December 7, 2025 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

Hawaii Daily News Read

Current Articles | Archives

Sunday, December 7, 2025

December 7, 2025 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 3:09 PM :: 534 Views

Forgotten Honouliuli: Jack Burns, Police Spy

Sen Awa Responds -- Fined for Filming Campaign Ad at Legislative Office

Lessons from Lahaina could help Hilo recover

Making a Federal Case Out of the Green Fee

Homelessness: How Effective is HONU Program?

Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted December 6, 2025

Election Office Suppressing Native Hawaiian Votes

CB: … Q: As you know, so many people waited until the final day, including Brenton Awa, who allegedly was the last person to vote in line. But where are we going with this? You’re saying you don’t feel that the voting centers may be necessarily a problem.

A: The voting centers aren’t the problem. What we need to do is we need to come up with a system that quantifies how many drop boxes need to be around a certain level of population, right? Because I don’t understand, again, how the West Side has two drop boxes but Kailua has five. And then you want me to state the obvious? That the Native Hawaiian side (of the island) has the fewest drop boxes? Get out of here.

Q: The West Side has a very large, percentage-wise, population of Native Hawaiians.

A: Yes. And then were they’re disenfranchised from the vote? I can’t stomach that. You can’t make that make sense to me. I’m from the South. I know what it looks like when voters are not being fairly represented or not having fair access to the ballot. The only place you can vote the day of (an election) on the West Side is Kapolei. Are you kidding me? So if I live on the North Shore, I may have to drive an hour. Yeah, no, that is completely asinine. And that is an abdication of your duty to make sure that people can access the ballot. I think that is the most disingenuous argument that I’ve heard from the left since I’ve been in this position is that people shouldn’t be trying to vote the day of….

BACKGROUND: Long Lines Suppress Republican Votes on Election Day: City Clerk Plans to do it Again

read … The Sunshine Interview: Camron Hurt Of Common Cause Hawaiʻi - Honolulu Civil Beat

CNHA Again: $752K for Program HTA doesn’t use

SA: … The Hawai‘i Tourism Authority invested upwards of $700,000 to launch the regenerative tourism program Qurator, but with no funding to keep it running, the award-winning, state-backed initiative has been put on ice.

Developed with Kilohana, the tourism division of the Hawaiian Council, Qurator was promoted by the previous HTA board as a core deliverable of Kilohana’s $27 million destination stewardship contract. Local nonprofit Purple Mai‘a built the technological framework for the program, which was expected to grow as the initiative expanded.

(TRANSLATION: CNHA operatives are not computer programmers. They paid Qurator to use AI to whip up a tourism marketing program for them. CNHA keeps the difference between what it charges HTA and what Qurator charges it.)

HTA interim President and CEO Caroline Anderson confirmed in an email that the program was halted July 1. She said HTA paid $752,364 in Kilohana’s development and administration costs, though $42,337 remains unpaid pending final reports. Continuing the program would cost roughly $160,000 annually….

HTA heavily promoted Qurator when it launched in June 2024 but did not publicly disclose its pause until an inquiry from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. The program won the Innovative Climate Solution Award at Climate Hawai‘i’s 2025 Climate Leadership Awards on Wednesday and is used as a metric for sustainable tourism within the Aloha+ Challenge, which tracks Hawaii’s progress toward the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals…

(TRANSLATION: All 100% fake.)

Richard Pezzulo, executive director of Waimea Valley, said that “outside of getting the certification, we haven’t heard very much at all.” ….

read … Lack of funding puts Hawaii tourism program on hold | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Winer Launches New Lobbying Firm after last one went bankrupt

CB: … Hawaiʻi political heavyweights Andy Winer and John White have teamed up with veteran Washington, D.C., lobbyist Jesse McCollum in a new venture that aims to advocate for island-based clients in D.C. and D.C.-based clients in Hawaiʻi. The Wayfinder Group includes several refugees from Strategies 360, a once influential lobbying firm that has dwindled since filing for bankruptcy protection a couple years ago.

The Sunshine Blog couldn’t help but notice that the political path runs through Hawaiʻi U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz’s office at a time when Schatz is gaining more and more power in national Democratic circles.

Winer was Schatz’s chief of staff for six years before leaving to join Strategies 360. Arguably one of Hawaiʻi’s most effective political operatives, Winer has recently played a lead role as a consultant to Gov. Josh Green….

