February 22, 2025 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

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Saturday, February 22, 2025

February 22, 2025 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 2:44 PM :: 188 Views

Liquor Comm. Insider Bails out as Federal Oversight Commences

Hawaii Among Worst States to Start a Business

Honolulu Next? U.S. Transportation Secretary Duffy Announces Review of California High-Speed Rail Project

Trump’s Federal Budget Cuts May Save Hawaii from Rail Tax Extension

CB: … The city rail authority is supporting a bill at the Legislature to extend the controversial Oʻahu excise tax surcharge for rail, but some board members worry the threat of federal budget cuts may cause the surcharge measure to die next week.

(CLUE: They may shift the tax hike from rail to HGEA/UPW position preservation operations.)

A Senate committee earlier this month gave preliminary approval to Senate Bill 492, which would allow the city to extend the tax surcharge to fund construction of the Honolulu rail project until 2045. The surcharge is currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2030.

But the bill is in a precarious spot as the Legislature approaches a key mid-session deadline. The measure must be scheduled for consideration by the Senate Ways and Means Committee by the middle of next week or it will almost certainly die for the year. ….

Anthony Aalto, a board member for the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, said Friday that lawmakers seem apprehensive about President Donald Trump’s administration in Washington, D.C., and that may affect the surcharge bill.

“There may be huge cuts in areas such as Medicaid, for example, or free school lunches that the (Legislature) may have to step in and plug some gaps,” Aalto said.

If that happens, lawmakers may be forced to scramble to find new revenue.

(TRANSLATION: They still want to raise your taxes, they are arguing about why.)

“We could be looking at potentially well over a billion dollars in cuts in D.C., so it is a point of concern, obviously,” he said.

He added: “I don’t get the sense that they actually want to move to a resolution on this right now,” he said, referring to the excise tax for rail….

Hawaii Next? -- Trump administration takes aim at $4B in funding for California high-speed rail | AP News

read … Threat Of Federal Budget Cuts May Sink Rail Tax Extension - Honolulu Civil Beat

HART board member challenges closed-door meeting policy

SA: … The nonpublic discussion of a $2 million lawsuit recently filed against the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation quickly veered into an emotional exchange involving one HART board member’s legal access to the agency’s most confidential, closed-door meetings.

At the HART board’s Government Affairs and Legal Matters Committee on Friday, the panel was preparing to enter an executive session item involving a new civil complaint.

Filed in January by plaintiffs Kim Nguyen and Vyna Nga Nguyen, the lawsuit alleges that actions taken by the city, by and through HART, ultimately forced a trio of the siblings’ jointly operated seafood businesses in Chinatown to go out of business in 2018.

But before the panel broke for the closed meeting, board member Natalie Iwasa questioned an ongoing legal dispute between the city and state over a policy that disallows her participation in HART’s privileged matters. Such matters can include labor negotiations, discussion of property acquisition along the city’s $10 billion rail line, or pending litigation filed by outside parties against HART, among others.

Iwasa — a nonvoting member of the panel who was appointed by former Speaker of the House Scott Saiki in 2021 — has solely been excluded from attending these executive sessions, because she’s not yet signed a “temporary confidentiality agreement.”

In 2022 the state Department of the Attorney General issued an opinion that the board overseeing the city’s rail project has no legal authority to treat board members differently and require legislative appointees to HART to sign new confidentiality agreements.

But the city’s Department of the Corporation Counsel disagreed, proposing Iwasa sign the confidentiality agreement.

A CPA and certified fraud examiner, Iwasa previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the terms of that agreement remain the same — especially the potential for criminal penalties — and that she won’t sign it….

Recognizing Iwasa had raised a “new issue,” Aalto requested corporation counsel “take a look” at this disputed policy “and come back to the next meeting and tell us about it.”…

read … HART board member challenges closed-door meeting policy | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Fire burns Hawaiian Electric Industries with $1.4B loss

SA: … Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. reported a $1.43 billion net loss for 2024 on Friday, though nearly all of the immense figure reflects an obligation to pay Maui wildfire damage claims over several years….

…To fund the first installment, HEI raised $558 million in September by selling new shares of stock.

HEI also sold a 90.1% stake in American Savings Bank for $405 million in December, though some of those proceeds are to be used to pay down debt and for other purposes.

To potentially raise debt funding, HEI is seeking approval from the state Legislature to securitize future revenue from customers to obtain a better credit rating that makes borrowing capital less costly. Essentially, the company would pledge reliable customer bill payments to secure debt.

Other funding options the company has include a $250 million credit line and selling up to $250 million in new HEI stock at prevailing market prices over the next few years under a program announced in September….

read … Fire burns Hawaiian Electric Industries with $1.4B loss | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Wahiawā Charter School Accepts Permanent Closure

CB: … Kamalani will be the third charter school in Hawaiʻi’s history to be shut down by the state.

The charter commission decided in January not to renew Kamalani Academy’s contract for next academic year, citing the school’s ongoing financial and organizational challenges. The school has not paid rent for its campus since October and is facing the possibility of eviction, Kamalani governing board chair Aumoana Kanakaole said during Thursday’s meeting.

Kamalani could have appealed the charter commission’s decision to the Board of Education, but will not be doing so. The school doesn’t have enough money to pay both its staff and rent through the academic year, Kanakaole said, and trying to keep Kamalani open past June would be irresponsible….

TThe school was originally set for closure in 2023, when the charter commission voted to close Kamalani for keeping poor student records and running an unauthorized virtual learning program. But it successfully appealed the decision to the Board of Education, buying itself another two years…

read … Wahiawā Charter School Accepts Permanent Closure

Maui Man Released After 30 Years In Prison For A Murder He Says He Didn't Commit

CB: … Cordeiro had several alibi for the day Blaisdell was killed, his attorneys said: The then 22-year-old was at home with his parents and sisters, spending the day building a shelving unit in his family’s open-air garage and installing a stereo in his sister’s car. He was nowhere near the area known as “Skid Row” in upcountry Maui where Blaisdell was killed.

Blaisdell had gone to Skid Row with a man named Michael Freitas, where Blaisdell planned to buy a pound of marijuana with $800 in cash, according to court documents. Blaisdell’s body was found at the bottom of a ravine there.

Freitas kept changing his story, Cordeiro’s attorneys said, and shifted the blame onto Cordeiro, a friend he falsely believed had “snitched” on him in an unrelated drug case.

After Cordeiro’s conviction, new testing on physical evidence from the scene excluded Cordeiro as the source of DNA on Blaisdell’s body and other crime scene evidence, and found there was a DNA profile of an unidentified person on the inside pockets of Blaisdell’s jeans, the Hawaii Innocence Project said.

Cordeiro’s attorneys believe Freitas set up Blaisdell to get robbed and was involved in his killing. Freitas died in 2020, Lawson said.

The judge agreed that the new DNA evidence and new information about gunshot residue would change the results of a later trial.

“The police botched this case from the beginning and turned the No. 1 suspect into the state’s star witness, resulting in a 30-plus-year nightmare and miscarriage of justice for Gordon and his family,” Lawson said ….

MN: Maui man walks free after 30 years behind bars, with help of Hawaiʻi Innocence Project : Maui Now

read … Maui Man Released After 30 Years In Prison For A Murder He Says He Didn't Commit

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