As lawmakers consider approving a local match to secure federal funding for the Ala Wai flood control project, a wall of opposition to the plan is rising.

Seven of the neighborhood boards in the upstream area affected by the $345 million project have passed resolutions asking for the work to be stalled and rethought.

The neighborhood boards in Manoa, Palolo, Diamond Head/Kapahulu/St. Louis, McCully-Moiliili, Makiki-Tantalus, Ala Moana-Kakaako and Kaimuki have officially asked lawmakers to stop the project for now, listen to their concerns and reconsider its impacts.

In five of the communities, where board members often bicker over trivialities, the votes against the project have been unanimous.

Property owner Dave Watase organized the opposition after he learned his property in Palolo might be taken by the government to build a detention basin.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Scores of passionate opponents have spoken out at board meetings over the past four months, They are fueled by anger over the growth of tourism, the desire to protect Hawaii’s remaining natural waterways, mistrust of state and local government and fears of government mismanagement that could jeopardize their homes.

Their fears have in some cases been confirmed by current or former government officials who have attended the board meetings, agreeing with worried participants that the project has not been thoroughly and adequately vetted.

At a meeting in Manoa, Bruce Anderson, the director of the state Department of Health. said he supported the resolutions. Anderson said even top state officials had not been fully briefed on the ways communities outside Waikiki would be affected by the project.

A Different View From Waikiki

The Waikiki Neighborhood Board is scheduled to consider a similar resolution May 14. But it’s far less likely to pass that board because many residents there believe the project could save them, if and when a natural disaster occurs.

The goal of the plan, developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is to prevent severe flood damage in Waikiki in the event of a major storm.

It calls for building a network of 10 debris and detention basins, some of them concrete-reinforced, in the Ala Wai watershed area and in Manoa, Palolo and Makiki valleys. A wall of varying heights would be built along the canal.

The Corps of Engineers estimates the Ala Wai faces a 1% chance of a major flood each year that could cause up to $1.4 billion of damage in Waikiki. The tourist area, with its 54,000 residents and nearly 80,000 daily visitors, is considered the state’s major economic engine.

The Ala Wai Canal nearly overflowed its banks last August during king tides.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

In the neighborhoods above Waikiki, about three dozen property owners would lose part or all of their land for the project or would be directly affected by the construction, according to the Corps report. Many more residents could be indirectly affected.

The federal government is putting up the bulk of the money for the construction, with Hawaii required to provide $125 million at some point in the future. A spending bill for the local match died in the most recent legislative session but Gov. David Ige remains committed to helping to fund the project.

The City and County of Honolulu would administer the project after it is completed. In a recent letter to the Legislature, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell wrote that the city is ready to sign a partnership agreement with the Corps of Engineers to allow the construction plan to go forward.

“We can’t have the attitude of ‘Let’s stick our finger in the dike and hope it’ll save Waikiki.” — Kathryn Henski, Waikiki Neighborhood Board

The flood control plan has been under consideration by policymakers and politicians for more than two decades.

Waikiki Neighborhood Board member Kathryn Henski said that since 2013 there have been numerous meetings seeking resident comment. She has always paid attention, she said, because she has lived through hurricanes and floods in the past, and seen how destructive they can be.

“We can’t have the attitude of ‘Let’s stick our finger in the dike and hope it’ll save Waikiki,'” she said.

Multiple Concerns

Until recently, however, many residents of nearby neighborhoods were unaware of the project or believed that it affected only the Ala Wai area.

Under the original plan, the only water catchment area would have been at the Ala Wai golf course. The new plans would also affect a number of residential communities upstream of Waikiki.

At the neighborhood meetings in these areas held over the past three months, residents have appeared in big numbers to testify against the project, citing a mixed bag of concerns.

Many opponents opened their testimony by saying that they bore no ill will to Waikiki and wanted residents there to be safe from floods.

But they believe that their interests are being pitted against those of Waikiki.

“We all understand Waikiki is an economic engine, and we are trying to keep them from being flooded,” said Ellen Watson, who serves on the Manoa board, at a hearing in February. “We as residents give up a lot to support the hotel industry and the tourism industry in Waikiki, and this is just kind of over the top.”

“If the detention basins (overflow), like a bathtub flowing out, our valley is going to flood. I mean it’s really going to flood. All the way down to Manoa Marketplace, everything down the valley is going to be gone.”

Watson also questioned whether the city would competently manage the flood control system when it is completed.

“I think our officials have not maintained streams well, have not maintained canals well. Look at what happened to Aina Haina, without even a big bunch of rain,” she said.

Winston Welch, a board member in the Diamond Head district, said many people believe they were not given adequate information about a project that could have an adverse effect on them.

“While it may work for Waikiki, it doesn’t work for the other neighborhoods,” Welch said. “Though Waikiki is the engine, other neighborhoods may end up getting sacrificed if there is an event like the one they are describing.”

The resolutions passed by the boards, which vary in wording slightly, are to some extent purely ceremonial.

The boards serve only in an advisory capacity for the state and Honolulu, so their actions don’t have the force of law.

“While it may work for Waikiki, it doesn’t work for the other neighborhoods.” — Winston Welch, Diamond Head Neighborhood Board.

But they represent an important sounding board for constituent concerns. Lawmakers and government officials attend their meetings regularly and take their questions seriously.

Mobilizing Opponents

The driving force behind the effort to block the flood control project by energizing the boards is a retired engineer named Dave Watase, the son of the founder of a powerful and politically well-connected construction firm, Mark Development.

In the past five decades, Mark Development has built more than 1,600 housing units in Hawaii.

Watase owns what he believes to be the largest single parcel of private land that would be affected by the project, a 4-acre parcel on a forested lot with 200 feet of frontage on Waiomao Stream.

An access road and dam for a detention basis would be located on the property, which is zoned for construction of several homes.

Watase first learned of the flood-control project three years ago, he says, when he received a letter telling him that his land was being contemplated for government seizure. He says the notification letter was sent to the vacant lot so it was lost in the mail for a while.

He began alerting affected property owners, including those who live near the proposed construction projects and had not been informed of the plan. He said many became irate when they found out.

“The problem is our legislators, our governor, our mayor, they are looking at this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get federal pork, and that we have got to keep it,” he said. “I think it’s wrong.”

Several neighborhood board presidents said Watase told them about the problems that would be caused by the project and invited him to give presentations at their meetings.

Watase has spoken at numerous meetings and in many cases, the discussion opened with his presentation on the dangers presented by the project.

“Watase has been going around to all the boards,” said Sharon Schneider, who chairs the Kaimuki Neighborhood Board. “He’s directly affected. He’s been there all the time to support this resolution.”

Seeking A Project ‘Time Out’

Watase found a less welcoming audience when he approached the Waikiki Neighborhood Board and asked it to sponsor the same kind of resolution that the other boards had endorsed. Several board members fended him off at a hearing March 12.

Waikiki board member Mark Smith said that Waikiki would be devastated in the event of a major flood, that even a small rise in the water would cause elevators to stop working, leaving residents stranded.

He said that Waikiki residents need to be protected.

“We need to do our duty to Waikiki, to people who live in Waikiki and whose livelihoods depend on Waikiki,” Smith said. “I know what Dave Watase’s motivation is. My motivation is for the people of Waikiki.”

Watase has been particularly successful mobilizing opposition where schools are affected. At many local schools, caring for nearby streams has become a regular and beloved part of the environmental curriculum.

Dozens of schoolchildren have appeared at board meetings in Manoa and Makiki, with their parents and teachers joining them in adamant opposition to the plan.

They ask what the dams and detention basins would do to the streams, leaving board members to say only that they don’t know.

Several board chairs said they asked representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers to speak at the board meetings, but they didn’t respond. Corps officials also did not respond to a request for interviews for this story.

The biggest complaint, voiced at many board meetings, is that residents do not believe they have been adequately informed about the project and its implications for their communities.

Rep. Dale Kobayashi, whose district includes Manoa and McCully, told residents at the Manoa meeting in February that the government’s failure to notify residents about the flood project was “one of the most unconscionable acts in recent history,” because it had been done to benefit the tourist industry at the expense of local residents.

“You’re talking about some of the largest corporations in the world here, they are insured, and they have had record profits in that industry for years,” he said. “So it is a little hard to shed tears for the tourist industry for the small risk of a catastrophic flood. We need to draw a line in the sand here.”

At the same meeting, Bruce Anderson, director of the state Department of Health, said that state officials had never been fully briefed on the project. From 2015 to 2018, Anderson served as administrator of the Aquatic Resources Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

“I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that there has been a robust discussion with the state on this issue and I think that is true of the county as well,” he told Manoa residents.

“This is a project that is being proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers … I think there’s a lot of discussion needed on this issue.”

As a resident of Manoa, he said, he welcomed the passage of the resolution seeking a time-out in the process.

“More power to you, wanting to get more information, wanting to understand the goals in this project and how the project will actually help mitigate some of the concerns we have,” he said.

Read the 2013 Civil Beat special report, “The Ala Wai Canal: Hawaii’s Biggest Mistake”.

The post Neighborhoods Are Really Angry At The Feds’ $345 Million Ala Wai Project appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

The April 16 Honolulu Civil Beat article, “Group Opposed To Taxing Billions In Real Estate Trusts Is A Big Spender At Capital,” highlights spending by Nareit, the national association representing real estate investment trusts, during the legislative session to oppose bills that would impose an additional state tax on REITs, but it leaves readers asking, why?

First, many inaccurate claims about REITs have been made by those trying to repeal the deductions REITs receive for being required to distribute their profits to shareholders, instead of keeping them, like other companies. But it’s difficult to explain why these claims are inaccurate without the public understanding what a REIT is, why REITs were created and how they operate.

Congress created REITS in 1960 to give everyone, regardless of income level, an opportunity to invest in real estate.

Explaining REITs can be a challenge because most people aren’t aware of them, or the range of benefits REITs deliver to communities in which they invest. To educate everyone who has a stake in this issue, especially the general public, is costly.

Educating the public requires professional communications support, including website development, paid advertising and creating fact sheets and informational graphics. Then, this outreach must be delivered through the news media and other channels the public turns to for information. Nareit also spent time preparing testimony for and following the hearings on the anti-REIT bills that the legislature considered this year.

In addition, inaccurate claims about REITs are continually being raised by those advocating for more taxes on REITs, and claims already debunked often reappear, requiring information and facts about REITs be reiterated on an ongoing basis.

The recent expansion of Ala Moana Center was funded by REITs.

Linny Morris

The April 16 article provides an example of one of the most egregious inaccuracies: that REITs pay no taxes. In fact, the retail sales from REIT properties in Hawaii generated an estimated $207 million in state general excise tax, according to a 2016 study. REIT-owned properties also were responsible for $150 million in property taxes in 2017.

The state Department of Taxation has stated publicly the maximum tax revenue Hawaii will gain if the Legislature repeals the deductions REITs receive for the dividends distributed to shareholders is $2.2 million the first year and less than $10 million each following year. However, DoTax also noted the total could be less as this estimate does not represent the deductions REITs can take if this new tax law went into effect.

Moreover, federal rules require REIT-owned hotels to pay an extra layer of GET above what non-REIT hotels pay. The ten largest REIT-owned hotel properties in Hawaii, by themselves, account for at least $16 million in additional GET revenue per year.

If this proposed additional tax on REITs is implemented, it would make financial sense for REIT-owned hotels to change their ownership status and become owned by non-REITs, eliminating the extra layer of GET to the state’s detriment.

Does it really make sense to pass a bill repealing the REIT deduction to possibly gain less than $10 million in corporate income tax, but jeopardize $16 million in GET?

While REITs already make a significant contribution in both state and county taxes, they deliver many other benefits, as well. REITs generate jobs and the economic multipliers attendant to job creation, which provides a significant stimulus to the local economy.

Jobs And Revenue

To take just one example, the recent REIT-funded expansion of Ala Moana Center alone created an estimated 11,600 construction jobs and brought in approximately $146 million in additional state GET revenue in 2016.

Since completion, estimates show the increased retail sales produced some $33 million in GET revenue for the state, along with an additional 3,000 new non-construction jobs.

It is critical for the general public to learn the facts about REITs.

REITs, unlike other businesses, provide investment to Hawaii consistently, whether the economy is strong or weak. Federal rules require REITs to buy and hold properties, not flip them for a quick profit. And these same rules mandate that REITs receive income from rents, which makes REITs contributors to developing affordable rentals needed in Hawaii.

For all these reasons, it is critical for the general public to learn the facts about REITs. Statewide educational initiatives are a big investment. But such efforts are worth the cost if they accurately inform all those who could be adversely affected by this proposed legislation that will harm Hawaii’s economy and reinforce the state’s image as a bad place to do business.

The post Setting The Record Straight Requires REITs To Spend Money appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

House Bill 285 would remove the exemption in the public records law that allows county police officers to keep records of their misconduct secret unless they’ve been fired.

But if you read recent local media coverage of the bill and its journey through the legislative process, you’d think it was only about including cops’ names on annual, sparsely detailed summaries of misconduct that county police departments provide to the Legislature every year at the beginning of session.

That’s just the first line of the bill. The rest of it gets down to the real business at hand, which is to require police agencies to act like any other public agency and disclose information about employees who have been disciplined — specifically suspended or discharged.

Under existing state law — and restated in HB 285 — information in a public employee’s personnel file that is subject to disclosure includes:

• the nature of the misconduct
• the agency’s summary of the allegations
• findings of fact and conclusions of law
• the disciplinary action taken by the agency.

And, course, the name of the employee.

Police disciplinary records are needed so the public can check up on the department, not just the officers.

Anthony Quintano/Civil Beat

For more than 20 years, county police agencies have been specifically exempted from this provision by the Legislature.

There’s a much longer back story but basically University of Hawai journalism students won a court ruling that prohibited the Honolulu Police Department from keeping the records confidential. The State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers appealed and while that was awaiting its day in the Hawaii Supreme Court the police union got the Legislature to grant the cops a special exemption in the public records law.

That was in 1996. At the same time, the Legislature also required the county police departments to submit a summary at the start of every legislative session that listed misconduct incidents, including a brief description and any disciplinary action taken — suspended or discharged.

The summaries were often so thin and innocuous as to be laughable. HPD Officer James Easley, for instance, was fired after a woman accused him of raping her on the hood of his patrol car. The legislative summary chalked it up as “conducting personal business while on duty.”

You get the point.

More recently, the Legislature tweaked the law to require that the summaries disclose more information — but not much more — and make it clear when an officer had multiple disciplinary actions.

But proposals to eliminate the exemption altogether have stalled, year after year.

This year, as more and more stories of egregious police misconduct come out — think Sgt. Darren Cachola who was caught on surveillance video repeatedly punching his girlfriend in a Waipahu restaurant — the Legislature is on the verge of passing a law that requires disclosure.

HB 285 is not a perfect bill. It covers misconduct starting in March 2020, so prior bad acts of an officer would not be known to the public. And we’d never know the circumstances of the numerous appalling misconduct cases that have appeared on legislative summaries for the past two decades.

But it sets to rest one of the chief arguments that SHOPO has been making when it comes to revealing police misconduct. The legislation specifies that a police officer has no “significant privacy interest” when it comes to misconduct and the records on file that detail that misconduct.

That means that the public would have long ago been able to see the HPD’s disciplinary finding in the Cachola case. That would tell us why he was fired.

And we’d have been able to see the arbitrator’s decision that reinstated him with four years of back pay, something that HPD was on the verge of releasing until SHOPO blocked it in court. Two years later, the case is still pending an appeal.

SHOPO, not surprisingly, is again trying to thwart passage of HB 285, by complaining that the name of an officer is not something the public needs to know.

“Publicly disclosing an officer’s name adds absolutely nothing to the multi-layered disciplinary procedures and protocols that are already in place,” SHOPO President Malcolm Lutu wrote in testimony.

But that misses another important point. Beyond the obvious public interest in how our police officers are behaving, it’s just as important to look closely at how police officials deal with misconduct.

As Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Crabtree wrote in his ruling ordering the release of the Cachola arbitrator report: “There is a significant public interest in knowing how HPD supervises alleged misconduct, responds to misconduct allegations, and investigates alleged misconduct.”

Contact Key Lawmakers

Senate President Ron Kouchi
senkouchi@capitol.hawaii.gov
808-586-6030

House Speaker Scott Saiki
repsaiki@capitol.hawaii.gov
808-586-6100

HB 285 appears to be stuck in the final stage of the legislative process. It passed each chamber but the Senate amended the House version so it was slated for conference committee. Members were appointed to that conference committee but the bill has yet to be pulled up for discussion. The deadline is looming on Thursday and if it doesn’t get heard, it’s dead.

Unless … the House could sign off on the Senate’s amended version, thus sidestepping the need to resolve differences in conference committee.

Either way, HB 285 is a measure whose time is long, long overdue. Legislative leaders must recognize the significance of this legislation and help it the rest of the way along.

The post Police Misconduct Bill Is Not Just About Naming Bad Cops appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

A dead whale washed up in the Philippines with 88 pounds of plastic in its stomach March 16, roughly the same time the Hawaii Legislature gutted a bill that would ban single-use plastics and Styrofoam in the islands.

It is time for action to be taken on this major problem that is plaguing Hawaii and the rest of the world. We need to end our addiction to plastic. Hawaii had the opportunity to make history by becoming the first state in the nation to implement such a ban.

Instead, the Legislature chose to establish a committee that will look into the best possible ways to employ a ban on single-use plastics and Styrofoam in the near future. While the overall goal was not achieved in this legislative session, this is a step in the right direction.

Does Hawaii really need to take such drastic action? The answer is yes.

According to the Bishop Museum, Hawaii has roughly 10,000 endemic species, meaning you will not find them anywhere else in the world. There are 149 species of endemic fish. These fish need to be protected at all costs. Our reliance on single use plastics is counter-productive in our battle to protect birds, plants, fish and other aquatic life.

Plastic and other debris on Kamilo Beach on Hawaii Island.

Civil Beat

While the whale that died from plastic ingestion in the Philippines might seem far from our home here in Hawaii, we have our own problems with native wildlife.

In January 2018, there was a 2-mile-long patch of debris between Oahu and Molokai. The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is the largest conservation area in the U.S. Even in what should be one of the most pristine aquatic areas in the world, NOAA removed 57 tons of marine debris in 2014.

All of this debris polluting Hawaii’s natural beauty could even affect the tourism industry. The Hawaii Tourism Authority reported $16.78 billion in visitor spending in 2017 as well as 204,000 jobs supported by the industry statewide. A friend of mine was visiting during his spring break this past year and he said he had never seen so much plastic on a beach before.

Tourists will not want to come and see Hawaii’s once-pristine beaches covered in plastic. The longer we wait to ban single-use plastics, the more it will negatively affect tourism and local wildlife.

Just Say No To Styrofoam

If protecting Hawaii’s wildlife or economy was not enough to convince you a single-use plastics ban is needed, you should consider the impact of plastics on your own health. Plate lunches are extremely popular in Hawaii and it’s a relatively safe bet they’ll be served in a Styrofoam container.

The World Health Organization has reclassified polystyrene (Styrofoam) from a possible carcinogen to a probable carcinogen, meaning that it may cause cancer in humans. Ingesting micro plastics from fish and other marine life humans consume still have unknown effects, yet there are certainly better things to have in your body than small beads of plastic.

Tourists will not want to come and see Hawaii’s once-pristine beaches covered in plastic.

The major opposition to this bill comes from the restaurant industry. They claim that switching to environmentally friendly products will be a great financial burden on them as plastic alternatives are cheaper.

However, on Amazon a 50-pack of biodegradable food containers is $5 less than their Styrofoam counterpart. Even if the cost difference was several cents more, wouldn’t you be willing to pay more to cut down on plastic pollution?

The entire state needed a ban on single-use plastics in 2019; however, the committee Senate Bill 522 could establish is certainly a step in the right direction. The poor Cuvier’s beak whale found off the coast of the Philippines was a casualty of single-use plastics and so are many other animals across the world and here in Hawaii. Wildlife cannot vote, but you can.

Let your representatives know that the people of Hawaii are in favor of outlawing single-use plastics and Styrofoam.

The post We Need To Cut Single-Use Plastics Out Of Our Lives appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

The Hawaii Senate voted 17-8 on Wednesday to reconfirm Public Safety Director Nolan Espinda for another term.

The Senate’s vote came after a tumultuous couple of months for Espinda and his department.

“If not Nolan, who?” Sen. Kurt Fevella said from the Senate floor. “There’s no one who has the backbone.”

The prospects for Espinda’s reconfirmation had been tenuous since the legislative session began in January, but Gov. David Ige stood by Espinda, who he first nominated to head the DPS in 2015.

Nolan Espinda, center, listens to the Senate deliberations Wednesday along with his wife, Malia, and Gov. David Ige.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

“I always knew Nolan Espinda was the right man for the job,” Ige said at a press conference following the vote.

Sens. Clarence Nishihara, Breene Harimoto and Roz Baker, all members of a Senate committee that recommended rejecting Espinda’s reconfirmation, reiterated problems they saw in the DPS.

For Nishihara, it was the department’s lack of focus on its Sheriffs Division. For Baker, it was the conditions of the state prisons. And for Harimoto, it was the numerous complaints and concerns he said he’s received from DPS staff.

Senate President Ron Kouchi said that it will be incumbent on the Senate to make sure Espinda follows through on his promises over the next four years.

At a press conference following the vote, Espinda said he would address the issues that arose during the months leading up to the confirmation vote.

“I am confident and grateful for the opportunity to move forward the next four years and address each and every one of those things,” Espinda said.

“Everything that happens in this department is my responsibility,” he said. “Everything, whether good or bad, lands on my desk.”

A Rough Four Months

The first quarter of 2019 has been volatile for Espinda and his department.

In February, a state deputy sheriff fatally shot a homeless man who was carrying an open container of alcohol and refused to leave the Capitol grounds. The dead man, Delmar Espejo, was described by family members as physically handicapped.

In March, corrections officers fatally shot an Oahu Community Correctional Center escapee, Maurice Arisgado Jr.

Both Espejo and Arisgado were reportedly unarmed.

Also in March, over 40 inmates rioted at the Maui Community Correctional Center, causing an estimated $5.3 million in damages. At the time Espinda cited inmates’ dissatisfaction with the jail’s overcrowded conditions as at least one of the causes of the uprising.

Those incidents highlighted long-standing problems for the DPS that became flash points for the Senate Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs Committee that held three days of hearings on Ige’s renomination of Espinda.

Nishihara, the committee chair, had launched an inquiry into DPS in February.

Sen. Clarence Nishihara speaks in opposition to Public Safety Director Nolan Espinda’s reconfirmation Wednesday.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

In a letter to Espinda, Nishihara questioned why DPS had been slow to update law enforcement policies proposed by Sheriffs Division commanders. He also questioned the division’s training standards and safety equipment for sheriffs.

In a March response, Espinda said that updated polices were in the works, and the department would also be rolling out 96 new Sig M400 rifles to replace their outdated Colt AR-15s.

At a hearing April 9, Nishihara took aim at the department’s slow progress on acquiring accreditation for the Sheriffs Division. The department was required by law since 2011 to obtain credentials from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.

Baker said she was concerned about conditions at the state’s prisons and jails.

The West Maui senator tried repeatedly during hearings to extract information from Espinda and his department heads about the riot. But Deputy Attorney General Craig Iha sat next to Espinda and deflected many of the questions, citing ongoing investigations into the shootings and riots.

But some committee members said the department was not solely to blame for overcrowded jails.

Sen. Glenn Wakai said lawmakers also hold some responsibility and cited the Legislature’s reluctance to fund department requests for building improvements.

It’s also the job of the Legislature to take up criminal justice reform measures.

Nishihara, Baker and Wakai all voted “no,” along with Sens. Stanley Chang, Kai Kahele, Karl Rhoads, Gil Riviere and Breene Harimoto.

When he was brought in as department head in 2015, Espinda said he would end overtime and sick leave abuse while offering inmates more jail visits.

Espinda and his supporters have defended his job record during the session. Espinda has worked for DPS for three decades. Before becoming director, he was the warden at the Halawa Correctional Facility.

Espinda said during his tenure that the recidivism rate had decreased from 67% to 47%.

Also Wednesday, the Senate reconfirmed Suzanne Case as director and Robert Masuda as deputy director of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

The post Senate Votes To Keep Nolan Espinda As Public Safety Chief appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Former HPD chief Louis Kealoha, who has since been indicted on federal criminal charges, asked Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Keith Kaneshiro to review the case.

Still, the video sparked widespread outrage, particularly among women legislators, and called into question how the nation’s 20th largest police department confronts domestic violence. Cachola was eventually fired, but after a police union challenge an arbitrator ruled he should get his job back.

The public has never been told why Cachola was fired or why he was reinstated with four years of back pay.

Whether the arbitration report should be released to the public has been the subject of a long and unresolved legal battle.

Meanwhile, a House Bill 285 in the Legislature would require police agencies to disclose information about employees who have been suspended or discharged. If that were already the law, the public would have long ago been able to see the HPD’s disciplinary finding in the Cachola case as well as arbitrator’s decision that reinstated him.

An attorney who represented Cachola previously didn’t return a calling seeking comment on the new allegations.

The post Years After Punching His Girlfriend, Police Sergeant Charged With Domestic Abuse appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

At Uber, we use technology to help remove barriers to transportation and create opportunity for millions of people around the world.

Here in Hawaii, our technology has helped thousands of local drivers provide millions of affordable, convenient rides. And perhaps surprisingly, about 70 percent of those rides have been taken by Hawaii residents.

The Legislature is currently considering a bill — House Bill 1093 — that would put in place statewide ride-sharing regulations. A recent Civil Beat Community Voices article mischaracterized what the bill would do and how Uber’s business works (“Proposed Bill Regulating Uber, Lyft Is Biased Against Taxis,” April 16).

The statewide regulatory framework proposed in HB 1093 is based on regulations already in place in Honolulu — regulations that were instituted after more than a year of engagement between ride-share and taxi companies, the Honolulu City Council and city administrators. Claims that the proposed legislation would weaken consumer protections and disregard public safety are misleading and simply not true.

Safety is at the heart of everything we do, and that’s why we’re constantly working to enhance our technology. At the beginning of every Uber trip, riders can verify they’re getting into the right vehicle by matching the license plate, car make and model, and the driver photo provided in the app.

We recently began sending push notifications to riders to remind them of these steps just before their car arrives. Riders can also share their GPS-tracked ride in real time with friends and family and even split the fare with their fellow riders all via the app.

The Uber app. A House bill would put in place statewide ride-hailing regulations.

Anthony Quintano/Civil Beat

It’s also worth noting that Uber background checks screen a person’s motor vehicle record, in addition to checking county, state, and national criminal record databases. Two years ago, the Honolulu City Council updated city regulations to require this same process for Honolulu taxi companies as well.

Insurance for ride-share companies was settled in 2016 at the Legislature and remains unchanged under this bill. Before drivers are approved to drive, they must first verify proof of their personal auto insurance through the app. Then, from the moment they go online to drive, even when a passenger is not yet in the vehicle, Uber maintains the required commercial auto insurance for every trip on the Uber app.

And during a trip — from the moment a driver accepts a ride to dropping off the passenger — Uber maintains $1 million in third-party commercial auto liability coverage, even if the driver’s phone or app is turned off for any reason during the trip.

Critics of HB 1093 have also mischaracterized how pricing works with Uber. The most important thing to know is that before accepting a trip, riders typically know exactly what they’ll pay — a feature we call upfront pricing. And payments are handled through the app, meaning riders don’t have to wait for their card to be run, or worry about a driver insisting on cash.

Dynamic Pricing

Uber also relies on dynamic pricing, which encourages more drivers to use the app during times of high demand. This is why an Uber driver-partner is typically only minutes away, even if many people are looking for rides at the same time. Dynamic pricing is one of the reasons the cost of an Uber trip in Honolulu is generally less expensive than the cost of a similar taxi trip.

When Honolulu’s regulations were first passed, Uber was an Oahu-focused business. Over the past few years though, we’ve grown significantly and expanded our operations to reach many more people throughout Hawaii. Today we partner with thousands of drivers who serve riders on Oahu, Maui, the Big Island, and Kauai.

Passage of consistent, statewide regulatory requirements for ride-share would be a step forward for Hawaii.

We are committed to Hawaii. Through our six years of operating here we’ve partnered with Red Cross Hawaii to facilitate free rides to shelters following natural disasters, and we’ve supported MADD Hawaii to help combat drinking and driving.

We’ve also partnered with the Hawaii Food Bank, Access Surf, and the Hawaii LGBT Legacy Foundation among many other local nonprofit organizations doing important work. We are also of course proud to offer Hawaii residents and visitors another transportation option, and local drivers a flexible earning opportunity.

Passage of consistent, statewide regulatory requirements for ride-share would be a step forward for Hawaii. It would provide drivers more regulatory consistency and certainty across all the islands, which would in turn further improve the rider experience.

It would also standardize ride-share safety requirements for all of Hawaii. HB 1093 is sensible legislation that takes regulations already working in Honolulu and applies them to the rest of the state. We hope the bill will be considered on its merits.

The post Ride-Hailing Regulations Would Benefit Riders And Drivers appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Nearly 14,000 applicants for public housing in Hawaii must sign up online or risk losing their spot in line for one of about 6,100 federal and state-subsidized low-income housing units.

It’s an effort by the state’s Public Housing Authority to bring the wait list into the 21st century and make it easier for applicants to see their place on the list and update their contact information.

But critics worry the move could end up purging many applicants from the list, particularly those with disabilities, homeless people and immigrants who speak limited English. Some applicants have been waiting as long as 17 years.

Hawaii Public Housing Authority Executive Director Hakim Ouansafi says the change is intended to help people who are waiting for public housing, but some advocates fear it may do the opposite.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

“It’s the tight timeline and it’s the idea that if you don’t do it, you’re off the wait list that’s really the sort of egregious thing,” said Lou Erteschik of the Hawaii Disability Rights Center. “People wait a long time for public housing. Being able to get public housing is a big deal.”

Public housing is intended as a safety net for Hawaii’s low-income residents. Rent is pegged to no more than 30% of tenants’ income, a lifeline for many in a city where the fair market rent for a two-bedroom exceeds $2,000.

A portion of the Mayor Wright public housing complex in Kalihi.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Hawaii Public Housing Authority Executive Director Hakim Ouansafi says the agency wants to help families, not cut them off. The initial notification letters were sent in March with an April 30 deadline. So far nearly 3,000 families have signed up successfully and about 2,800 letters were either returned undeliverable or recipients said they no longer needed housing.

“We really want to know who really wants housing,” Ouansafi said. “If they want it, they can stay on our list. If there’s 10,000 or 5,000 people on the wait list, it makes no difference to us. It actually gives us an accurate count of the community’s need.”

Both the Disability Rights Center and the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii complained to the Housing Authority after their clients raised concerns about the March letter. Now Ouansafi says the agency plans to send out a second letter to allow applicants who haven’t signed up yet another 30 days to comply.

Victor Castro-Rivera says he worries that other homeless people will not realize how important the Housing Authority’s correspondence is and may miss the deadline.

Anita Hofschneider/Civil Beat

That’s good news to Victor Castro-Rivera, 72, who says he has been waiting for public housing for 15 years.

Castro-Rivera got the letter from the Housing Authority in March but didn’t understand it because it was in English. After contacting Legal Aid, he got the letter translated into Spanish and signed up on the website.

He says he has been living on the streets of Honolulu since his Native Hawaiian wife died and he got evicted from her homestead property.

Now he worries other homeless people, especially immigrants like him, may not realize the letter is important. He wonders why letters from Social Security are sent to him in Spanish, but not this one. He questioned why the letter and its envelope did not include the word “urgent.”

“In truth, this is a very important but nothing in the envelope says this is important to reading about your case,” he said through an interpreter. “It’s an injustice for the people who are living in Aala Park who don’t have access to interpretation.”

“The housing system,” he said, putting his hands over his eyes in frustration.

English-Only Website

Tthe Housing Authority mailed 13,970 letters March 11 and 20 to applicants, telling them they would be removed from the wait list if they don’t sign up online by April 30.

The letter was written in English, and a second page included instructions in multiple languages saying to call a phone number in the letter if an interpreter was needed.

But the letter didn’t include a phone number.

“That definitely was an oversight,” Ouansafi said, adding that will be corrected in the second letter sent to applicants.

The Hawaii Public Housing Authority’s applicant portal has a dropdown menu for languages, but the only option is English.

Anita Hofschneider/Civil Beat

For people who did create accounts on the website, the applicant portal includes a dropdown menu for “Language.” But try typing in Spanish or Chuukese and nothing happens. The dropdown menu for “language” defaults to English.

Ouansafi says the Housing Authority is working on translating the website into multiple languages but until then applicants should come to the agency’s office for assistance with interpretation.

The Housing Authority has in-person interpreters for five languages and has access to additional interpreters, he says.

Jane Preece, an attorney at the Hawaii Disability Rights Center, says she worries about homeless people who may not be checking their mail every week and applicants who may not be familiar with computers.

“It’s a really short timeline given that you’re dealing with people who are the most disadvantaged and least likely to have access to internet and email,” Preece said.

A Possible Challenge

Ouansafi says the Housing Authority wants to make the process easier for applicants. As of last week, the agency helped 140 applicants who needed interpreter services and several more who were disabled or incarcerated and lacked access to a computer.

The new website would allow applicants to update their addresses and phone numbers online and make changes to their family sizes, which could affect which units they’re eligible for.

“They don’t have to come all the way to our office,” he said, adding the process is expected to save about 6,000 annual work hours.

Louis Erteschik from the Hawaii Disability Rights Center is concerned about whether the Public Housing Authority is giving applicants enough time and help to sign up on the agency’s new portal.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The Housing Authority will also reduce data entry errors by allowing applicants to update their own information, he said.

Dan O’Meara, managing attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii, says he was initially worried about the process but is pleased that the Housing Authority has agreed to extend the deadline to the end of May. Legal Aid is now collaborating with the Housing Authority on the draft of the second letter.

Erteschik from the Disability Rights Center says giving people more time to sign up is good, but he’s not sure if extending the deadline through May will be adequate. He said the center has considered filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development about the process.

“We’re certainly not taking that off the table if we’re not seeing the kinds of results and action that needs to happen to satisfy our concerns,” Erteschik said.

The post State To Housing Applicants: Sign Up Online Or Lose Your Spot On Wait List appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

HILO, Hawaii Island – Hilo’s hopping.

Hotels are full, restaurants have waiting lines and merchants throughout town are collecting some of the millions of dollars generated by the annual arrival of the world’s premier hula competition.

“There’s energy in the air when the Merrie Monarch comes to town,” Diane Ley, Hawaii County’s research and development director, said of the weeklong festival that starts each year on Easter Sunday.

Now in its 56th year, Merrie Monarch attracts an international audience to see halau (dance groups) from throughout Hawaii and also California.

“It’s getting bigger,” said Luana Kawelu, Merrie Monarch president and daughter of co-founder Dorothy “Dottie” Thompson.

Merrie Monarch craft fairs featuring local products have become popular with shoppers, some of whom look for items to take back to their own shops.

Jason Armstrong/Civil Beat

Kawelu said she’s received requests from Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Lithuania for some of the 4,200 tickets that sell out each year Dec. 1, the day they become available.

“It costs a halau $45,000 to $50,000 to come here,” she said of the roughly two dozen Hawaii-based dance troupes that pay for interisland airfare, lodging, transportation, meals and other expenses.

That type of money is why some people – she did not name them – have long sought to relocate the festival to Oahu, Kawelu said.

Tickets sell out on the first day they’re offered, said Luana Kawelu, festival president. A portrait of her late mother, event co-founder Dorothy “Dottie” Thompson, is in the background.

Jason Armstrong/Civil Beat

“As long as I’m running it, the Merrie Monarch is never going to move from Hilo,” she said while sitting beneath a framed portrait of her late mother, who held the same conviction.

Visitors spend a total of about $6 million on the festival, according to a 2018 economic impact study by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. And that doesn’t include spending by Big Island residents, Nathan Kam, president of public relations for Anthology Marketing Group that does work for HTA, wrote in an email.

Businesses were already feeling that impact Wednesday, on the eve of the actual competition.

“We’re sold out,” said Alyssa Mahidashti, marketing assistant for the 379-room Grand Naniloa Resort, which is offering live music, hula performances and other festival-based events that had its lobby packed with guests.

Across town, thousands of people attend each of several craft fairs.

“This is amazing. I see it just from last year to this year how much it’s grown,” Jan Hori, co-owner of Hawaiian Pie Co., said as she helped supply her treats to a line of waiting customers.

The Hilo hula festival is one of the most lucrative festivals Hawaiian Pie Co. attends, said co-owner Jan Hori, right.

Jason Armstrong/Civil Beat

The Honolulu company was back for its second appearance, this time landing a coveted spot in the Merrie Monarch Invitational Hawaiian Arts Fair, which has expanded beyond a sports auditorium to its parking lot.

“We can see this is going to be a big one for our company,” Hori said, adding she anticipates sales will approximate Christmas-week revenues, typically its most lucrative time of year.

The fairs feature handmade clothing, jewelry, musical instruments and food items.

“When it comes to Merrie Monarch, everything is expensive,” Tanya Villanueva of Hilo said after buying a replacement koa bracelet for her daughter.

Prices didn’t seem to deter shoppers, however.

Orchid Isle Snacks always does a brisk business in beef jerky sales at the festival, said saleswoman Shea Uaiwa, right.

Jason Armstrong/Civil Beat

“We sell out,” Shea Uaiwa said of beef jerky offered by Orchid Isle Snacks.

Brisk shopping has even attracted the U.S. Postal Service, which is using innovation to help fairgoers get their purchases back home.

“This is the first mobile unit in the state of Hawaii here at the Merrie Monarch,” said Ramona Franco, marketing manager for the Postal Service’s Honolulu District. “This is our debut event.”

The vehicle, which will be kept on the Big Island for use at future events, offers flat-rate boxes for domestic and international shipping, Franco said.

“This is so convenient,” Koral McCarthy said while packing up craft fair purchases to be shipped to Kauai for use in her store.

“More vendors, more supplies, more people,” McCarthy said of this year’s fairs.

Other Hilo events “are not even” close to producing the economic impact of the Merrie Monarch Festival, which rivals the Ironman World Championship held each year in Kona, said Ross Birch, executive director of the  Island of Hawaii Visitors Bureau.

“Because it is a weeklong event, it extends that economic impact,” he said, adding festival attendees likely spend more per person than those drawn to the triathlon.

The competition doesn’t start until Thursday, but a hula demonstration attracted an audience Wednesday at the Grand Naniloa Resort.

Jason Armstrong/Civil Beat

Hawaii News Now is providing 16 to 18 hours of live coverage starting with Thursday night’s opening Miss Aloha Hula competition, said Rick Blangiardi, general manager.

“This is unprecedented,” Blangiardi said of the three straight nights of live broadcasts that will be combined with live Internet streaming on various platforms. This will be our most-aggressive coverage we’ve ever undertaken from the standpoint of distribution.”

Blangiardi is unsure how to calculate the value of the station’s coverage, except to say, “I think it’s priceless.”

Hawaii County has purchased advertisements promoting the Big Island as a visitor destination and was told by HNN that its web streaming of Merrie Monarch events will reach more than 200,000 visitors in more than 100 countries, with Japanese accounting for about half the international audience, Ley said.

“While the event has grown in popularity, it has held onto its small-town character,” she said. “That’s important to share statewide and with the world.”

The post Big Island: Merrie Monarch Hula Festival Is A $6 Million Bonanza appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Please do not support the Ala Wai Flooding Abatement Project until further discussions are held.

This is not petty politics. I don’t care about politics.

I live just off of Waiomao Road where houses there and on Kuahea Loop are sliding down the hill and their foundations are crumbling.

Just Thursday night an entire 9-foot retaining wall heaved over as a result of underground water, and rubble covered both lanes of Waiomao Road until our fine firefighters manually cleared at least one of the lanes. That was so that hundreds of residents could use that one lane to get to work Thursday morning by working out their own contra-flow with inbound vehicles.

Years ago, the city had to buy dozens of homes to avoid lawsuits from homeowners that were issued building permits in the 1940s and 1950s to build on unstable land below the old quarry above Waiomao Road.

Water runoff from this disturbed quarry area has doomed those homes and continues to wreak havoc on many of the remaining homes and causes countless ongoing repairs to Waiomao Road at considerable city expense. The city is at a complete loss as to how to correct or mitigate the situation.

Palolo and Manoa streams join up near Waialae Road. A proposed flood mitigation plan for the Ala Wai Canal has many residents in the upstream valleys concerned about water flow disruption.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The water retention basins proposed for the Manoa and Palolo valleys would massively disrupt the natural water flow through each valley, which was established over hundreds of years, with similar unintended consequences to residents, roads and structures.

Who will take responsibility for these damages now that the city has been warned of the unintended consequences?

These are not hypothetical consequences.

These are real consequences that the city is already unable to contend with today from a similar intrusion and land disruption from the old quarry above Waiomao Road and Kuahea Loop.

Options with less city liability exist and must be considered before moving ahead with this poorly vetted proposal.

The post Ala Wai Flood Plan A Poorly Vetted Proposal appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Nearly six decades ago, a couple of recovering alcoholics in Honolulu wanted to create a refuge for others whose addictions had ripped apart their lives.

They found a ruined Army chapel on Sand Island, abandoned since World War II, on land so choked with undergrowth they had to hack their way into it, according to a 1969 article in the Sunday Honolulu Star-Bulletin & Advertiser.

The state, under Gov. John Burns, let them use the land for free. For a decade, the small staff worked without pay at Halfway House, run by a nonprofit called the Hawaii Alcoholism Foundation.

In the mid-1980s, Mason Henderson began working there and eventually became its executive director. The treatment center started to win government contracts and add beds. It employed almost 70 people to treat drug addiction as well as alcoholism. Courts referred defendants to the program.

