Click here to view the redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s  report on the Russia investigation.

The post Read the Mueller Report Here appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

In a significant development, Hawaii’s governor has directly intervened in the legislative debate over a water rights bill.

On Thursday, Gov. David Ige sent a letter to leaders of the state Senate and House regarding House Bill 1326, which would extend water diversion rights for land company Alexander & Baldwin, other landowners, utility companies, small farmers and ranchers.

The bill is currently halted for this session, but Ige indicated that he wants lawmakers to take another look at it. He argues that House Draft 2 of the bill, which allows stream diversion for another seven years, is “fair and comprehensive.”

Gov. David Ige has told the Legislature he wants to save the water rights bill.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

“Water is a critically important issue, and for this reason, there is a lot of emotion tied to decisions about water use,” Ige wrote. “However, it is clear that the law cannot be applied in a discriminatory fashion, that all water permittees and applicants must comply with the law and that the law cannot be specially enforced against some permittees and applicants but not others.”

The governor continued:

Cindy McMillan, the governor’s communications director, confirmed the letter was sent but said “the administration has no further comment at this time.”

House Speaker Scott Saiki said in a statement, “The Governor’s statement clarifies some of the practical and legal questions that have been raised surrounding revocable water permits and H.B. 1326 … At this point, it is up to the Senate to determine whether to act upon H.B. 1326.”

Senate President Ron Kouchi later issued his own brief statement, saying, “We will continue communicating and working with the governor and the administration on addressing this issue.”

A spokesperson for A&B declined comment.

But Marti Townsend, director of the Sierra Club of Hawaii, said via email, “I take this as a serious betrayal of our trust. This is like throwing gasoline on the dumpster fire that A&B started and the Farm Bureau was fanning in order to create public panic — all for A&B’s $62 million.”

Sierra Club Director Marti Townsend said the governor has overstepped his authority by intervening in House Bill 1326.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Townsend, who met with the governor Wednesday to explain the Sierra Club’s position, was referring in part to a rebate that is part of A&B’s sale of land in Central Maui to Mahi Pono, which plans diversified agricultural development. A&B has disputed the Sierra Club’s characterization of the sale.

Townsend argued that Ige has overstepped his authority.

“This is an abuse of the governor’s position,” she said. “He is trying to influence legislation to circumvent the courts. Honestly, his administration has had three years to fix this problem and did next to nothing. And now they are calling this an emergency? It’s a manufactured crisis all to serve A&B’s interest.”

The Senate has until April 30 to pull HB 1326 to the floor from the two committees where it died two weeks ago. The 2019 session concludes May 2.

‘Misinformation, Antagonism’

Ige’s letter states that recent hearings on HB 1326 “generated significant activity from the media, special interest groups and others. In this process, misinformation found its way into the public conversation and antagonism among lawmakers grew to the point that this important legislative measure was tabled.”

In response, the governor said, he asked his administration to analyze the implications of not enacting the bill.

(The entire letter is reproduced at the end of this article.)

The administration concluded that the impact of the proposed legislation “is widespread.”

Ford Fuchigami, Ige’s admistrative director, analyzed HB 1326 and advised the governor to push for its passage.

Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat

“The law must promote fair water distribution throughout the State of Hawaii,” Ige’s letter says. “To this end, the proposed legislation sought to ensure that the law applied consistently to all those who have permits to divert water for farming, ranching, drinking, clean energy production and other important uses.”

Ford Fuchigami, Ige’s administrative director, conducted the analysis, which is seven pages in length and includes appendices. It includes a summary of the 2015 court case (currently on appeal) that led to the Legislature in 2016 extending water use by A&B and the other companies for three more years.

Fuchigami said that 2016’s Act 126 “is not a fix to help only A&B.” Rather, he calls it “necessary legislation to address the uncertainty that the law and statutory process … creates for all water permit holders.”

Fuchigami concluded: “I believe that the absence of a statutory amendment to Act 126 (Session Laws of Hawaii 2016) will have adverse effects upon existing permit holders for the disposition of water rights.”

Read Ige’s letter below:

April 18, 2019, letter from Gov. Ige to Hawaii Legislature (Text)

The post Ige Calls For Reconsideration Of Water Bill appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

U.S. Rep. Ed Case, Hawaii’s newest congressman who had promised to take a wait-and-see approach to the investigation of President Trump by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, said Thursday he was shocked by revelations in the 448-page redacted version of the report.

Speaking to reporters at the State Capitol, Case said an unedited version needs to be released immediately, and that Congress should turn to the courts if the Trump administration is unwilling to do so.

“Clearly what I have read of the report is highly disturbing and although Mr Mueller did not find overt collusion, certainly many, many people turned a blind eye” to Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election, Case said.

“There is compelling evidence” that a number of people engaged in activities that “could rise to the level of a crime,” said Case, a moderate Democrat.

Congressman Ed Case, right, talked to reporters in the Hawaii Capitol Rotunda on Thursday about the Mueller Report.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Contrary to Trump’s assertion that the report found there was no collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice, Case said the report makes a strong case for the opposite.

“He has not been exonerated … Nobody can read that report and consider that the president has been exonerated.”

Case said that the summary of the report released in March by Attorney General William P. Barr misled the American public.

“I think you see a pretty deliberate effort to cherry-pick for interpretations” that would place Trump in a favorable light, Case said.

President Trump has called the investigation a “witch hunt” that is interfering with getting things done in Washington.

Case acknowledged that the investigation has been “highly divisive,” but added, “the fact that (investigations) are polarizing and disruptive does not mean that you don’t do them. That is our job.”

His views were echoed from Vietnam by U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono.

“Despite the Attorney General’s attempt to spin the Mueller Report in Donald Trump’s favor, it’s clear the Special Counsel’s investigation found serious wrongdoing by the President and many of his associates,” the Hawaii Democrat said in a statement Thursday.

Hirono is participating in a military fact-finding mission to Asia with Senate colleagues.

“The Special Counsel also confirmed what our intelligence community had already unanimously concluded: that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election to elect Donald Trump,” she said.

“Although the Special Counsel felt he couldn’t meet the high bar necessary to prove criminal conspiracy with the Russians, he demonstrated that Donald Trump and his campaign were willing to engage with our foremost adversary to gain an advantage in the 2016 election. This is just wrong, plain and simple.”

Case said before he took office in January that he was taking a wait-and-see approach to the Mueller investigation. On Thursday, he had reached some conclusions.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The redacted report released Thursday provided evidence that the Russians had sought to interfere with the U.S. election to derail the campaign of Hillary Clinton and promote Trump.

“The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion,” the report stated.

It also found that the Russians had hacked the Democratic National Committee’s computer network, causing sensitive emails to be publicly released, some of them through the organization Wikileaks.

At a press conference in Washington on Thursday, Barr said the full Mueller report did not find “any evidence that members of the Trump campaign or anyone associated with the campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its hacking operations.”

In early April, Case told voters at a town hall meeting in Ewa Beach that he did not believe the initial Mueller report, as represented by Barr, merited an effort to impeach the president. But he said that he would be willing to pursue the impeachment of Trump if he believed the facts showed that the president had behaved unacceptably.

“I am not shy about exercising that responsibility if I feel it’s warranted,” Case said at the time.

On Thursday, Case said that he continues to believe that impeachment may not be the way to proceed.

But he urged people to read the report for themselves.

“You can’t read this report without re-evaluating your conclusions to date,” Case said.

The post Case: Trump ‘Has Not Been Exonerated’ By Mueller Report appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

As the prospect of catastrophic effects from climate change becomes increasingly likely, a search is on for innovative ways to reduce the risks. One potentially powerful and low-cost strategy is to recognize and protect natural carbon sinks – places and processes that store carbon, keeping it out of Earth’s atmosphere.

Forests and wetlands can capture and store large quantities of carbon. These ecosystems are included in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies that 28 countries have pledged to adopt to fulfill the Paris Climate Agreement. So far, however, no such policy has been created to protect carbon storage in the ocean, which is Earth’s largest carbon sink and a central element of our planet’s climate cycle.

As a marine biologist, my research focuses on marine mammal behavior, ecology and conservation. Now I also am studying how climate change is affecting marine mammals – and how marine life could become part of the solution.

What Is Marine Vertebrate Carbon?

Marine animals can sequester carbon through a range of natural processes that include storing carbon in their bodies, excreting carbon-rich waste products that sink into the deep sea, and fertilizing or protecting marine plants. In particular, scientists are beginning to recognize that vertebrates, such as fish, seabirds and marine mammals, have the potential to help lock away carbon from the atmosphere.

I am currently working with colleagues at UN Environment/GRID-Arendal, a United Nations Environment Programme center in Norway, to identify mechanisms through which marine vertebrates’ natural biological processes may be able to help mitigate climate change. So far we have found at least nine examples.