White has long been considered something of a Winer protege since he ascended to the leadership of Pacific Resource Partnership, an advocacy arm for the Carpenters Union. Winer was a longtime consultant and strategist for PRP. White followed him to Strategies 360, where he has been head of the firm’s Hawaiʻi office….

(TRANSLATION: This is how Hawaii gets roped into one giant boondoggle after another.)

FUN READS:

read … The Sunshine Blog: New Lobbying Firm Brings DC Clout, Hawaiʻi Style - Honolulu Civil Beat

Hawaii Legislature: Doing nothing equals voting yes

CB: … Electronic roll call systems allow legislators to quickly vote yea or nay, often with the push of a button. The results are instantly displayed on a reader board along with the lawmakers’ names and how they voted.

In Hawaiʻi, you could be sitting in the gallery watching intently and still not understand what just happened when a bill is considered in a floor session. That’s partly because of a long-established procedure in which roll calls are rarely held and doing nothing equals voting yes.

Often the public has to wait hours, or even until the next day, for the Legislature’s website to tell you who supported or opposed a measure.

It’s one more example of how legislative leaders in Hawaiʻi are doing their constituents few favors when it comes to helping the public observe and understand the labyrinthian lawmaking processes.

The last time the Legislature lifted the veil in any significant way on how it operates was when it adopted video streaming and recording of all floor sessions and committee meetings on YouTube, and it took a global pandemic to make that happen ….

Democratic Rep. Kim Coco Iwamoto said the current voting procedure “breeds this kind of passivity when I think being a representative should be an active process.”

“You just literally do nothing. I mean, you can’t even tell that people have read the bills.”

Could all those automatic yes votes be one of the reasons Hawaiʻi legislators so rarely vote no?

An analysis produced with Civil Beat’s new Digital Democracy AI tool found that out of 94,561 total individual votes cast on bills last session during committee hearings and floor sessions, 92,717 were yes votes while just 1,934 were no votes. That works out to voting yes 98% of the time….

read … Why Doesn't The Hawaiʻi Legislature Have An Electronic Voting System? - Honolulu Civil Beat

Hiring slowing as costs, minimum wage increase

SA: … But a majority of members of the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii — or 55% — reported in an October survey that they had already seen an increase of at least 7% in operating costs.

Trump’s tariffs also caused 10% of chamber members to lay off employees, and 54% “stated they are considering reducing spending on hires and staff,” said Sherry Menor-McNamara, the chamber’s CEO and president. “This is all centered around the tariffs. None suggested workforce training would help. It’s the financial strain of rising costs.”

Additionally, effective Jan. 1, Hawaii’s minimum wage will rise $2 an hour to $16, up from $14.

The pay increase will only “add to an already unpredictable situation,” Menor-McNamara said.

“We’ve already seen several small businesses closing their doors,” she said. “All of this collectively is making it much more challenging. I think 2026 will definitely be challenging, which impacts jobs and people in our community. Anecdotally, from the biggest businesses down to the smallest, we hear about the uncertain economic situation that’s increasing the costs of doing business. Small businesses, especially, don’t know what the next day will look like, or the next week, or next month.” ….

read … Hiring slowing as costs, minimum wage increase | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

‘Cost of Living’ on Conty Legislative Agenda

BIN: … Taking into account the responses by about 4,000 people, Alameda said he is advocating for state funding to support the construction of a North Kona hospital, continued support to expand a Puna alternate route to ease the daily traffic jam in one of the largest growing areas on Hawai‘i Island, and finding ways the state can help address the rising cost of living….

read … Hawaiʻi County leaders outline needs, priorities to state senators during Big Island visit : Big Island Now

Maui Council advances tax relief extension for Lahaina wildfire survivors

MN: … The Maui County Council unanimously passed a bill on first reading Friday that would extend real property tax relief for Lahaina wildfire survivors through June 2028.

Bill 171 seeks to assist property owners whose lands remain unoccupiable. It also helps those who are undergoing active rebuilding following the August 2023 wildfires.

The measure targets properties located in historic districts and the special management area. It also applies to properties abutting the shoreline….

read … Maui Council advances tax relief extension for Lahaina wildfire survivors : Maui Now

QUICK HITS: