatown.
“We’re getting them assessed and addressing their behavioral health,” he said. “We can try to get them into treatment and out of there. Arresting can be a real answer to all of this.” …
read … Downtown Honolulu business improvement district proposed
HB748: More Possible Locations for Honolulu Landfills
CB: … some state lawmakers, including House majority leader Sean Quinlan, are planning to give the city some choices. Quinlan drafted a bill to reduce the minimum distance between a landfill and homes, schools and hospitals from a half-mile to a quarter-mile, though he said the proposed new limit could change. The bill also would bar landfills over a “significant aquifer.”
The half-mile buffer was created in 2020 through Act 73. “To be fair to the city,” Quinlan said, “because we passed Act 73, we’ve put them in quite a bind.”
The Honolulu Board of Water Supply, meanwhile, recommends against placing a landfill where porous, volcanic rock would allow contaminants to seep into the island’s drinking water supply. That “no pass zone” covers the interior 77% of the island. Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi also has promised not to place the new landfill on the Waiʻanae Coast, a lower-income community with the highest concentration of Native Hawaiians on Oʻahu.
The rest of the island is off-limits due to an array of state and federal restrictions. State law, for instance, bars landfills in conservation zones, which cover much of the island outside the Act 73 buffer….
(CLUE: This system is designed to continue the use of Waimanalo Gulch.)
HB748: Text, Status
read … Limits On Honolulu Landfills Could Change After Opposition to Wahiawā Site - Honolulu Civil Beat
DPP software upgrade delayed due to technical snag, city says
SA: … on Friday, DPP issued a news release claiming it had fallen behind schedule as “the upgrade by Avolve Software from the 9.2 to 9.4 version ran into data migration issues.”
“Avolve today informed DPP that it will require more time to complete the remaining update scripts for data restoration,” the news release reads. “But because of the amount of data that needed to be migrated and the complexity of the upgrade, the process is taking longer than anticipated.”
While the software is being updated, the system will not be available to the public, and DPP staff also will not be able to access ePlans, according to DPP.
“The DPP apologizes for the inconvenience, but the upgrade is needed to improve the 13-year-old electronic permit review system,” the release reads. “The ePlans upgrade is part of a larger effort to improve the permit application process.” …
read … DPP software upgrade delayed due to technical snag, city says
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