One of my favorites is Trophic Cascade Carbon. Trophic cascades occur when change at the top of a food chain causes downstream changes to the rest of the chain. As an example, sea otters are top predators in the North Pacific, feeding on sea urchins. In turn, sea urchins eat kelp, a brown seaweed that grows on rocky reefs near shore. Importantly, kelp stores carbon. Increasing the number of sea otters reduces sea urchin populations, which allows kelp forests to grow and trap more carbon.

Carbon stored in living organisms is called Biomass Carbon, and is found in all marine vertebrates. Large animals such as whales, which may weigh up to 50 tons and live for over 200 years, can store large quantities of carbon for long periods of time.

When they die, their carcasses sink to the seafloor, bringing a lifetime of trapped carbon with them. This is called Deadfall Carbon. On the deep seafloor, it can be eventually buried in sediments and potentially locked away from the atmosphere for millions of years.

Whales can also help to trap carbon by stimulating production of tiny marine plants called phytoplankton, which use sunlight and carbon dioxide to make plant tissue just like plants on land. The whales feed at depth, then release buoyant, nutrient-rich fecal plumes while resting at the surface, which can fertilize phytoplankton in a process that marine scientists call the Whale Pump.

And whales redistribute nutrients geographically, in a sequence we refer to as the Great Whale Conveyor Belt. They take in nutrients while feeding at high latitudes then release these nutrients while fasting on low-latitude breeding grounds, which are typically nutrient-poor. Influxes of nutrients from whale waste products such as urea can help to stimulate phytoplankton growth.

Finally, whales can bring nutrients to phytoplankton simply by swimming throughout the water column and mixing nutrients towards the surface, an effect researchers term Biomixing Carbon.

Fish poo also plays a role in trapping carbon. Some fish migrate up and down through the water column each day, swimming toward the surface to feed at night and descending to deeper waters by day. Here they release carbon-rich fecal pellets that can sink rapidly. This is called Twilight Zone Carbon.

These fish may descend to depths of 1,000 feet or more, and their fecal pellets can sink even farther. Twilight Zone Carbon can potentially be locked away for tens to hundreds of years because it takes a long time for water at these depths to recirculate back towards the surface.

Quantifying The  Carbon

To treat “blue carbon” associated with marine vertebrates as a carbon sink, scientists need to measure it. One of the first studies in this field, published in 2010, described the Whale Pump in the Southern Ocean, estimating that a historic pre-whaling population of 120,000 sperm whales could have trapped 2.2 million tons of carbon yearly through whale poo.

Another 2010 study calculated that the global pre-whaling population of approximately 2.5 million great whales would have exported nearly 210,000 tons of carbon per year to the deep sea through Deadfall Carbon. That’s equivalent to taking roughly 150,000 cars off the road each year.

A 2012 study found that by eating sea urchins, sea otters could potentially help to trap 150,000 to 22 million tons of carbon per year in kelp forests. Even more strikingly, a 2013 study described the potential for lanternfish and other Twilight Zone fish off the western U.S. coast to store over 30 million tons of carbon per year in their fecal pellets.

Scientific understanding of marine vertebrate carbon is still in its infancy. Most of the carbon-trapping mechanisms that we have identified are based on limited studies, and can be refined with further research. So far, researchers have examined the carbon-trapping abilities of less than 1% of all marine vertebrate species.

New Basis For Marine Conservation

Many governments and organizations around the world are working to rebuild global fish stocks, prevent bycatch and illegal fishing, reduce pollution and establish marine protected areas. If we can recognize the value of marine vertebrate carbon, many of these policies could qualify as climate change mitigation strategies.

In a step in this direction, the International Whaling Commission passed two resolutions in 2018 that recognized whales’ value for carbon storage. As science advances in this field, protecting marine vertebrate carbon stocks ultimately might become part of national pledges to fulfill the Paris Agreement.

Marine vertebrates are valuable for many reasons, from maintaining healthy ecosystems to providing us with a sense of awe and wonder. Protecting them will help ensure that the ocean can continue to provide humans with food, oxygen, recreation and natural beauty, as well as carbon storage.

Steven Lutz, Blue Carbon Programme leader at GRID-Arendal, contributed to this article.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Protecting Marine Creatures May Help Slow Climate Change appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Hawaii Gov. David Ige is reassuring city leaders that the state remains committed to help fund the Ala Wai flood control project, despite the Legislature’s refusal so far to pass a spending bill for that effort.

In a letter sent Thursday to Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, Ige notes that the state will include in its biennium budget debt service payments on the $125 million it eventually needs to contribute to the sweeping flood control project.

“Consistent with our agreement, I am committed to seek state funding for the local sponsor’s one-time share of the project,” Ige told Caldwell.

The move essentially keeps the state’s foot in the door: It allows it to commit some funding now, on debt service, while paying the lion’s share later. The $125 million represents the local match for Congress’ appropriation of $345 million for the project last year, received with the help of former U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa.

Water levels due to king tides rise along the Ala Wai Canal in 2018.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

“For the state of Hawaii, whenever the federal government gives us $220 million to do a project, we think it is very important to move a project forward,” said Ford Fuchigami, the governor’s administrative director. “And that is the reason the governor and I put so much effort to come up with the $125 million to move this project forward.”

A spending bill for that local match, Senate Bill 77, died in this year’s legislative session after House Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke asserted that the city had refused to sign a deal with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Caldwell took issue with that assertion in an April 11 letter to House and Senate leaders imploring that they provide the funding.

Army Corps officials have estimated that Waikiki, with its 54,000 residents and nearly 80,000 daily visitors, faces an annual 1% chance of a major flood that would cause $1.14 billion in damage to more than 3,000 structures. The neighboring low-lying communities of Moiliili, McCully and lower Makiki would face residual flooding, they said.

The issue stems from costly decisions about a century ago to create the Ala Wai Canal, destroying the wetlands that once absorbed rushing floodwaters and leaving heavy development in their place.

Caldwell said the funding was a matter of public safety for the Ala Wai basin, and that the island risked losing its federal dollars if it failed to provide the local match. Nonetheless, the Ala Wai project has met intense opposition among residents and schools in Manoa and other upland areas, where the Army Corps intends to create detention basins and debris catchment structures.

Caldwell was unavailable for comment late Thursday. House Speaker Scott Saiki declined to comment.

Ige’s letter to Caldwell was the second time in one day that the governor inserted himself into controversial matters pending before the Legislature. He also sent a letter Thursday to the leaders of the House and Senate asking them to reconsider House Bill 1326, the water rights measure.

The governor’s Ala Wai letter also states that the Army Corps agreed to allow the state to defer its payments until after the project was completed.

Read Ige’s letter here:

The post Ige Assures Caldwell Of Ala Wai Flood Control Financing Plan appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

When Joey Valenti built his dome-shaped tiny house on University Avenue a year ago, it was designed in part to rebut skeptics who said albizia wood was too light and weak to use as a building material.

Valenti proved the skeptics wrong with his celebrated, striking structure. He also raised another, bigger question: Why couldn’t Hawaii harvest and process albizia as a building material?

The answers highlight many of the problems associated with growing the manufacturing sector in Hawaii.

Even with an abundant raw material like albizia – an invasive species that needs to be removed – growing a manufacturing sector in Hawaii can be daunting. Shipping costs, labor, the need for capital investments, a relatively small and uncertain local demand: all of these pose obstacles to starting something new.

Joey Valenti’s Albizia Project on the University of Hawaii campus shows the invasive wood can be used as a building material.

Stewart Yerton/Civil Beat

“That building itself is a myth-buster,” said Matthew Lynch, director of sustainability initiatives for the University of Hawaii. “It shows you can build with albizia and build beautifully.”

But can it be the basis for an industry?

“What we’re finding is the word ‘industry’ is tough here,” Valenti said. “It can be done. It’s just at what scale and what market does it work for?”

“The supply chain exists,” said Lynch. “But it’s not robust yet.”

To be sure, there’s no shortage of trees, says Philipp LaHaela Walter, who works on forestry policy issues for the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Albizias grow fast, creating a canopy that prevents the growth of native species. They are a fire hazard. And they have a nasty reputation for blowing down in high winds.

“If we had built this with Doug fir from Home Depot, would it have been cheaper? Probably,” says Joey Valenti, architect of the Albizia Project.

Stewart Yerton/Civil Beat

Albizias are such a menace that a group called the Big Island Invasive Species Committee, also known as the Albizia Assassins, has set out to eradicate the trees on Hawaii Island. The organization claims to have killed approximately 12,000 trees in 2017 alone.

There’s no argument that removing albizia is a good thing, said Walter, state resource and survey forester for DLNR’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife.

The challenge is creating a regular supply of trees needed to support an industry. Many of the trees are in remote areas, far from access roads, Walter said. And many that happen to be near roads also are sometimes near structures, which create technical challenges when arborists go to cut them down.

“Since it’s pretty scattered across the state, this is an issue,” Walter said. “You cannot supply a constant flow of the resource.”

