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Friday, March 14, 2025

March 14, 2025 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 2:25 PM :: 516 Views

Grassroot: Highs and Lows of 2025 legislative session at halfway point

HB300: House Passes Budget Bill

HB422: Let’s close the book on school impact fees

Tax bills suggest obliviousness to our daily struggles

STR advocates assess landscape in wake of law unleashing counties

Study: Hawaii's roads and bridges rank 48th for condition and cost-effectiveness

Hawaii One Step Closer to Legalizing Sports-Betting and Expanding Gambling Addiction

AG Launches New Child Support Payment App

Hawaii AG Urges Supreme Court to Keep Medicaid Dollars Flowing to Planned Parenthood

Hanabusa to meet Legislators Privately to ‘Discuss’ how to fake outrage over their 48% Raise

CB: … Facing political pushback, the commission that is recommending significant pay raises for top state executives, lawmakers and judges is planning to take its case to the media, legislators and others.

“This will require, really, an education, I think,” said Salary Commission Chair Colleen Hanabusa. On Thursday she asked her fellow commission members for ideas “to get this thing done.”

(IDEA: Go forth and receive envelopes of cash from the grateful.)

Commission members proposed writing articles for the editorial pages of local newspapers as well as meeting with editorial boards of various publications.

(LOL!)

The seven-member state Salary Commission voted March 4 to award raises ranging from 35% to 48% over the next six years to top state officials, including the governor and lieutenant governor. The commission reaffirmed that vote Thursday….

(CLUE: To make these raises official, Legislators need to NOT vote on them.)

Hanabusa and other commission members agreed to consult with House Speaker Nadine Nakamura and Senate President Ron Kouchi on whether discussions with lawmakers about the pay package should be held in public meetings, or in closed-door caucuses.

“They probably would prefer that (privately) simply because they can yell and scream (smile and toast champagne) without having to worry about the public,” Hanabusa said of private meetings. “But some of them may want it in public so they can (pretend to) yell and scream at us in public.”…

(TRANSLATION: How can I help them pander?)

Hanabusa said the commission was required to take a second vote on the pay package Thursday because there was a possible violation of the state “Sunshine Law” in the March 4 meeting where the first vote was taken. (Uh-huh.)

She said an “obscure provision” in the Sunshine law requires agendas for each meeting to be distributed to people who request them on the same day as the agendas are publicly posted…. (Hanabusa. Sunshine law violation. What a surprise!)

REALITY: www.TheRealHanabusa.com

SA: Salary Commission finalizes double-digit raises for state officials | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

read … Salary Commission Will Make Its Case For Big Raises For State Leaders - Honolulu Civil Beat

Oʻahu Social Worker Accused In Daughter's Death Continued To Work at Kahuku HS until Day she was Arrested

CB: … Many of the students who spend time with counselors like Pili have developmental disabilities and individualized learning plans. Sessions can consist of everything from helping a student with ADHD learn how to regulate themselves when they get overstimulated in the classroom to working on social skills or anger management with an autistic student.

In that capacity, Pili regularly saw students alone. According to a teacher whose students worked with Pili, she saw kids one-on-one for weekly meetings and led frequent group sessions. If a student she worked with had an emergency in the classroom, the child would be sent to Pili’s office to calm down.

Pili kept working directly with students in the weeks leading up to her arrest, according to a teacher with direct knowledge of her work and social media posts from students and parents.

The teacher, who spoke with Civil Beat on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the issue and feared reprise, said that her students worked with Pili until at least the week before her arrest and that they had upcoming meetings scheduled with the counselor.

In the days after Pili’s arrest, one social media poster said he was a student who had met with Pili just days before she was taken into custody.

Police records show that Pili was arrested on campus at Kahuku High and Intermediate School on the afternoon of Friday, March 7. She was placed on leave pending investigation that day, according to Takazawa from the DOE.

At a meeting the following Monday, the principal told staff that the school had previously been unaware of any law enforcement investigation into Pili, according to the teacher, who was present. The DOE says there have been no complaints or investigations related to her work throughout her employment. …

(NOTE: DoE constantly places employees on leave for a year or two ‘pending investigation’ after receiving anonymous allegations. It is a standard technique in DoE retaliation games.)

HNN: Woman pleads not guilty to manslaughter in 11-year-old’s death

read … Oʻahu Social Worker Accused In Daughter's Death Continued To Work With Kids - Honolulu Civil Beat

Schoolmate arrested in Hawaii girl's 1977 murder released from Utah jail as prosecution stalls

CBS: … While Castro was still awaiting extradition, Honolulu prosecutors told their counterparts in Utah this week that they were not proceeding against him because of "recent complications involving a material witness in this case and the state of the evidence."