And, Walter said, there’s another problem: a relative shortage of wood mills needed to process the trees into planks.

In the continental U.S., there are mills that can process a tree every 30 seconds, Walter said.

Wood grown in Hawaii can’t compete with that, he said.

Plus, there’s the added cost of shipping from Hawaii.

“That’s just a level of automation and efficiency that our local operations just can’t compete with,” Walter said.

What Hawaii does have, Walter said, is a collection of smaller operations that can fill a niche market for high-end wood.

Plenty Of Supplies; Small Market

Waimanalo Wood is a case in point. The small sawmill and lumberyard was a co-sponsor of Valenti’s Albizia Project. And Waimanalo Wood’s co-owner, Miles Luedtke, said albizia presents a major opportunity for operations like his.

On a recent morning, the mill was buzzing with activity. Customers were perusing the big planks of tropical woods — monkeypod, koa, lychee and the like – that Waimanalo Wood specializes in selling.

And in the back of the hangar-like space, Cortney Gusick, founder of Pahiki Caskets, was sanding a piece made out of monkeypod that was destined for Dodo Mortuary in Hilo.

Luedtke calls his operation a “tropical micro mill.”

It’s essentially a vertically integrated exotic wood seller that makes a business out of processing logs that otherwise would be destined for the wood chipper. Many are trees that need to be removed after falling on people’s property.

Miles Luedtke of Waimanalo Wood says the plans to build a house with albizia were met with derision.

A big proponent of albizia, Luedtke recalls the naysayers who questioned Valenti’s project.

“We got a lot of derisive comments: You can’t sell that. It’s trash. It’s weak,” Luedtke recalls. “Then Joey built a house out of it.”

Luedtke’s goal is to create a market for albizia.

Gusick makes most of her caskets from the wood, and Luedtke has been experimenting with crafting furniture from albizia.

But creating demand is tough, even with the cool structure in Manoa. And until there’s clear demand for the product, there’s unlikely to be an investor who will step up to create a large processing facility, Walter says.

Fast-growing albizia trees are an invasive species that the state is trying to eradicate.

Courtesy: Forest and Kim Starr

Luedtke has a vision of small independent operators harvesting trees and processing them into rough cut planks on portable mini-mills. The environment could benefit, and so could local economies, he said.

The idea, he says, is for “Hawaiians in rural communities to be the stewards and beneficiaries of this natural resource.”

Another idea: to create a cooperative or association of smaller mills to process the trees from rough cut green planks to the more refined dried lumber used as building material.

“That totally makes sense,” Walter said. “But nobody’s really taking the lead on that, and I don’t have the capacity to take the lead.”

Costs Are Unclear

The cost of building with albizia also isn’t clear. Valenti said that in terms of strength and durability, albizia can be processed to be as strong as Douglas fir, a standard material in the construction industry.

But Valenti said he is still working to calculate the cost of building with albizia versus wood imported from outside of the islands. Many of his project’s sponsors donated work, so figuring out all of the processing costs is tricky.

“Really the way I think about it is we can evolve business and enterprise. We can create a new species of business.” — Matthew Lynch, director of sustainability initiatives, University of Hawaii

“If we had built this with Doug fir from Home Depot, would it have been cheaper? Probably,” he said, standing inside the hulking dome of his structure on the University of Hawaii campus in Manoa. “But you’re competing with a huge lumber industry on the mainland.”

By contrast, his trees came from the back of Manoa Valley, where they had been cut down and piled up to rot.

And that’s the point, says Lynch.

A former banker, Lynch is looking at the economics of albizia and the positive side effects of using its lumber as a building material. Getting rid of a nuisance has inherent value, Lynch said.

And there’s additional value in clearing forests to make space for more valuable native trees like koa, which also help protect the watershed, he said.

A question is how to quantify and make money off these positive side effects, to turn what economists refer to as positive externalities into a form of capital that can serve as the basis for a new business model, Lynch said.

“Really the way I think about it is we can evolve business and enterprise,” he said. “We can create a new species of business.”

It might seem like heady stuff for an architecture student who merely set out to build a cool house out of discarded trees. But Valenti sees a quickening movement.

“I feel like we’re approaching that tipping point,” he said. “I think we’re close.”

“Hawaii’s Changing Economy” is supported by a grant from the Hawaii Community Foundation as part of its CHANGE Framework project.

The post Can A Sustainable Industry Be Built From An Invasive Species? appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

As Notre Dame Cathedral burned, people — Catholic or not, French or not — mourned.

Buildings stand for something — good and bad — that we cannot always put into words.

As the legislative session draws to a close here in Hawaii, it is worth asking what the State Capitol, watched over by Queen Liliuokalani and Father Damien, stands for.

Will what emerges from the 2019 legislative session be policies that put people before corporations? Will the beloved, principled queen who put her people before her throne, or the saint who gave his life caring for the sick who had been shunned, lend their blessing to what emerges from the legislative chambers of today?

The spirit of these two exemplars of good government and love of one’s neighbor hovers over those banging gavels, making speeches and casting votes on the floor, as much as those watching from the gallery, and those chanting for justice from the rotunda.

Will our lawmakers respond to the spirit of what Queen Liliuokalani and Father Damien represent or will they succumb to the pressure of contributors to their last campaign — lest they not be there for the next?

The statues of Father Damien and Queen Liliuokalani on the Capitol grounds.

The fight over water rights and REITS has pitted Alexander & Baldwin against the community in ways that have been made clear through the rallies outside the company’s headquarters, and the efforts of advocates from the neighbor islands who flew to Honolulu to be present at the State Capitol at crucial points in this legislative session.

Sen. Russell Ruderman invoked the words of Spike Lee last week, reminding his fellow senators of the need to “do the right thing.” Grassroots activism has helped.

But the community is still wondering if lawmakers will come through with a living wage. Time is running out — not just for this legislative session — but for the families reduced to living on the sidewalks of a city that depends on enticing people to what is touted as “paradise.”

Dignity And Legacy

We are now the paradise of makeshift tarp-roofed “villages” where families — the old, the young, the wheel-chair bound, and those who are working two jobs at minimum wage — barely subsist. The state knows that $21,000 a year does not cover the cost of rent, food and essentials for a single person in this high cost state.

Businesspeople like me know this too. What are we going to do about it?

I volunteer once a week at the Catholic Worker House on the grounds of St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in Kalihi. It’s an education. We hand out food bags, take in or return laundry, accept or return phones that need to be charged or have been charged, and pass on mail that arrives at this oasis for the needy, run by lay Franciscans.

The State Capitol should stand for something that lights a fire within us.

There is always a little conversation with each person as they sign in. One conversation remains indelible. As he signed for his bag of food, this man in his 40s or 50s, said calmly, “I want to die.”

He just kept repeating: “I want to die,” even as he politely accepted the bag of food items.

I have not seen him on subsequent visits. Each week I hope he will come by again.

As we look toward sine die on May 2, we, the people of Hawaii, should ask lawmakers what they plan to do about all those for whom life has reached the point of desperation. All those who cannot pay for their own food and shelter, even after a full day’s labor.

Both Queen Liliuokalani and Father Damien put the lives and dignity of people first. Our lawmakers should respect their legacy by enacting a living wage this year.

The State Capitol should stand for something that lights a fire within us.

The post How Would Queen Liliuokalani And Father Damien Legislate? appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

KAHALUU BAY, Hawaii Island – Extremely high concentrations of oxybenzone have been found on Kona’s busiest snorkeling beach in water test results analyzed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Hawaii will institute a first-in-the-nation ban on oxybenzone in sunscreen beginning in 2021, but the director of the Kohala Center, which coordinated the testing, worries that could be too late to save the coral reef at Kahaluu Bay.

Oxybenzone is toxic to coral reefs, algae and the fish they support.

“Those concentrations are rather horrifying,” marine scientist Craig Downs said of oxybenzone levels documented in waters off of Kahaluu Beach Park, which serves as the gateway through which 400,000 people enter the bay annually.

“I can see that reef dying in 10 to 15 years, and it won’t come back,” Downs said by telephone from Virginia, where he works as executive director of Haereticus Environmental Laboratory.

Five water samples taken from different areas in the bay produced an average oxybenzone level 262 times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s guideline for a “high-risk” situation for marine life, according to NOAA’s assessment of the data.

Kahaluu Beach Park is Kona’s busiest snorkeling spot.

Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat

“I think it’s why we’re seeing this degradation of the reef there,” Downs said.

An Oahu native who has studied how oxybenzone and other cosmetic products threaten coral reefs, Downs oversaw the collection of water samples last April.

The Kohala Center and its Kahaluu Bay Education Center coordinated the study.

The samples were sent first to a laboratory in Spain – few places test for oyxbenzone levels in ocean water – but the testing was delayed so long that they were then shipped to Florida for testing, Cindi Punihaole, the Kohala Center director, said Saturday.

“We just got this off the press,” she said of a poster depicting NOAA’s analysis of the test results, which Kahaluu Bay Education Center announced Saturday in recognition of Monday being Earth Day.

Marine scientist Craig Downs gathered water samples last year at Kahaluu Beach Park.

Jason Armstrong/Civil Beat

The rocky coastline that forms Kahaluu Bay prompts most beachgoers to enter the water through a narrow, sandy gap in the outcroppings. That’s why the highest concentrations were found at the popular entrance, Downs said, adding other testing sites in deeper water also were “really high.”

“It just comes rolling off of them as they enter the water,” Jamie Pardau, an 11-year volunteer with the education center’s Reef Teach marine program, said of the sunscreen that beachgoers typically lather on to prevent sunburn.

Most sunscreen products still contain oxybenzone, which impairs algae growth, can kill coral and decreases fertility in fish because it is a hormone disrupter, said Jeanie Fraser, another Reef Teach volunteer.

“That’s why the fish are getting confused,” Fraser said.

Reef Teach recommends using rash guards, leggings or other clothing to protect against the sun’s harmful UV rays, which have become more intense in West Hawaii since late last year. That’s when a 35-year run of volcanic clouds in the region ceased along with the Kilauea eruption that produced them.

Time-lapse photos show damage to coral in Kahaluu Bay. Courtesy of Silver Spiral Seas.    

Silver Spiral Seas

If sunscreen is used, those listing zinc oxide or titanium oxide as ingredients are reef-safe, but should be applied 15 minutes before entering the water, Reef Teach members said.

Oxybenzone and octinoxate, another sunscreen ingredient, will become illegal to sell or distribute in Hawaii starting Jan. 1, 2021.

The delay is worrisome for Punihaole, who would like to see Hawaii County immediately ban sunscreen containing oxybenzone and several other chemicals from all beach parks.

“By the amount of degradation we’re seeing, we have to find ways to help them,” she said of coral populations that make Kahaluu Bay a popular destination.

Punihaole has convinced the county to close the park and ocean access May 20-21 to aid the annual spawning of cauliflower coral, which is also threatened by periodic El Niño weather patterns that boost water temperatures.

High temperatures in 2015 killed an estimated 90 percent of local cauliflower coral, she said.

Cindi Punihaole, director of The Kohala Center, fears sunscreen contamination may kill the coral reef at Kahaluu Bay.

Jason Armstrong/Civil Beat

“We may lose the other 10 percent by the end of the summer,” Punihaole said.

This remaining coral is expected to produce its yearly offspring next month. Volunteers will gather as much as possible to be raised in tanks in Hilo until they are mature enough to have a better chance of surviving  back in the bay.

Caribbean, Asian and other maritime countries that benefit from ocean-based tourism are looking at Hawaii’s oxybenzone testing and regulation as an example to follow to save their own threatened reefs, Downs said.

“I think it will get the world’s attention,” he said of the new study.

Sales of sun protection products worldwide are $9 billion a year, according to Downs.

He said he hopes to gather more water samples June 1, but added it costs about $1,500 per sample.

Cindi Punihaole Kennedy Letter (Text)

The post Big Island: Sunscreen Ban May Come Too Late For Popular Snorkeling Spot appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

KALAHEO, Kauai — Fred Birkett, principal of the Alakai O Kauai Charter School, which has 130 students, knows there is a new list on which his school is ranked No. 1 in the state, but he wishes it wasn’t.

It’s a ranking of Hawaii’s 36 charter schools, showing the percentage of students whose parents have obtained exemptions — almost all of them based on religious beliefs — allowing their kids to not be vaccinated against common childhood diseases.

Until a few weeks ago when the Department of Health released school-by-school information at Civil Beat’s request, Birkett wasn’t aware that Alakai O Kauai had the highest exemption rate at 40%.

“I don’t want to be No. 1 on that list,” said Birkett, the principal since January. “I’m new on the job. We hope to improve. This is something we’ve been working on. I’ve said (to state health officials), ‘Come on in. Take a look at it.’”

Janet Berreman is the state’s district health officer on Kauai, which in general has disturbingly high rates of nonvaccination. Two of its five charter schools are among the worst in the state.

It will be Berreman’s job to try to persuade families and school administrators to vaccinate. The health department has begun to deploy response teams to schools with unusually high rates.

Kanuikapono Public Charter School & Learning Center is one of the schools with a worrisome rate of unvaccinated students.

Allan Parachini/Civil Beat

At Kanuikapono Public Charter School & Learning Center in Anahola on Kauai’s east side, 32.9% of the 207 students are unvaccinated. And on the Big Island, 37.4% of the 222 students at Kona Pacific Public Charter School have not had their shots.

Statewide, charter schools have far higher rates of unvaccinated students than other public schools or private schools, according to the health department data gathered in March, with a few schools not yet reporting their information.

All told, 8.1% of charter school kids have such waivers — up from 4% in the 2013-14 school year. During that time, total charter school enrollment has increased modestly. There were 9,813 kids in charter schools six years ago compared to 11,034 this school year, based on the 35 that reported their data to the health department. Only Kamalani Academy in Wahiawa failed to do so.

That statewide exemption rate is three times higher than private schools, where 2.7% of students are unvaccinated, and more than four times the proportion of other public schools, where 1.4% are unvaccinated.

Nearly 900 of the 11,034 students in Hawaii charter schools lack protection against such diseases as measles, mumps and whooping cough because, in nearly all cases, their families claim a religious exemption — the only path to rejecting the shots other than rare medical exemptions.

Nineteen of Hawaii’s 36 charter schools show nonimmunization rates of 5% or more, the level many health authorities consider high enough to be of concern. Immunization, experts say, is all about achieving a critical mass for a concept known as “herd immunity.”

Together the charter schools with rates of 10% or more have 4,353 students.

Anti-Vaccine Dogma

Administrators and board members at some of those schools cite concerns that vaccinations may be dangerous based on misinformation such as the erroneous belief that vaccines cause autism.

At Kanuikapono, office staff said anti-vaccine dogma is so strong that some parents even remove their children from classes on days when voluntary flu immunizations are offered. But the 32.9% nonvaccination rate has administrators vowing to step in.

“I just think it’s the lifestyle on Kauai,” said board member Shane Cobb-Adams. “The governing board has been talking. Because of our high rate (of nonvaccination), we have been looking into starting a vaccination campaign this summer and into the beginning of the next school year.

Some parents even remove their children from classes on days when voluntary flu immunizations are offered.

“We’re developing a survey to get some information on the reasoning behind it,” Cobb-Adams said. “We’re not really sure why we have a lot of parents who won’t vaccinate their kids.”

The school has 207 students, according to DOH figures.

Cobb-Adams said a first step will be a campaign to emphasize the importance of vaccination of kindergarten students.

Officials at a third charter school with an extremely high nonvaccination rate, Kona Pacific Public Charter School on Hawaii Island, did not respond to requests for comment. A total of 37.4% of the school’s 222 students have exemptions from the shots.

At Myron B. Thompson Academy on Oahu, principal Diana Oshiro said administrators had become aware of the school’s 17.5% nonvaccination rate and were troubled. However, Oshiro said, the school has an unusual type of “blended” curriculum in which much of its instruction is online and students may physically appear on campus only on occasion.

“I expect that contributes to it,” Oshiro said. “Many of them always submit paperwork (vaccine waivers), and we just pretty much honor that request.”

Berreman said that one reason charter schools may stand out in terms of lack of vaccination exemptions is that public health resources routinely available on traditional school campuses may not be available at charters.

“The relationship is different,” she said. “We are available as a resource, but it’s reactive, not proactive.”

Charter schools generally have more latitude in self-governance than traditional schools, she said.

Smaller Enrollments Decrease Public Risk

Dr. Sarah Y. Park, the state’s chief epidemiologist, however, counseled against using any specific percentage of nonimmunization as an alarm.

“We tend not to focus on a specific percentage or only one aspect and instead consider the school and particular community as a whole,” she said.

The reason high proportions of unvaccinated children are dangerous, Berreman said, is that one unimmunized child with measles can infect as many as 12 to 18 other kids. This creates particular risk if a large number of other children at the same school are unvaccinated.

Dr. Sarah Park, the state’s chief epidemiologist, noted that while vaccination exemption rates are higher on average at charter schools, their smaller enrollments diminish the overall health risk.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Park questioned whether charter school vaccination waivers affect enough students to constitute a particular risk. Examining charter schools in isolation, she said, “would likely provide a skewed perspective from multiple points, especially since the charter schools tend to include comparatively small numbers.

“Five percent of a school of 20 can have very different potential impact compared with 5% of a school of 1,000,” she said.

While charter schools do account for a relatively small total enrollment — 5.6% of school-age children statewide — they contribute 23% of the religious waivers withholding vaccination protection. Private schools, by contrast, make up 21.6% of school enrollment but represent just 15.7% of exemptions.

Only five of the 36 charter schools have enrollments below 100, while seven have more than 500 students each, and one — the Hawaii Technology Academy on Oahu — has more than 1,000. Ten percent of its students are unvaccinated, according to DOH figures.

But just as there are wide disparities among public schools in terms of vaccination rates, there are some charter schools with no students who lack vaccinations. On Kauai, for example, while two of five charter schools rank among the highest in terms of nonimmunization, the remaining three show rates of zero to 1.3% unvaccinated.

Statewide, eight charter schools have low rates of nonimmunization — zero to 2.2%.

The post Charter Schools Have By Far The Highest Rates Of Unvaccinated Kids appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Some Hawaii legislators are wondering if today’s youthful video game players are at risk of becoming tomorrow’s problem gamblers.

Last week the state Senate passed a resolution to create an advisory group to monitor gambling-style practices in the digital gaming industry.

Video games were once a wholesome family and community experience. When my father and mother worked at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam during the buildup to the first Gulf War, most children like me were unsupervised and left to do our own thing.

I was given a ton of video game consoles and games to keep me preoccupied, on the condition that I would “stay put” and not wander around the base.

I quickly became friends with other Andersen kids who would all come to my house to play video games, either because they were anxious about a parent being on a mission somewhere or just didn’t have anywhere else to go. Sometimes, they were mainly looking for a meal.

In that sense, Sega and Nintendo were an important part of helping military communities stay together in the 1990s.

Online gaming can capture our children’s attention like nothing else in the entertainment world.

Getty Images

Today, video games are deeply immersive, internet-connected experiences that virtually bring together people from all over the world. Gone are the days when kids save quarters to play coin-op games at the arcade after school, or gather at a friend’s house with chips and soda to play Super Mario.

In my childhood, gaming was a niche industry. Today, the video game market is larger than both Hollywood and the music industry combined.

Legislators are right to be concerned about the direction video games are going. Nothing else in the market has the unlimited access to our children’s attention that the electronic entertainment industry commands. It has found a way to combine gaming, social media and online shopping.

Video games pull impressionable young minds into digital environments that can easily influence their developing minds and shape their worldview. And if parents think they can limit gaming by controlling access to the PlayStation, Xbox or a personal computer, they should think again. Google is about to release a new streaming service that makes it possible to play any game on a cell phone or tablet.

Good government has a unique responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of children, especially whenever a parent is not around. As modern video games often employ no age-verification system, children who play games online can find themselves in all kinds of compromising situations with real-world consequences.

Industry tactics include “pay to win” (games designed to intentionally disadvantage players so they have to purchase power-ups with real money), “loot crates” (random packages of purchasable, downloadable content sold as possibly containing rare game power-ups) and “augmented reality” (games which overlap the video game world with the real world, some of which result in players engaging in dangerous or illegal behavior).

A little bit of caution, and possibly regulation, isn’t unreasonable.

This isn’t the first time Hawaii legislators have looked into online gaming.

Benevolent but naïve parents might give their kids, for example, a game that has the ability to store credit card information for an ongoing subscription. Children playing games that have loot crates in them might be tempted to purchase dozens, even hundreds of crates, hoping to get the power-ups they want, not realizing the financial implications of what they’re doing.

State Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs officials think this is a problem. In last week’s joint hearing of the Senate Government Operations and Judiciary committees, they submitted written testimony that stated, “paying real money to unlock ‘loot boxes’ without knowing what kind of reward is inside” amounts to learning how to gamble.

An industry representative disagrees.

In earlier testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, Electronic Software Association vice president Tom Foulkes opposed the resolution, saying, “Loot boxes are neither gambling nor exploitive of consumers. With a loot box, a player does not place a wager that may be returned or increased. Rather, the player spends a set amount to acquire a limited number of virtual items.”

The Chamber of Commerce Hawaii also opposed the resolution, cautioning that “The video game industry today is the largest sector of the entertainment business in the United States with $43 billion in sales in 2018. This is an industry that is creating new, highly educated, highly compensated jobs around the world. Stakeholders in Hawaii should look at ways to support the progress of new industries and sectors and continue to create a positive environment for the high-tech industry.”

But one self-described “lifelong gamer,” Will Giese, submitted testimony supporting a gaming advisory group, saying, “This massive industry that provides entertainment for billions of people around the world should be afforded the same scrutiny as every other entertainment industry.”

This isn’t the first time Hawaii legislators have looked into online gaming. Just last year they considered two bills to prohibit sales of loot box games to consumers younger than 21, but neither passed.

This may be an area where both government and private interests can find a common ground that benefits everyone. For starters, something needs to be done to protect our children online, even if it means implementing a better form of age verification. This clearly merits having a local task force to discuss how our keiki can best be protected.

Second, perhaps there may also be a way to use this task force to consider legalized, but well-regulated, gambling for consenting adults in Hawaii.

A task force should put everything on the table: online gaming, gambling, the works.

In developing regulations, we should not only think in terms of restrictions to be imposed, but also potential revenue boosters. There’s nothing wrong with all sides acknowledging that something isn’t working and coming together to find a solution.

The post Danny De Gracia: Reining In The Untamed World Of Online Gaming appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

The Hawaii Department of Education plans to gradually roll out the option of preparing student report cards in languages other than English, starting with Hawaiian, according to a presentation delivered to the Board of Education last week.

“What we are going to be able to look at doing is, (ask), what language would you like your report card in, family, and we will be able to give it to you in that language,” Brook Conner, chief information officer for the department, told the board.

It’s not clear when the option might become available, but the idea was floated as part of a lengthy presentation Conner delivered outlining the DOE’s five-year plan to move documents online, modernize its financial systems and plan other technological updates.

DOE’s student information system, Infinite Campus, will allow issuing report cards in a variety of  languages.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Roughly 8% of Hawaii’s public student body, or close to 15,000 students, are “English learners,” with the most common languages spoken among students being Ilocano, Chuukese, Marshallese, Tagalog, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin and Samoan, according to a 2019 DOE briefing to the Legislature.

A March 2016 report by the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism measured Hawaiian as the fifth-most spoken language at home other than English, behind Tagalog, Ilocano, Japanese and Spanish.

Both English and Hawaiian are considered official languages of the state, which is why the DOE may be looking in that direction first when it comes to the report cards.

In early 2016, the Board of Education approved a new “Multilingualism for Equitable Education” policy whose three-year implementation plan included providing language programs for multilingual students, equipping teachers with more preparation and instructional materials and providing better outreach to families.

The post Multilingual Report Cards May Be Coming Soon To Hawaii Schools appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

The private company that claims to own some of Kakaako’s most poorly maintained roads has been hit with a quarter-million-dollar fine for charging to park on them while failing to repair them.

Kakaako Land Company has until May 15 to pay that penalty due to substandard management of parts of Cummins, Kawaiahao, Clayton, Queen and Ilaniwai streets, under an April 18 order from the Hawaii Community Development Authority. The $250,000 total represents $500-per-day penalties for each of the five streets over a 100-day period.

KLC will face more penalties if it doesn’t fix those roads to city standards immediately, according to the HCDA order.

Officials at that state agency, which oversees Kakaako development, believe it’s the first time KLC has been fined in the years-long dispute over the streets it currently controls.

Cummins Street intersects Queen Street in an area where Kakaako Land Company claims to own the streets and charges monthly rates to park on them.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The company is owned by brothers Cedric and Calvert Chun. When a process server delivered the order to them Thursday, one of the brothers threw it in the trash, according to an email written by Garrett Kamemoto, HCDA’s interim director for planning and development. The email was sent to Kakaako’s legislators, House Speaker Scott Saiki and Sen. Sharon Moriwaki.

KLC’s attorney, Jonathan Ortiz, and Calvert Chun did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

KLC has charged for parking and towed cars on the streets it controls for nearly a decade without repairing or maintaining them, stoking the ire of businesses, customers and area property owners.

Robert Emami, who owns The Car Store on Kawaiahao Street, said he’s seen more aggressive patrols by tow trucks and more vehicles towed in the past six weeks.

“They just tow. It’s getting really really annoying. People are getting upset — angry. This is really out of control,” Emami said Monday. “Finally, after all that pressure, HCDA is making moves.”

KLC and the Chuns face legal attacks on several fronts as state officials aim to wrest control of those roads from them and return it to the city. The HCDA fines are based on a 2018 law that requires any owner of private streets in Kakaako that charges for parking to maintain them to city standards.

Additionally, the state attorney general earlier this year issued a quitclaim deed that looks to override Kakaako Land Company’s claim to the streets. The company also faces a lawsuit in state court from private businesses.

“KLC knows the end is near,” Saiki said Monday.

‘The Height Of Hypocrisy’

The company claims that the 2018 law its fine was based on is unconstitutional and contradicts previous Hawaii case law. The law “was obviously tailored to target KLC,” Ortiz wrote in a Jan. 14 letter to the HCDA after his client received a notice of violation.

Since the public has an easement to drive over the KLC-controlled roads, “the easement-holder, not the fee owner, is responsible for maintenance,” Ortiz wrote, citing the state case Wemple v. Dahman.

KLC started charging for parking in 2010 “at the urging of HCDA” to help prevent the homeless from taking shelter on those streets, Ortiz wrote. That HCDA would penalize KLC now is “the height of hypocrisy,” he said.

House Speaker Scott Saiki has pushed for the city to take back control of Kakaako’s disputed roads from Kakaako Land Company.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Saiki said that KLC is desperate.

“They’re just floundering right now and raising whatever argument they can cling to,” the House speaker said Monday.

KLC doesn’t oppose the city acquiring the streets from the company, and considers that the best way to resolve the dispute, Ortiz’ letter states. The City Council approved a resolution in 2016 to acquire the KLC-controlled streets through eminent domain, but it’s unclear where that stands.

Each street should not be worth more than $1, Saiki said. It’s “cost-prohibitive” to allow the company to make a profit on them since the needed repairs are expensive, he said.

KLC has 30 days to call for a contested case hearing in the matter, and it’s not clear how long those proceedings could take.

“These people, they really think they own the streets. We feel like we’re hostages,” said Emami, whose company pays $120 a month to use a stall in front of its building to park. “We feel like we’re living in no man’s land.”

Read the HCDA order against KLC here:

The post Saiki: ‘End Is Near’ For Company’s Hold On Kakaako Streets After $250K Fine appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is not alone. In the past half-century two other Hawaii residents have campaigned to be their party’s presidential nominee.

All three have said they wanted to deliver a message other candidates were not articulating.

Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink was drafted by her Oregon supporters to run in their state’s Democratic presidential primary in 1972 as an anti-Vietnam War candidate.

Honolulu real estate developer and conservative radio station owner David Watumull, heir to the G.J. Watumull real estate fortune, ran in New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary in 1968.

David and Sheila Watumull, center, leave the Honolulu airport in late February 1968 to head for Manchester, New Hampshire, to campaign in that state’s presidential primary.

Courtesy of Sheila Watumull

Four years earlier, a group of Republican delegates had placed the name of Hawaii Sen. Hiram Fong (the first non-Caucasian ever considered) in contention at the 1964 GOP national convention, but Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater got the nomination that year.

And of course, the person most associated with Hawaii and the presidency is Barack Obama. But he was never a Hawaii politician and had long since quit being an island resident when he first ran in 2008.

Hula Dancers ‘Were Freezing Their Butts Off’

Sheila Watumull says her late husband entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination after he found out how easy it was to get on the primary ballot in New Hampshire. No registration fee was required, just signatures from 100 New Hampshire registered voters.

“He was shocked that it took so few signatures. He said, ‘Let’s do it.’” she said.

Three days after they had married at Kawaiahao Church in Honolulu, they left for Manchester, New Hampshire, arriving in a snowstorm in late-February 1968 with three hula dancers brought along from Hawaii to draw attention to the campaign.

“It was cold, snowy, freezing,” Sheila Watumull recalls. “I thought, ‘Oh my God. The dancers were freezing their butts off.'”

A David Watumull campaign handout used in New Hampshire.

Courtesy of Sheila Watumull

David Watumull said in newspaper interviews he never expected to win but was in the race to discuss issues that were being ignored by the leading Republican candidates. He also saw it as a way to promote his radio station, KTRG.

“I don’t pretend to have as much of a chance as Nixon or (George) Romney but I figure if I tell the truth to people I might be able to bring home some points,” he said in a newspaper interview.

Watumull was an ultra-conservative who considered the rest of the GOP field too liberal.

He argued the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be given the power to “bring the Vietnam war to the earliest and most honorable conclusion” and if they couldn’t end the war militarily, for the U.S. to start pulling out.

Watumull also called for maintaining the gold standard to back the U.S. dollar, an end to deficit spending and a return to home rule.

One of nine candidates on the GOP ballot, he got 161 votes while primary winner Richard Nixon took 80,666 votes. Watumull then ended his campaign.

The war, which Sheila Watumull said saddened her husband so deeply “that sometimes he would cry,” lasted another seven years.

‘I Have No Regrets’

Hawaii Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink’s stand on the Vietnam War was more absolute than Watumull’s: End the war now.

In her fourth term in 1972, she was drafted by a group of her supporters to run in the Oregon presidential primary. They were angry that the front-runner, South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, was backsliding in his speeches on the importance of terminating the war and was focusing instead on improving the economy.

Mink was concerned too, calling that  “extremely disturbing.” In an interview with the Associated Press on May 14, 1972, she said, “The very fact that the war was not on the front page does not diminish the cruel fact that the war was still going on.”

Patsy Mink goes over some of the 4,000-plus signatures gathered to get her name on the Oregon presidential primary ballot in 1972.

Courtesy of Gwendolyn Mink

She said it was never her intention to run for president but she joined the race out of respect for the hard work of the Oregon activists who had rounded up the necessary 4,000-plus signatures to get her on the ballot.

Gwendolyn “Wendy” Mink, Patsy Mink’s daughter, wrote in an email to Civil Beat: “Anti-war and feminist activists in Oregon hungered for an alternative to George McGovern to carry the banner for peace in Vietnam as well as to normalize the candidacies of women for the highest levels of government service.”

Wendy Mink is an independent scholar based in Washington, D.C. At the time of the Oregon primary she was 20 and in her second year at the University of Chicago. She said she signed up for Tuesday-Thursday classes so that she could go to Oregon on weekends and on her spring break to help her mother campaign before the May 23 primary.

She said that her mother thought running against the political heavyweights of the day was energizing: “The chance to work with people of deep conviction and passionate hope; and it was illuminating to discuss policy and principles with people she did not ordinarily encounter.”

Patsy Mink’s Oregon supporters did not expect her to win outright but were hoping to win some delegates to take a strong message to the national convention about ending the war.

The Oregon primary offered more than just a chance to speak out against the war.

Wendy Mink said that to her mother, it was also about “assuring the fair representation of women in party-decision making.” Patsy Mink had been working to change Democratic Party rules to increase the participation of women, minorities and youths in the delegate selection, platform and nominating process, and to nominate a woman as a vice presidential candidate.

Mink got 2%, or 6,322 votes, to McGovern’s 50%, or 199,327 votes.

At first, she said she was disappointed that so few had voted for her, but later she told a reporter, “I have no regrets. It was a very exciting experience and one that does not come too often in one’s life.”

Mink was an active candidate only in Oregon.

‘A Reward Tantamount To Winning’

This past week, Tulsi Gabbard has campaigned in Iowa and New Hampshire, using her presidential candidacy as an opportunity to stress her own anti-war message.

In an email Sunday night, she said: “I am running for president to end regime change wars, work to end the new cold war and nuclear arms race and reinvest the trillions of dollars wasted on these wars back to the pockets of the American people and needs of our communities.”

Gabbard’s presidential campaign mantra has been to shift the war money to domestic needs such as universal health insurance, rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, resolving the homelessness crisis, addressing climate change and reducing debt for college students.

Tulsi Gabbard on a lonely road in New Hampshire as she campaigns for president.

Courtesy of Gabbard campaign

She is mentioned in The New York Times as among the underdog candidates “who have grown skilled at presenting their campaigns in altruistic terms, suggesting that finding a platform for a worthy cause is a reward tantamount to winning.”

Gabbard is near the bottom of most polls among the some 20 Democrats in the race and her fundraising compared to the frontrunners has been paltry. In the first quarter of this year, she raised  $1.9 million in donations compared to Bernie Saunders’ $18.2 million.

But unlike Mink, who struggled to get national TV coverage in 1972 when three networks controlled most of the airtime, Gabbard has the benefit of today’s 24-hour cable news cycle and glut of media outlets hungry for content.

And Gabbard’s opportunities to promote her platform are about to expand because she has reached the threshold of 65,000 individual donors to allow her to be one of the candidates in the party’s national TV debates this summer.

Gabbard declined to answer what it would take for her to abandon her presidential bid and concentrate instead on running for re-election in the 2nd Congressional District, where state Sen. Kai Kahele is gaining traction as a candidate.

Asked whether she sees her presidential bid boosting her resume. Gabbard said, “I don’t see politics as a career. I never have. So I can’t relate to this question. I see it as an opportunity to be of service. I see public service as a contribution, not a career.”

Career benefit or not, each of Hawaii’s residents who has run for president, even if in only one primary, has come away from the experience with something valuable.

For David Watumull it was the chance to inject his conservative viewpoint, albeit briefly, into the national Republican debate.

For Patsy Mink, it was a rare and exciting life experience.

And for Tulsi Gabbard, who is still in the race, the challenge is certain to produce memories of physical discomfort: “Driving around on icy, snowy roads, being stuck in airports for six to eight hours because all the flights are cancelled,” she wrote in her email.

But she also called it a priceless opportunity to do “important service for our country, for the people which far outweighs any hardships.”

The post Denby Fawcett: Tulsi Gabbard Isn’t The First Hawaii Resident To Run For President appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard might not be able to compete in the money department with well-known presidential candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris, but she does lead the pack in at least one category — donations from Indian Americans.

A recent analysis of Federal Election Commission filings by AAPI Data found that Gabbard raised $237,300 from Indian Americans in the first quarter of 2019.

That was more than any other declared Democratic presidential candidate who filed an FEC report by last week’s April 15 deadline. Cory Booker, the U.S. senator from New Jersey, came in second with $131,318 from Indian American donors, according to the AAPI Data analysis.

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard pulls in a lot of campaign donations from the Indian American community.

Nick Grube/Civil Beat

“What stood out to me quite a bit was that 44% of all the money Indian Americans gave went to Tulsi Gabbard, which is quite a bit,” said Sono Shah, researcher at AAPI Data who crunched the numbers.

“In terms of the other ethnic groups there weren’t that many that donated that large of a portion of their money to a single candidate.”

For instance, only 26 percent of Chinese donors gave their money to Andrew Yang, who received nearly 80 percent of his Asian contributions from Chinese Americans.

Many of the other candidates, particularly the major ones, had a more diverse distribution.

AAPI Data — a demographic research project  focused on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders — found that both Gabbard and Booker did well with Asians in general.

The analysis found that Booker received $394,923 from Asians while Gabbard took in $390,155, which was enough to rank them No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, among the 14 Democratic presidential candidates included in the study.

Shah warned that the statistical analysis, however, is not comprehensive and should be looked at as an estimate.

Shah used an ethnic surname methodology that’s often used in health and political science research. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau also uses a similar method to enforce fair lending laws.

The methodology does have its shortcomings, particularly when it comes to interracial marriages that result in name changes.

Another caveat in the data comes from FEC rules that only require candidates to disclose the names of donors who give $200 or more to an individual’s campaign. For Gabbard, that meant the analysis included less than $900,000 of the nearly $1.9 million she raised during the first quarter of 2019.

Of the nearly $390,155 Gabbard pulled in from Asian donors, nearly 60 percent came from the Indian American community, and mostly from donors living in California. 

By comparison, California Sen. Kamala Harris, who’s part Indian, raised $322,047 from Asian Americans, with only 22 percent coming from the Indian community.

Gabbard was the first Hindu elected to Congress in 2013. And while she’s not of Indian descent — she’s Samoan American — her ascendance to federal office resonated in the Indian community, both in the U.S. and abroad.

She took her oath of office on the Bhagavad Gita, and then gave it as a gift to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a political strongman she’s defended and supported.

Gabbard’s fondness for Modi has not come without controversy, particularly as her campaign has benefitted from financial support of right-wing Hindu nationalists who some worry foment bigotry and violence against Muslims.

The post Indian Americans Are Big Donors To Gabbard Campaign appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Keiki Aloha Kai Aloha, “Beloved Child, Beloved Sea” is the motto and pervasive thread woven into every element of the Na Kama Kai nonprofit organization. The mission of this group is to connect children with the ocean through education and fun allowing them to develop a love for the ocean and a strong sense of stewardship for their natural environment.

The nonprofit offers free ocean clinics and mentorship programs founded in Hawaiian cultural values and traditional knowledge, for kids age 2-18 who would like to develop a deeper understanding of the ocean and how to have fun safely on the water.

The post SLIDESHOW: Connecting Children And The Sea appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

We all hear the stories of families who are moving away from Hawaii because they can’t afford to live here. You’d think that with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, our workers would’ve seen big raises. Yet we have the lowest average wage in the nation, when you adjust for our cost of living.

Something’s out of balance. Hawaii’s workers need a minimum wage that keeps up with our cost of living. A living wage can help stop the flight of good people from their home. Lawmakers can make it happen.

Currently our minimum wage is stuck at $10.10 an hour — or only $21,000 a year for full-time work. We trail 11 other states where the minimum wage is higher than ours —even though we can all agree that the cost of living in Hawaii is effectively the highest in the nation. Seven states where the cost of living is lower than ours have already passed laws to increase their minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Our experience of the last four years of minimum wage increases in Hawaii, as well as the research tell us very clearly that raising the wage will benefit low-wage workers, their families, and the local economy.

As wages rose, Hawaii’s unemployment rate dropped by 52% and the number of restaurant server jobs also rose by 22%. Study after study shows that higher wages are good for businesses’ bottom line. Higher wages improve employee morale, productivity, and loyalty, in turn reducing costly turnover and training.

Two measures are still alive at the Capitol that would increase Hawaii’s minimum wage.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

We are not yet at a minimum wage that allows people to survive. The state’s own research shows that a living wage — one on which a single person can meet basic needs — is $17 an hour.

So, what is holding us back from doing what is obviously needed? Perhaps I can dispel the fears peddled by some by sharing a little history.

What Businesses Say

In the 1990s, I was a research assistant on one of the first economic studies of a living wage, in Baltimore. I conducted primary research, pulling relevant documents from government building basements and interviewing the owners of small, local businesses.

This is what those business owners told me:

• They wanted to pay a higher wage because their employees were like family.
• They couldn’t just raise their wages on their own because they’d lose out to their competitors.
• The new law made it a level playing field.
• The new law allowed them to be the kind of employer the wanted to be: the kind that paid a living wage.

Whose lives would be lifted by a living wage?

Here in Hawaii, Hawaii Appleseed has looked at the effects of boosting our state’s minimum wage to $17 by 2024. Nearly 270,000 workers would immediately see their incomes improve. We have repeatedly heard those who oppose raising the minimum wage call it a “training wage” for teenagers. It isn’t.

The truth is less than 5% of those affected would be teenagers.

But more than 50% would be women. More than 25% would be parents. Three out of four would be 25 or older, And more than half would have at least some college education. These are the bulk of our working families, with children to support

Over five years, additional wages will total over $1.3 billion. When minimum wage workers earn more, they plow almost all of their additional income back into local businesses, which leads to greater demand for goods and services, as well as job growth.

Smart economic planning says we should enact a living wage sooner rather than later. Plus, voters like policy-makers whose policies rev up the economy. All the data says a living wage will do just that.

The post A Living Wage Will Help Keep Families Here appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

I am one of about 100 million eligible voters who did not vote during the 2016 presidential election — not out of laziness or even a lack of desire to vote, but because of the largest barrier to voting: voter registration.

In Hawaii, the current voter registration system places burdens on individuals that take time and a special effort to address. One must figure out how to become a registered voter or update one’s voter information, seek out the necessary form, and satisfactorily complete it 30 days prior to Election Day.

As we know only too well from Hawaii’s low voter turnout, too many people put off doing this and therefore do not vote.

This system does not recognize the reality of modern life. Americans move more than they ever have. Much of the eligible voter population either works multiple jobs, attends college, or both. Letting the registration deadline slip through the cracks is all too easy.

Even with same-day voter registration, which Hawaii rolled out in 2016, eligible voters are faced with long lines at the polls and overwhelmed staff and volunteers.

Unfortunately, between being a full time-student and working 20 hours a week, that is exactly what happened when I resolved to exercise my civic duty. I still showed up to my designated polling place, hoping to become a first-time voter. I filled out a same-day voter registration affidavit but was not given a ballot and I ran out of steam.

The result: I did not vote.

Voting in 2018 at Honolulu Hale. Will Hawaii adopt automatic voter registration to improve turnout?

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

My experience in becoming a registered voter would have been vastly different if Hawaii had automatic voter registration.

AVR rightfully shifts the burden of voter registration from the individual to the state in two ways.

First, it automatically registers eligible citizens to vote, or updates their voter information when they interact with the Department of Motor Vehicles — unless they “opt out.”

Second, the system requires voter information to be electronically transferred between licensing and election officials. This does away with traditional paper forms. That’s good for the environment and it also means when you visit the DMV to apply for or renew your driverʻs license or state ID, you do not need to worry about filling out additional forms to ensure your right to vote.

By cutting away red tape, AVR increases the likelihood that people will vote — something that Hawaii has struggled with for the last 20 years. During the 2016 presidential election, the state again had the lowest voter turnout in the nation. Only 43 percent of eligible voters actually cast a ballot, according to the U.S. Elections Project.

Other States Do It

In the same year, Oregon became the first state to implement AVR. The program was successful: 226,094 residents were automatically registered, of which more than 98,000 casted a ballot. In addition, 264,551 voters received automatic address updates. And Oregon is not alone.

Currently, 17 states and the District Columbia have approved AVR. This translates into improved access to voting, enhanced election security, and savings on resources that would have been used in traditional paper registration and postage. AVR can deliver the same benefits for Hawaii.

Thankfully, the transformative power of AVR is not lost on our elected officials. Both chambers have passed Senate Bill 412, which would establish AVR in Hawaii, and the bill is now in conference committee.

My hope and the hope of many of my generation is that our representatives are truly dedicated to upholding democracy and will continue to work to make AVR a reality in Hawaii.

The post Why Hawaii Needs Automatic Voter Registration appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Hawaii is likely to move to elections conducted almost entirely by mail as soon as 2020 after a conference committee of state legislators voted in favor of a measure to overhaul voting in the state.

House Bill 1248 would create a mail voting system statewide, something proponents hope will increase turnout, while also extending the time early voting locations would be open in each county. 

Previous efforts to enact all-mail voting statewide have failed. A bill died in the final hours of conference committee in 2017, and a House measure failed to get a hearing in the Senate last year.

A 2016 Hawaii mail ballot.

Chad Blair/Civil Beat

HB 1248 is now headed back to the House floor for a vote.

The joint committee of House and Senate members also plugged in $200,000 to allow the state Office of Elections to conduct all-mail voting statewide. It also would provide the counties a total of $833,000 as start-up money for the new voting system.

The elections office estimates that it could ultimately save $750,000 each year if it switched to an all-mail system. But Chief Elections Officer Scott Nago said in written testimony that the office would require $912,127 as an initial investment to implement the program in Hawaii County, Maui County and on Oahu (it’s already coming to Kaui next year).

Voters who prefer to walk in to cast their ballots could still do so because HB 1248 would require the county clerks to set up voting centers similar to the early walk-in sites already used.

Those voting sites would stay open until 7 p.m. under HB 1248. Hawaii polling places have typically closed at 6 p.m.

Voting reform was one of the Legislature’s top priorities going into this session, and several other measures are still alive and could be heading to conference committees.

House Bill 1485 would allow students younger than 18 to pre-register as voters, while Senate Bill 412 would require anyone applying for a license or state ID to also register to vote.

Senate Bill 216 calls for automatic recounts in races where the margin of victory is less than 0.5 % or less than 100 votes.

The post Hawaii Takes Another Step Toward Statewide All-Mail Voting appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

A bill to get rid of the statute of limitations for child sex abuse is facing a mysterious hurdle in the Hawaii Legislature, even though lawmakers in both chambers appear to agree that it’s a good idea.

The House and Senate passed nearly identical proposals, with each draft of House Bill 18 acknowledging that Hawaii’s current time limit for filing a lawsuit may prevent victims from coming forward because it can take decades to come to terms with the abuse.

The only difference between the two bills? The date when the measure would go into effect.

Rep. Chris Lee is the lead negotiator for the House on the bill to eliminate the statute of limitations for cases of child sex abuse.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The Senate draft says the measure would be effective upon its approval. The House version’s effective date is Jan. 28, 2081.

Adding a far-off effective date is a common practice in the Legislature when lawmakers want to continue discussing bills. But advocates for HB 18 say they don’t understand why the House wouldn’t simply have adopted the Senate version after it passed both chambers.

“It seems like somebody has made a dispute out of nothing,” said Mark Gallagher, a Kailua attorney who has represented many plaintiffs in cases involving allegations of child sex abuse.

The House easily could have agreed with the Senate draft, Gallagher said. Instead, the House assigned negotiators who are charged with resolving differences with the Senate version.

Contact Key Lawmakers

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Chris Lee
repchrislee@capitol.hawaii.gov

808-586-9450

House Speaker Scott Saiki
repsaiki@capitol.hawaii.gov

808-586-6100

That’s concerning to Rep. Cynthia Thielen, a Republican and the bill’s author.

“If we eliminate the statute of limitations, the message we send to potential abusers of minors is that you never will be safe,” she says. “I’m hoping it’s going to make it.”

The lead House negotiator is Judiciary Committee Chairman Chris Lee. He says it’s still possible that the House could agree with the Senate version and that HB 18 is among a number of bills that the House is considering.

“We’re looking at the Senate draft as it came back and looking to see what the appropriate next step is,” he said, adding that the process includes conferring with attorneys, agencies and colleagues to vet the bill.

Lee said the House has until the end of the session to agree to the Senate draft. But negotiations — if they occur — are supposed to wrap up by the end of the week. None have been scheduled yet.

The ambiguity is frustrating to supporters of the bill like Gallagher who noted HB 18 had a lot of support throughout the session.

“There’s a problem over there in the House and it’s just a question of whose fingerprints are on it,” Gallagher said. “It seems like this is just one of those issues that we face so often with bills at the end of the legislative session, that things get killed and people hide so that they don’t look like they’re responsible for what they did.”

House Speaker Scott Saiki did not respond to messages left Tuesday seeking comment.

The post What’s The Holdup On A Bill That Targets Child Sex Abusers? appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

I remember the first time I saw a kahu kiwi (a Maori feather cloak made from the feathers of the kiwi bird). I don’t know that I’d ever seen or felt anything quite so exquisite, before or since. The feathers are incredibly soft, and the cloak was much heavier than I thought it was going to be.

The weaving is detailed and complex. These cloaks speak volumes to place and people. One can easily imagine how these cloaks warmed the aboriginal people against the harsh cold of New Zealand.

Like Hawaiians and other Pacific peoples, the Maori of New Zealand have long lived in synchronicity with their island home, using resources like the kiwi to create practical resources that aided traditional living.

Today, we would refer to kahu kiwi as art, for it certainly reflects exceptional human talent and imagination. Yet, some have questioned whether or not traditional Pacific Islanders created art the way the West understands the concept.

Honolulu Biennial 2019 exhibits include ritual garments such as skirts, knotted shoulder regalia, and sashes.

Honolulu Biennial 2019

For as the West often created art as an expression of emotion or reflection of beauty, many indigenous peoples created material culture out of utility and necessity. The former being often ornamental, the latter typically functional. These expressions of art can truly tell us so much about their creators and the worlds in which these pieces were conceived.

As the Merrie Monarch Festival takes place again this week on Hawaii Island, I am also reminded of master weaver Elizabeth Lee. I had the tremendous fortune of visiting with her at Merrie Monarch, watching her happily weave the lauhala (leaf) hats for which she was famed. I remember her hands, moving with both speed and precision from a combination of muscle memory and ancestral knowledge. My hats from her are among my most beloved possessions.

The Honolulu Biennial 2019 offers all residents and visitors a unique opportunity to enjoy similar mastery here on Oahu. Running through May 5 at over a dozen locations around the island, this second edition of the exhibition series, “To Make Wrong / Right / Now,” brings together artists to contribute to local and global dialogs by connecting indigenous perspectives and knowledges.

The exhibition is itself a weaving of cultures and times. The curators tethered their approach to the metaphor of ‘aha, Hawaiian cordage, as a method of recording our diverse paths. Particularly notable are the contributions from Taupōuri Tangarō and Florence Jaukea Kamel. Both artists have pieces at the Biennial location at Ward Warehouse.

Tangarō, the director of Hawaiian culture and protocols engagement at the University of Hawaii Hilo and Hawaii Community College, crafted exquisite pieces of ‘a‘ahu kaula, corded regalia. Tangarō is a master of the cordage medium, and he integrates his talent into his academic work, illustrating the importance of indigenous perspective in successful leadership and academic success.

In his work, he combines traditional knowledge with innovation, resulting in paths that not only honor our ancestral roots but highlight the relevancy of ancestral knowing in a modern world. Contained within the works are knowledge and history. These pieces, like the many ancestral pieces passed down through generations, are gourds of memories and pedagory.

Examples of the wearable art of bilum on display at Honolulu Biennial 2019.

Honolulu Biennial 2019

Equally impressive is the wearable art of bilum artist Florence Jaukae Kamel. Kamel’s work is in stride with numerous female community leaders around the globe who use craftwork as a means of empowering women.

All across the world, we see women galvanizing at local levels to develop culturally authentic crafts as a means of proving themselves with livable wages, education and other opportunities.

In this regard, the messages conveyed through these cultural expressions are not only memories of our past but hope for our collective future.

Just this week, the chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues noted that traditional knowledge is at the core of indigenous identity, culture and heritage and that “it must be protected.”

Despite their recognized knowledges and capacities, indigenous people remain disproportionately impoverished globally. In a world that is beginning to recognize that a sustainable future is inseparably linked to better understanding our indigenous pasts, a key element in achieving our environmental goals lies in better appreciating a native worldview.

In a place as rich in heritage as Hawaii, there are countless opportunities to seek out alternative worldviews, to appreciate the world through another cultural lens.

For it is truly this collective diversity, and the wholly unique way in which Hawaii brings cultures of so many origins together, that makes these islands their own exceptional masterpiece.

The post Trisha Kehaulani Watson: The Glorious But Functional Art Of Indigenous Cultures appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.