"Please understand we view this as only a temporary setback, and we remain fully committed to continuing our efforts to prosecute this matter in the near future," Kelsi Guerra, a deputy prosecuting attorney in Honolulu, wrote in a Monday letter to Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Clifford Ross….

read … Schoolmate arrested in Hawaii girl's 1977 murder released from Utah jail as prosecution stalls - CBS News

DoE Wants to Keep Taxing Housing

SA: … Since January 2011, school impact fees have been collected from developers in Central Maui and West Maui.

In Central Maui, developers pay fees ranging from $5,373 to $5,560 for single-family units and around $2,400 for multifamily units. In West Maui the fees are $5,778 for single-family units and $2,055 for multifamily units.

Beginning in 2013, Leeward Oahu developers have been charged $5,504 for single-family units and $4,334 for multifamily units. Since October 2018 a flat fee of $3,864 per unit has applied to both single-family and multifamily units in the urban corridor from Kalihi to Ala Moana.

Although West Hawaii island was designated as a fee district in 2010, fees have not been implemented there due to a lack of cooperation from Hawaii County….

(BETTER IDEA: Sell underutilized DoE properties to pay for new schools.)

Two bills moving through the Legislature would either eliminate the program entirely or exempt certain developers from paying the fees. House Bill 422 would repeal the School Impact Fee law and transfer the unencumbered $19.9 million collected to date to the Hawaii School Facilities Authority, to be spent at its discretion. Supporters of the bill argue that eliminating the fees would help lower housing costs and address the state’s ongoing housing crisis. Meanwhile, HB 1088 would exempt developments by the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands from paying impact fees — a requirement that was reinstated in 2022 after a previous exemption in 2021….

(CLUE: DoE enrollment is down because local families are leaving Hawaii with their children. Local families are leaving because of the high cost of housing. With a declining enrollment, DoE wants to build new schools by making housing more expensive.)

Meanwhile: Could Hawaii public schools see consolidation of campuses?

read … Repeal of impact fees threatens new school growth across Hawaii | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Two New Ways to Make Affordable Housing Harder to Build and Operate

HPR: … One measure would create baseline protections for tenants being displaced by the construction of a new affordable housing development. (One more way to block construction and/or increase construction costs.)

… Another measure being considered would make prospective tenants' eviction records more difficult to access in cases where the landlord did not prevail or the judgment was less than $500. (So landlords can be stuck with deadbeats again and again.)

read … Hawaiʻi could set a standard for affordable housing developers to support displaced tenants | Hawai'i Public Radio

Hawaii Legislature Debating HECO Merger Conditions

IM: … Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI) might at some point in the future decide that its subsidiary, Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) and/or HECO`s subsidiaries Maui Electric Company (MECO) and Hawaii Electric Light Company (HELCO) should be sold or merged with another Investor-Owned Utility (IOU).

The Hawaii Legislature is considering two ways of allowing a ratepayer owned electric co-op to step into the merger process and offer a competing bid.

The two approaches outlined in SB137 and HB339 offer different ways of approaching the issue. The trouble is that neither approach could possibly work. Nonetheless, the idea is moving forward at the Legislature.

No existing co-op and no person who would desire to be part of a future co-op has testified on any of the bills….

read … Hawaii Legislature Debating HECO Merger Conditions | Ililani Media

Oahu cameras capture 80,000 speeders per month

KHON: … It’s full speed ahead for the speed camera program now in the second week of its warning period. Transportation officials said the numbers are staggering.

“If we are looking at speed over seven miles per hour, we’re looking at about 80,000 warnings per month,” State Department of Transportation Director Ed Sniffen said.

That’s 20,000 warnings a week spread across the 10 camera locations in Honolulu….

The highest speeds we saw were on Ward (Ave) going 88 mph through a 35 mph zone.”…

“We have 1,500 red light tickets per month and we need two officers to take care of those,” Sniffen explained.

“If we reduce from 80,000 to 40,000, that’s still 20 times the resourcing that we’ll need to address these tickets.”…

read … Oahu's speed cameras capture alarming number of speeders

New process for truckers could bring traffic relief to drivers on Nimitz

HNN: … HDOT partnered with the city and Young Brothers to change up the process. On Mondays and Thursdays between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., truckers will no longer be able to enter Young Brothers through the Nimitz gate.

Instead, they’ll head to the Sand Island weight station to pre-check their equipment before getting approval to enter on Auiki Street through the Libby Gate.

Young Brothers says they’ve deployed a mobile gate and software system there to handle much of the pre-check tasks….

read … New process for truckers could bring traffic relief to drivers on Nimitz

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