It grew, fed largely by public money, benefiting from the tax breaks of being a nonprofit and operating for free on public land – without a lease.

So did the salaries of those who worked there – especially Henderson’s.

A Civil Beat investigation found that Sand Island Treatment Center, as it’s now known, has been paying Henderson an annual salary of as much as $500,000. That’s far beyond what other nonprofit drug treatment centers in Hawaii pay their top employees.

The Sand Island Treatment Center, which provides rehab to about 300 people annually, pays salaries to its executive director and counselors far in excess of their peers.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Habilitat, for instance, a residential treatment center in Kaneohe with a budget slightly smaller than Sand Island’s, paid its executive director $88,637 in 2016. Hina Mauka, another Oahu treatment facility, took in revenue two-and-a-half times Sand Island’s, but its director got base pay of only $116,920.

Sand Island has said for a decade that Henderson’s pay is based on the Betty Ford Center, the nationally known facility in California. But even before it merged with the Hazelden Foundation in 2014, the Betty Ford Center had several times the revenue. The merged operation has almost 50 times the income of Sand Island.

Henderson’s base pay has continued to go up, even as Sand Island’s revenues have dropped by about 40 percent since 2007.

The rehab center also has paid several people identified in its tax returns as “counselors” or “senior counselors” well into six figures.

They include a former Miss Hawaii who went to Sand Island after being arrested in a drug bust in 2005. Tiffini Limahai was paid $119,126 as a counselor in 2009. According to public records, she has lived recently in a house in the Rocky Mountains owned by Henderson.

The counselor salaries eclipse the going rate in Hawaii, where a substance abuse counselor in 2016 made an average of $42,760.

Pay is set by a nonprofit’s board of directors. Sand Island’s six-member board has for years included  Henderson and one of his employees, the rehab’s chief financial officer Natividad Morin, despite nonprofit guidelines that warn of possible conflicts of interest from too many paid workers also acting as directors.

Because Sand Island’s meeting minutes are not public, Civil Beat could not determine which directors voted each year on Henderson’s pay — whether, for instance, employee Morin took part.

Now, in addition to $4.3 million in revenue from state contracts since the 2014 fiscal year, Sand Island is about to get another boost from taxpayers.

The city of Honolulu is expanding the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant into the public land occupied by the rehab.

The city this month bought a new home for Sand Island Treatment Center for $9 million, and plans to lease it back to the rehab for a nominal amount, perhaps as little as $1 a year, reasoning that it provides an essential service to the community.

The city also is setting aside as much as $1 million to pay for the center’s moving costs, though it doesn’t expect to spend that amount.

Henderson, 66, declined a request for an interview.

A Sand Island spokesman said Henderson was on the mainland for a medical procedure and provided a written statement defending the salaries of Henderson and others.

“Our current Executive Director has been serving the People of Hawaii in his position for nearly 35 years,” the statement said. “We also have the longest serving clinical staff in the State with the average time on staff of nearly 20 years. Even though we have always sought to accept the toughest and most desperate cases we have the highest long-term success rate of any Treatment Center in the State of Hawaii.”

It continued, “The compensation of our Executive Director was established through an independent study conducted by an outside compensation specialist, based here in Hawaii, who is well acquainted with compensation levels for executives in our non-profit sector. The Board of Directors voted to accept this recommended compensation in recognition of the Director’s many years of service and given his outstanding administrative and programmatic achievements.”

Sand Island declined to answer any follow-up questions, such as the origins of the data showing the highest success rate or who conducted the “independent study” of compensation.

The treatment center’s statement said it treats 300 Hawaii residents a year, and that it provided more than $5 million services for free in the 2017 fiscal year alone.

Generous Public Support

In its statement, Sand Island says that Gov. Burns first granted it permission to use the land in 1960 and that successive state and city governments “have seen the value of our work and have continued to allow us to occupy the Sand Island property.”

The rehab pays for improvements and repairs on the property, according to the statement.

The land is owned by the state, and leased by the city for the wastewater treatment plant. Andrew Pereira, spokesman for Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, said Sand Island does not have a lease with the state or the city.

The rehab was a much different operation when it first got permission to use the land almost 60 years ago. The 1969 newspaper article said the roof had come off the old Army chapel, and it was infested with rats.

The nonprofit that runs Sand Island is the Kline-Welsh Behavioral Health Foundation, named for the two founders of the original halfway house, Sid Kline and attorney Richard Welsh.

A 1974 article in the Honolulu Advertiser described the approach to the halfway house. “You go down a rutted dirt road, past the wrecked cars and trucks, the discarded refrigerators and torn mattresses, and suddenly you run into an oasis,” it said. The article described the whitewashed chapel and a set of bells from Thailand

Until 1971, the article said, the halfway house depended on the largesse of the community. Then the rehab started getting federal money for mental health treatment.

Over the years, the rehab added state money as well and grew. A 1994 public notice announced that it was applying to increase the facility’s capacity by 93 beds, from 30 to 123.

The center currently serves a mixture of patients, including those referred by courts who have not yet arranged for insurance to cover the costs, parolees and those diagnosed with both substance use disorder and mental illness, funded by the state Department of Health.

Over the years, Henderson became a go-to source for journalists reporting on addiction.

“Crystal meth is a really dirty drug with nasty side effects,” he told the Advertiser in 1998. “It’s the worst drug, because of its psychotic and violent effects.”

As for Sand Island, he told a reporter in 2003, “We help people get better. We treat them as if they’re members of our own family.”

According to Sand Island’s tax returns, he works a brutal schedule, putting in 70 hours a week.

Henderson, as an individual, has contributed almost $30,000 to political campaigns since 2007, according to the state’s Campaign Spending Commission database, including both Democrats and Republicans.

He gave a total of $6,000 to James “Duke” Aiona, the former judge and Republican lieutenant governor, in his unsuccessful run for governor in 2010. Democrat Romy Cachola got $4,000 from Henderson in his campaigns for the Hawaii House of Representatives, as did Republican Adrienne King in her unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor in 2010.

Henderson has given to other big names in Hawaii politics in various campaigns, including former governors Neil Abercrombie and Benjamin Cayetano, Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell and former mayor Mufi Hannemann.

Betty Ford Clinic-Level Pay

In an analysis of other nonprofits that provide addiction treatment, Henderson’s salary stands far ahead of the pack.

In 2016, Henderson received base pay and other benefits totaling $486,615. Six other nonprofits that provide drug treatment paid their top executives between $62,384 and $178,857. The highest of these salaries went to the chief executive of Aloha House on Maui, which in 2016 reported revenues of $11.2 million — almost triple Sand Island’s income.

The drug treatment programs differ in various ways — one treats adolescents, one focuses on traditional Hawaiian healing. Program structures vary.

Only Sand Island and Habilitat offer two-year residential programs, said Jeffrey Nash, Habitat’s executive director. And unlike Habilitat, Sand Island provides medically assisted therapy.

But in the end, Nash said, “we’re all pulling from the same pool of clientele.”

Since 2008, Sand Island’s tax returns have stated that Henderson’s pay is pegged to the Betty Ford Clinic.

The rehab explained in 2008, “A salary study, including a review of the salary structure of the Betty Ford Center, has been accomplished… The foundation’s long-standing position on essential and effective staff retention is a key consideration in these deliberations.” The most recent tax return includes the same wording.

In 2008, when Sand Island first made that comparison, the Betty Ford Clinic in California had revenues of $27.9 million, about four-and-a-half times Sand Island’s. Its chief executive officer was paid $494,769 — about $200,000 more than Henderson made that year.

Since then, the Betty Ford Center, still cited in Sand Island’s returns, has merged with the Hazelden Foundation. The combined operation brings in almost 50 times the revenue of the Honolulu rehab. The foundation’s president and chief executive officer made a total of $676,898 in 2016, compared to Henderson’s $486,615.

One year, 2005, Henderson also made $60,940 as a “consultant” in addition to his pay that year of $213,835.

The generous pay extends to counselors and others at Sand Island.

Several counselors have made more than $100,000 annually. In 2006, Yma Hasegawa, listed on Sand Island’s tax return from that year as a counselor and “cncl sp” — perhaps clinical specialist — was paid more than $200,000.

Those kinds of extraordinary salaries have continued in recent years.

Cathy Ahana, listed as a counselor in most years, made $153,027 in base pay and other compensation in 2016, the year of Sand Islands’ most recent publicly available tax return.

The public record contains some contradictory information about how much Ahana actually makes. In a divorce case in June 2009, she stated that she made $6,294 per month, which would add up to an annual salary of $75,528. Yet Sand Island’s tax returns state that in 2009, she made $144,754.

Public records state that she has lived at a Mililani house owned by Henderson.

Big Pay Down The Ranks

In 2004, a former Miss Hawaii named Tiffini K. Limahai checked into Sand Island about a week after being arrested and charged with drug offenses. Police said they found $1,000 worth of methamphetamine in a backpack she threw out during a raid at a Kailua house, according to news accounts at the time.

Tiffini Limahai, pictured in a Honolulu Advertiser photo, appears in court on drug charges. The former Miss Hawaii, also known as Tiffini Hercules, ended up making six figures as a Sand Island Treatment Center counselor.

Honolulu Advertiser

She pled guilty to possession but a judge deferred her sentence as long as she met court-ordered conditions, including drug treatment.

In Sand Island’s 2009 tax return, a “TK Limahai” is listed as one of the highest-paid workers, with a salary of $119,126 as a counselor. Because Sand Island would not answer follow-up questions, it was impossible to confirm that TK Limahai listed in the tax return was the 1998 Miss Hawaii who entered the program five years earlier, and she could not be reached for comment.

Public records show that a Tiffini K. Hercules – Limahai’s maiden name, which a court said she intended to start using again after a 2006 divorce —  has lived in recent years in a small mountain town 30 miles west of Denver. The house, described by the website Zillow as a “spectacular 5 level custom mountain home in a picturesque setting,” is owned by Henderson.

Still another counselor, May Llewellyn, made as much as $129,403 in 2012. Public records show that she, too, has lived in Henderson’s house in Mililani.

These salaries outstrip what most counselors in Hawaii get. The average pay for a substance abuse counselor in Hawaii in 2006 was $37,940, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Nash, who heads Habilitat, said his clinical director, who has been there for 15 years, makes an annual salary of about $60,000. Brand new, unlicensed counselors can expect $35,000, he said, while more experienced ones pull in $40-$50,000.

The high pay at Sand Island isn’t just reserved for counselors.

Another worker whose salary is included in Sand Island’s tax returns is W.W. Johnson, listed simply as “maintenance.” A lawsuit filed against Sand Island in 2011 cited a maintenance worker named “Bill Johnson.”

According to the rehab’s tax returns, W.W. Johnson was paid $129,390 in 2011, and more than $100,000 in five other years. His salary has not been listed on the tax return since 2012.

The board of directors, responsible for approving Henderson’s pay and overall governance, has remained remarkably stable over the years.

Glenn Pang, a 78-year-old retired doctor, and Paul G. Ramos, 89, have served on the board at least since 1998, the earliest year that the rehab’s tax returns are included on the website Guidestar, which provides information on nonprofits.

Tad Sewell of Volcano has served on the board since 2003. According to her bio on the website of the Volcano Art Center, she came to Hawaii in her early teens when it was still a territory and graduated from the Punahou School before going to college on the mainland. She designed houses in the 1970s and started a catering business, and has served on the boards of hospitals.

Only one board member, Conrad Eyre, 76, is a recent arrival, appearing on the tax returns in 2016.

Henderson, the executive director, has been on the board since at least 1998, serving during some years as secretary.

The sixth member, Natividad Morin, was named to the board in 2003 and has served since then as its treasurer.  Morin is also Sand Island’s operations director and one of its highest paid employees, reaching a peak of $141,583 in 2008.

Civil Beat was unable to reach any of the board members.

Sand Island states in its tax returns that all board members are “independent.” It’s unclear how that squares with IRS instructions. One of the conditions for a board member being independent is that they are not compensated as an employee.

In general, nonprofit watchdogs warn against giving paid employees too much influence on the board.

The Better Business Bureau, in its Standards for Charity Accountability, states that no more than one voting board member or ten percent of the board – whichever is greater — should be a “compensated person.”  Henderson and Morin together make up 33 percent of the board.

Independent Sector, a national organization of nonprofits, foundations and corporations, says that at least two-thirds of the board should be independent, a definition that includes not being paid by the nonprofit. Sand Island’s board just meets this criteria.

“Board members who are not encumbered by having a personal financial interest in the organizations they oversee will generally find it easier to exercise their ‘duty of loyalty’ that requires that they put the interests of the organization above their personal interests and make decisions they believe are in the best interest of the organization,” according to the organization’s principles.

Among other Hawaii drug treatment nonprofits in 2016, two executive directors serve on their boards, but none of the boards include two paid workers, as Sand Island’s does. Three of the organizations do not even include the executive director on their boards, which consist only of unpaid directors.

The Internal Revenue Service faces a high bar in proving that a nonprofit executive is being paid too much if the pay falls within a certain range, said Seth Perlman, a New York City attorney whose firm specializes in non-profit law. The IRS considers the salary within a “safe harbor” if the nonprofit has done a salary survey of organizations of similar size and purpose in the same geographic area, and pays its executive a certain percentage above the median salary, he said.

A nonprofit can pay more, but must clearly state the reasons, Perlman said.

If the IRS does determine that a nonprofit has unjustifiably inflated the salary – a so-called “private benefit” – it can recover the excess, as well as penalties.

City Helping Sand Island Relocate

The state Department of Health, with $3.57 million in contracts with Sand Island since the 2014 fiscal year, said it does not have authority over a community organization’s salaries.

“This is a matter between the facility’s Board and the Director,” spokeswoman Janice Okubo wrote in an email.

In response to Civil Beat’s questions about outcomes at Sand Island, Okubo provided an October annual report from the rehab showing stellar results in a survey of former clients. None, for instance, had used in the 30 days before the survey. Okubo did not respond to questions about whether or how the health department verifies the outcome reports from a contractor such as Sand Island.

The Hawaii State Judiciary has paid Sand Island $434,650 since the 2016 fiscal year to temporarily cover the cost of treatment while defendants referred by the courts apply for insurance coverage.  At least 188 defendants have been referred to the program in the past three years, spokeswoman Jan Kagehiro said.

In choosing a rehab for referral, judges and probation officers consider the results of a defendant’s substance abuse assessment. Sometimes the defendant asks to be sent to a certain program or may already be getting treatment there at the time of sentencing, Kagehiro said.

The department declined a request for an interview to discuss the Sand Island salaries.

The Department of Health Services, meanwhile, said it could not determine how much Medicaid money goes to Sand Island, as it would be processed through health care organizations.

Meanwhile, the city earlier in April finalized the purchase of a building at 524 Kaahi Street for the relocation of Sand Island Treatment Center. The building had once been used to house former inmates about to re-enter the community.

The move is scheduled for September.

The city believes that if Sand Island ever leaves the building, it could be put to good use for housing close to the new rail line.

Pereira said Henderson’s pay is a question to be addressed by the funders of the program. The city, he said, was focused on the benefits of the program to addicts.

“If we did not find a new location it would cost the community much more,” he said, “not just in dollars, but the human equation.

The post A Nonprofit Honolulu Rehab Center Mixes Taxpayer Support With Lavish Pay appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

The state would be able to spend more than $3.4 billion on new projects, repairs and maintenance over the next two years under a capital improvement project budget Senate and House finance leaders signed off on on Thursday.

The bill, House Bill 1259 SD1 CD1, now moves to the full House and Senate for a final vote.

The state is preparing a huge investment in transportation improvements, including $170 million for the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport’s new mauka concourse and $172 million for airfield improvements at airports statewide. An additional $199 million is slated for state harbors, according to a press release issued by House Finance chair Sylvia Luke’s office.

Educational facilities at the University of Hawaii are another major recipient of state spending in this budget. The budget calls for $41 million to renovate Sinclair Library at the Manoa campus and another $38 million for improvements to the parking structure there.

House and Senate finance negotiators have settled on a $3.4 billion spending plan for the next two years.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The list prepared by Luke’s office also included millions of dollars for building and refurbishing public schools statewide, including $23 million for Haaheo Elementary School on the Big Island, $5.5 million at Highlands Intermediate School on Oahu, $6 million for Kahului Elementary School on Maui and $2.6 million for Kapaa High School on Kauai.

Almost $20 million will go for design and construction of a new gymnasium with locker rooms and other facilities at Roosevelt High School.

A 2015 environmental assessment described the outdated current sports facility at Roosevelt as an “open playcourt” built in 1939, to which a roof was added in the early 1960s. Restroom facilities were reported to be substandard.

Locker rooms for girls are being added at a number of schools, including Aiea High School, Kaimuki High School, Maui High School, Mililani High School and Waianae High School.

An expansion at East Kapolei Middle School will cost $20 million.

Kahuku Medical Center will receive $1.5 million for improvements and renovations.

The state will pay $1.25 million twice, in two separate appropriations, to replace the groin to retain sand on the beach in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

The budget includes $15.2 million for the state to acquire land at Mililani Tech Park for a community arts and theater center.

No money has been appropriated so far for the construction of a new correctional facility, despite years of criticism of overcrowding and poor conditions in Hawaii’s state jails and prisons.

But $8 million has been set aside for the Maui Community Correctional Center, the locus of a recent inmate riot that state Public Safety Director Nolan Espinda blamed on overcrowding.

In addition, two separate appropriations totaling $18 million are earmarked to upgrade and improve public safety department buildings.

About $4.5 million will be spent for upgrades and improvements at the Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery.

The state will provide $8.75 million to build a water reservoir at the Lamalilo Water System on the Big Island. Hawaii island is expected to provide some matching funds toward the project.

The post State Set To Spend $3.4 Billion On Big Projects appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Hawaii lawmakers on Thursday moved on bills to tax short-term rentals, reform the bail system and require automatic recounts in close elections.

But many controversial bills have been postponed until Friday, the last of conference committee in which to move legislation.

They include bills decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, establishing a prison oversight commission, increasing the state minimum wage, allowing automatic voter registration and ranked choice voting, and taxing real estate investment trusts.

House and Senate negotiators are still working out a bill to raise the minimum wage. Action on House Bill 1191 was postponed until Friday.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

One of the most significant bills to die Thursday would have required county police departments to disclose to the Legislature the identity of an officer upon suspension or discharge beginning in 2021, and to allow for public access to information about suspended cops.

Lawmakers sought to make last-minute amendments to House Bill 285 but ultimately decided they were rushing things and running out of time. The bill can be taken up next year.

But lawmakers agreed to provide $350 million in bond funding to build a new stadium on the site of the old Aloha Stadium in Halawa.

House Bill 1586 would allow the Hawaii Community Development Authority to develop the new stadium as well as a surrounding stadium district. Sen. Glenn Wakai has long championed funding for a new stadium. He said Thursday that he’s tried for over a decade to secure funding.

House members said during a floor session in March that building a new stadium would be Hawaii’s next big public works project after construction wraps on the Honolulu rail line.

Taxing Vacation Rentals

Legislation that critics say could encourage the growth of short-term rentals in the state while permitting the government to profit off it is still in play.

Senate Bill 1292 would require operators of short-term rentals to pay transient accommodation and general excise taxes, with hosting platforms like Airbnb and HomeAway acting as tax collectors on behalf of the state. It would cover rentals that last up to six months.

Sen. Gil Keith-Agaran stepped into a meeting room before a conference committee hearing began.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Owners who fail to register with the state Department of Taxation would face citation and fines ranging from $500 a day for the first violation up to $5,000 a day for violations that have occurred three or more times.

Under the bill, the information would be kept confidential.

Late Thursday on the Senate floor, members voted 18-7 to accept SB 1292, but only after several senators spoke passionately about the negative impacts of short-term rentals on their districts.

Sen. Laura Thielen compared illegal vacation rentals to a crime that prevents local people from being able to own and rent homes. She said other neighborhoods would be destroyed, just as she said has happened with her childhood home of Kailua.

Sen. Kurt Fevella of Ewa Beach said, “We are debating something we shouldn’t be debating on … this is not legal.”

Sen. Gil Riviere of Oahu’s North Shore said the bill gives “tacit approval for illegal activity.”

But Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, supports SB 1292 because “it has $46 million attached to it … I understand people have concerns, but we need to pass a balanced budget.”

The bill awaits a final vote that is expected Friday evening. It needs 13 votes to pass.

Ala Wai Rent In Flux

The proposal to hike rental rates on boaters at the Ala Wai canal is teetering and could go either way.

Senate Bill 1257, a controversial bill that would have raised moorage fees for boaters at the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor and Keehi Lagoon Harbor has been redrafted several times but lawmakers in the House are undecided on what the percentage increase should be.

“How far apart are we right now on the language?” Sen. Kai Kahele asked the lead conferee from the House, Rep. Ryan Yamane.

Spectators, staff and lawmakers waited anxiously on Thursday as conference committees reported back on many bills.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Yamane said there is concern about the amount of the proposed increase — 50 percent — as well as the triggers for increases, and when they would occur. Kahele asked if Yamane believed there was no possible chance of a last-minute compromise.

“Let’s give it one more chance,” Yamane said.

The measure was rolled to Friday.

Live-aboard renters have not had any increases in decades. They argue that they should not be paying more when services have deteriorated so badly and harbor conditions have declined. Some have said that a hefty rent increase would force them to move elsewhere; some feared they would become homeless.

Will Minimum Wage Rise?

Hawaii lawmakers have pushed back a decision on increasing the state’s minimum wage until Friday, the last day of conference committee to keep bills alive for the 2019 session.

Rep. Aaron Ling Johanson, the lead conferee on House Bill 1191, asked his counterpart Sen. Brian Taniguchi to consider rewriting the bill to incorporate the language of another minimum wage bill that has stalled, Senate Bill 789.

HB 1191 would increase the minimum wage from the current $10.10 to $15 by 2023, and to $17 for full-time state employees and provide a tax credit to small businesses to offset burden of paying a higher wage.

Friday is a key deadline for legislation to advance and remain alive for the next legislative session.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The latest version of SB 789, which at one point called for raising the wage to $15 by 2023, leaves the dollar amount blank, although it settles on raising the wage by 2024.

It also provides lower minimum wage rates for employees who receive mandatory health care from their employers and includes persons with disabilities “generally applicable” minimum wage requirements.

A wage hike is a shared priority of Gov. David Ige and House and Senate leaders. Some social justice advocates want the figure to be $17 across the board. But business groups have warned that that is too high and could lead to layoffs and higher costs for goods and services.

Bail Reform Coming?

The Legislature appears to be seeking to address some of the problems that were exposed by a blue-ribbon task force in December that said that Hawaii is holding people it arrests for a much longer time than other jurisdictions, partly because the state is charging “excessive” bail bond amounts that people accused of crimes have been unable to pay.

On Thursday, the Legislature passed a proposed new draft of a criminal justice reform measure which will allow defendants to be released on unsecured bonds, which will allow people charged with crimes to get out of jail without committing themselves to repaying large sums of money. It was one of the recommendations urged by the task force.

Senate Bill 192 was originally a more comprehensive measure but the final bill focused more narrowly on the issue of unsecured bail bonds.

The legislation would allow the court to take into consideration the defendant’s employment status and history, family relationships, ties to the community and prior criminal record in determining whether to release the suspect while awaiting trial.

Lawmakers have until May 2 to conclude business.

Anthony Quintano/Civil Beat

A few other pieces of the task force’s bail reform recommendations showed up in House Bill 1552, which would create an oversight commission to monitor the state’s correctional system.

That bill includes language that requires correctional centers to consider the offender’s likelihood of flight or risk of violence in determining whether the suspect should be released while awaiting trial.

It also calls for the correctional department employees to consider the financial circumstances of suspects, with monetary bail to be set at “reasonable amounts based on all available information.”

The legislation requires the oversight commission to periodically review the population of pretrial detainees to determine if individuals should remain in custody or be released.

On Thursday, HB 1552 was deferred until Friday to determine if appropriations would be approved to permit the new panel to be established.

Harassment Protections Falter

Two bills — one relating to sexual harassment claims and the other to sexual assault and sexual harassment — were deferred indefinitely Thursday, and for identical reasons.

Senate Bill 1041 would not let employers require nondisclosure agreements involving sexual assault and sexual harassment as part of a worker’s conditions of employment. Bosses could also not retaliate against an employee for disclosing harassment or assault.

Senate Bill 1048 would make confidentiality clauses in employment contracts unenforceable when sexual harassment claims arise. It  would also require arbitration agreements regarding such claims, and make mandatory confidentiality clauses in an arbitration agreement unenforceable.

Sen. Laura Thielen and her mother, Rep. Cynthia Thielen, earlier this year. Sen. Thielen wrote the Senate’s sexual harassment legislation.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Sen. Brian Taniguchi, the lead conferee on both bills, said the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission has “serious concerns” about both bills, although he did not elaborate. Instead, he recommended that lawmakers work on the bills and bring them back next year.

Rep. Aaron Ling Johanson, Taniguchi’s counterpart, agreed.

Afterward, Rep. Cynthia Thielen expressed her disappointment over the outcome of both bills, which were authored by her daughter, Sen. Laura Thielen.

“We need more women in government so that we can have laws that are fair to our gender,” she said

Cynthia Thielen worried that the same thing would happen to House Bill 18, Thielen’s own bill, which would repeal statutory limitations on the time period in which a survivor of childhood sexual abuse may file a lawsuit.

As Civil Beat reported this week, there seemed to be broad agreement among lawmakers, and yet the bill was still in limbo. Thielen was not named a bill conferee.

In the end, HB 18 was moved to Friday. According to Thielen’s office, Rep. Chris Lee has proposed exempting churches, organizations and government agencies but allow plaintiffs to sue individual perpetrators.

Automatic Recounts Passes

Senate Bill 216 would require automatic recounts in close races where the difference in votes is 0.25% or 100 votes.

The bill doesn’t state how the recounts should be conducted, whether it be by hand or machine. Recount procedures would be left up to the chief elections officer.

SB 216 requires the recount to be completed within 72 hours after the polls close on election day. Candidates would then have three days to file an election challenge after the final results are posted.

Voting reforms were among the Legislature’s top priorities going into this year’s session following the elections challenges that saw Tommy Waters usurp Trevor Ozawa for a Honolulu City Council seat and another that jeopardized Sen. Kurt Fevella’s election in Ewa.

A measure to implement all-mail voting statewide cleared a conference committee earlier this week.

Coming Friday

Senate Bill 427 would implement a ranked choice voting system for special federal elections or elections to decide any empty county council seats beginning in 2020. The final version of the bill has been paired down from its original, which would’ve implemented the new system in all elections.

The bill is slated to be decided Friday along with a slew of others that face a 6 p.m deadline to proceed.

Lawmakers are still considering House Bill 673, which a conference committee moved to Friday. The bill would allow medical pakalolo dispensaries to transfer licenses.

It also provides medical marijuana cardholders with greater protections against discrimination form their employers. House representatives take issue with that part of the bill, which was included by the Senate.

Sen. Roz Baker is still working with House members on a measure regulating electronic cigarettes.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

‘The issue is that employers have no way of determining if someone is too impaired to work.

Sen. Roz Baker said that she is working with the House Finance Committee to revise Senate Bill 1405, which would impose greater licensing fees on stores selling liquid for electronic cigarettes.

Lawmakers from the House and Senate Transportation Committees have yet to agree on several bills that would raise the daily surcharge tax on rental vehicles, slap hefty fines on vehicle abandoners and automatically register anyone who applies for a license as a voter in Hawaii.

However, they agreed on Thursday to a measure that would allow drivers to list “X” as a sex designation on licenses instead of “male” or “female.”

A bill that would have created a negotiating committee to discuss increasing the share of ceded land revenues paid by state departments to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs appears dead for the moment.

The House discharged its conferees hours before a hearing on House Bill 402 Thursday afternoon, effectively killing the bill. The likely culprit is disagreements between the House and Senate over their versions of the bill.

The House considered increasing OHA’s share of the ceded land payment from $15 million a year to $35 million a year. The Senate erased the amounts and instead set up the negotiating committee.

The 2019 session is scheduled to end May 2.

The post A Flurry Of Deal-Making At The Hawaii Legislature As End Of Session Looms appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Once you sell your soul, there is no need for a conscience; once you lose integrity, the rest is easy. Recall that Mary tempted Jesus Christ with all the power and wealth of the world, but Jesus shrugged and shunned it.

But, not so with the Thirty Meter Telescope. So lusty are the business advocates of the TMT that they would ignore your conscience, sap your spirit, and disregard your places of worship.

What’s next, opening bars and clubs at the Vatican next to the Sistine Chapel, just to make extra dough? Why not? After all, money rules. But, that is a rough equivalent of what they are doing atop Mauna Kea, in the eyes of many.

That Mauna Kea is and has been a place of worship is a veritable fact. Tens of thousands of Hawaiians believe and attest to that. This enough is sufficient to respect their beliefs. That some Hawaiians want the TMT there does not mean that Mauna Kea ceases to be a major place of worship accepted by the vast populace.

The state wouldn’t destroy a hundred-year old building in the state for its historical value, but they have no qualms about desecrating a place of worship that is thousands of years old.

We know what happens when those of one religion force themselves on another. The Al Aqsa mosque was built atop King Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem; a mosque was built atop Lord Rama’s temple in Ayodhya, India. But, the mayhem and turmoil that followed hurt much too many.

Backers of the Thirty Mile Telescope are considering alternative sites in the Canary Islands. Pictured here is the Nordic Optical Telescope, Observatorio Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Canary Islands.

Flickr: Victor R. Ruiz

Oh, why step on someone’s toes and tread on their feelings? Why take away a sacred place of worship? Doesn’t it hurt your conscience? Oh sorry, you probably already sold your soul to the dollar. Moreover, modern atheism that powers the insensitivity of people has reached abhorrent depths that does not bode well for our survival.

The state and the TMT businessmen have shown no respect for religion and faith. And, what good does it do to usurp someone’s property? In and of itself, this is a sin. Directly, this feels absolutely like colonial oppression once again. And, the state hasn’t thought what karma it would gain. But, such thinking might be beyond them.

The $1.4 billion for the project can be raised or spent in other ways. Hawaii needs to focus on real problems without trampling on minorities and the traditional faith of people.

For instance, $1.4 billion can be spent on ocean thermal energy conversion, which is green energy. That can give more returns and jobs than what the TMT can, besides securing our future. Then, there’s money to be spent on plasma arc gasification that would eliminate the need for future landfills.

Indubitably, the returns from OTEC are very profitable — like reducing the cost of electricity by a third; and the returns from PAG will reduce landfill maintenance costs, as well as stop the spread of landfills to other parts of the island. Thus, OTEC and PAG are more necessary for the survival of Hawaii than is the TMT. Gazing at the stars is a nice pastime, but it stops there.

It is interesting that Israeli law prohibits the destruction of a place of worship. Despite the anger they feel against their neighbors, they have not pulled down the Al Aqsa mosque that was built atop King Solomon’s temple, though doing so would be easy. There’s a lesson to be learned from this.

But, it appears that our human nature in Hawaii is destructive: we would rather destroy someone else’s habitat than be creative on our own. Empathy has become a bad word these days, while the display of empathy is dubbed anti-science and anti-modernism.

Facts On The Ground

But, there is lots of other science to pursue here on earth in the vicinity of Hawaii: the coral are dying and the beaches are subsiding. Further, local farming is still ignored, relatively. To ignore the facts on the ground, but eyeing the stars is a pure sign of eccentricity.

The University of Hawaii and DLNR used every unholy trick to disempower people who consider Mauna Kea sacred, and succeeded. People of other religions — and investors and business people — came with their rose-colored glasses to tell the Hawaiians how to worship, where to worship. This was the height of a holier-than-thou attitude. There is nothing the manipulators won’t stoop to: the depths for the damned are limitless.

“We would rather destroy someone else’s habitat than be creative on our own.”

Many opposed the project, and the opponents requested a contested case hearing. It was discovered that the Board of Land and Natural Resources illegally approved the University of Hawaii Hilo’s conservation district use application by issuing a permit. The opponents sued. And, a 1,500-person march filled the streets of Honolulu, but the state was unmoved and persisted in brushing-off the worshippers’ positions.

But, in a victory for the appellants, the Hawaii Supreme Court handed the case back to the Circuit Court. Consequently, a new case hearings officer was selected by BLNR, but without following proper protocol, where the hearings officer emerged with a conflict of interest, declaring membership in the Imiloa Astronomy Center. How blatant and in your face could that be, like robbery in broad daylight?

As expected, the case hearings officer ruled in favor of BLNR and UH. Who cares for hearts and minds anymore?

In the final blow by the courts, the death knell was given to the sanctity of a genuine place of worship. This is what the rule of the majority gives you.

But, the heart itself is a temple of worship. Disregard devotional worship and you disregard the universe. In contrast, imagine innovative solutions and a path can be found. Decision-making is not easy, but the state has shown its heartlessness.

Nevertheless, the story is not over. The TMT team is still working on a possible site in the Canary islands. In addition, the Hawaiians have a continuing plan to agitate against the construction.

The owners of TMT may well decide it is not worth their while to stay in Hawaii. In fact, they sensed trouble 10 years ago when the idea was floated, which is why they began exploring the Canary Islands as a possible alternate site.

Negotiations at the Canary Islands are apparently going well. We could have told them years ago to save everyone’s time, money, and energy and go to the Canary Islands, for sure. Here, they will face resistance long into the future. There, the canaries can sing for them till their black holes swallow Earth.

Here is a possible canary in the coal mine for TMTs plans for Hawaii. The easier choice is a low-hanging fruit that can be seen as large as through a telescope.

The post Let’s Send The TMT To The Canary Islands appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

As entrepreneurs try to build up small, authentically Hawaii businesses, they also face the realities of doing business in paradise: high shipping costs, onerous taxes, the challenge of finding and keeping good employees.

Mana Up, a Honolulu business accelerator, is working to help these fledgling ventures lift off. We talked to the members of Mana Up’s latest cohort — a swimsuit designer, fish jerky maker, textile designer and more — and found the diverse group of businesses share many of the same challenges.

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

The post Will One Of These Fledgling Companies Be Hawaii’s Next Big Brand? appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

WASHINGTON — Hawaii Congressman Ed Case is a sugar man. It runs through his blood.

Case’s grandfather and uncle both worked in the Aloha State’s once-dominant sugar industry. While Case himself never took part in the business directly, he still considers it a part of his island identity.

When he first moved to Washington in the mid-1970s to work as a legislative aide to then-U.S. Rep. Spark Matsunaga Hawaii’s sugarcane was still a top priority.

Now, more than four decades later, it still is despite the fact that sugar shut down in 2016 when Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar closed its last mill on Maui.

The Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar mill on Maui closed in 2016, marking the end of an era in Hawaii agriculture.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The nation’s sugar interests look to Case as their advocate in Congress.

That was no more clear than in the first quarter of 2019 when the congressman reported receiving $15,500 in campaign contributions from political action committees associated with the industry.

“We don’t have sugar in Hawaii anymore, but we still do have significant sugar interests throughout the country,” Case said. “Those interests are comfortable with my knowledge of the industry and want to support somebody that appreciates their issues.”

Disclosure Is His Priority

The fact that Case is so open about his support from the industry can feel like an anachronism in 2019.

Many of his Democratic colleagues — and particularly those running for president — boast of disavowing corporate PAC money and the influence of Washington lobbyists by refusing their campaign donations.

Case, meanwhile, received nearly all of his first quarter contributions from political action committees, many affiliated with major industries, such as sugar, defense, tourism and Walmart.

He also accepted a donation from a lobbyist who used to work as Case’s fundraising consultant the first time he was in Congress.

Case said one of the reasons his latest Federal Election Commission filing sticks out is because he wasn’t actively fundraising outside of Washington.

He was too busy getting his office up and running, he said, meaning much of the money that came his way was solicited by a consultant working for his campaign or through meetings with various interest groups whose views happen to align with his own.

“I completely believe in campaign finance and ethical reform, but I don’t believe that extends to no PAC money at all,” Case said.

Congressman Ed Case says he carefully vets the donations that come into his campaign.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The congressman is a proponent of H.R. 1, the first bill introduced by the new Democratic House majority that seeks to fight corruption in government and limit the power of money in politics through increased transparency and oversight.

Patrick Burgwinkle of End Citizens United says that while his organization encourages candidates to renounce corporate PAC money there are other avenues available for taking money out of the system.

“One way leaders can send a powerful message to voters about whose interests they will represent in Washington is to reject corporate PAC money,” Burgwinkle said. 

“Rep. Case is a strong supporter of the For The People Act and has demonstrated his commitment to making politics more transparent and responsive to the concerns of everyday residents of Hawaii.”

Case doesn’t subscribe to the perception that just because you accept money from someone — whether it’s an individual or a PAC — you’re automatically beholden to them.

“It’s interesting to me that a fair number of the candidates who disavow PAC money have already built up very large war chests that were funded in part by PAC money.” — Ed Case

He said his campaign is discerning when it comes to taking money. For instance, he said he won’t take contributions from organizations such as the National Rifle Association or any businesses associated with large pharmaceutical companies.

He also won’t take money from groups that do not disclose where their money is coming from. In essence, that’s his pledge against dark money.

“I’m celebrating my 25th year since I first ran for office in 1994 and I have received contributions throughout that period from a great variety of individuals and businesses and PACs, and I think my record of making my own decisions is pretty straight forward,” Case said.

“Of course any time you get a contribution from somebody there’s going to be somebody else out there who says you’re beholden to them, but that’s not the way I run my ship.”

Backing From Tribes

For the most part, Case said he knows who’s giving money to his campaign, and when it came to the PACs who donated to him in the first quarter he had conversations with most of them. 

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who’s running for president, was an early adopter of the pledge to renounce PAC money.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Unsolicited donations, of course, do raise red flags, he said, but that doesn’t always mean he’ll give the money back.

Case’s campaign received $2,000 from two PACs affiliated with American Indian tribes, the Chickasaw Nation and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. The congressman said that money came to him unexpectedly but not unsurprisingly.

Although he hadn’t had any conversations with members of the tribes, he does sit on the House Natural Resources Committee and is a member of the subcommittee on indigenous people.

As someone who represents Native Hawaiians — who are also an indigenous group within the U.S. — the motivation behind the donations seemed to align with Case’s own interests, which meant he was OK hanging on to the money.

“It was clear to me that those are federally recognized tribes that simply want to maintain and improve their relationship with the United States and I was fine with that,” Case said. “I always ask who’s offering me money. If a check shows up and I don’t initially know anything about that organization or person I’m going to ask myself if I’m OK accepting that.”

Such perspective means Case has no plans to join his Democratic colleagues who make a big deal out of disavowing PAC money and blocking donations from lobbyists.

“Each member of Congress makes his or her own decisions about fundraising,” Case said. “It’s interesting to me that a fair number of the candidates who disavow PAC money have already built up very large war chests that were funded in part by PAC money.”

Case declined to name any specific politicians, but in the presidential field alone there are several Democratic candidates who have backed away from corporate PACs despite accepting the money from them in the past.

“I’m not going to speculate about what their motivations are or aren’t,” Case said. “I’m just running my own show and, frankly, I’m running my show the same way I’ve run it for a quarter century.”

The post Ed Case: Some PAC Money Is OK As Long As He Knows Where It’s Coming From appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

The Real Estate Investment Trusts taxation bill, Senate Bill 301, has advanced this far into the legislative session because a grassroots movement had a simple message: Some of the largest landowners in our state — including the Ala Moana and Pearl Ridge Shopping Centers and the Hilton Hawaiian Village — do not pay Hawaii corporate income tax, while these grassroots citizens as well as other corporations and property owners pay their fair share.

REITs own about $18 billion worth of properties in Hawaii, and DBEDT estimates that the corporate tax on income earned from these REITs properties would total in the tens of millions of dollars annually.

As a retired Hawaii tax attorney with 45 years of corporate tax law experience and five years working at the IRS, I’d like to point out that the REITs’ argument that they shouldn’t have to pay Hawaii corporate income tax because they also pay general excise tax and property tax is absurd and disingenuous at best.

That’s as if the REIT executives stated they should not be paying Hawaii personal income tax because they already pay property tax on their houses and GET on every purchase from Longs.

The Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki is owned by a company that does not pay corporate income tax.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Moreover, property tax and GET on commercial properties are effectively paid by the tenants and merely collected and passed on to the Hawaii tax authorities by REITs or any other real estate owner.

Federal law provides that REIT shareholders pay income tax on REIT earnings when distributed as dividends. And as a practical matter, close to 100% of REIT earnings are distributed annually as dividends to their shareholders. States with income taxes receive a tax on the dividends paid to their resident shareholders on REIT income.

Other States Do It

Hawaii’s problem is that we have the largest amount of REIT investment in the country per capita, but a minuscule portion of REIT shareholders — only about 3% of Hawaii REIT shareholders reside in this state. Thus, the income tax from Hawaii real estate that clearly deserves to be paid to Hawaii is in fact being paid to other states.

The federal government has a similar problem with respect to non-U.S. resident REIT shareholders. The federal government simply applies a withholding tax to REIT dividends, which the REITs then pay over to the Treasury.

This is basically identical to the withholding we all see in our paychecks, and is currently collected for some smaller Hawaii real estate companies with nonresident shareholders and being considered by the legislature for real estate partnerships.

Like payroll withholding, REIT shareholders would receive a credit in their home state for tax already withheld for them in Hawaii. It would just put the income tax dollars into the coffers of the State where the services were provided to earn the income.

It’s hard for me to understand why the REITs have not been willing to simply accept this alternative, rather than risking a direct corporate income tax, as proposed in SB 301.

“Hawaii has many problems that could be addressed with this revenue.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if some local REITs that have otherwise been such outstanding Hawaii corporate citizens would say something like, “It’s fair that the state of Hawaii collect GET, property, and income tax for the services it provides to those owning prime Hawaii real estate.”

“Hawaii has many problems that could be addressed with this revenue. Hawaii is suffering more from this REITs tax situation than any other state in the country, so naturally should be a leader in rectifying the inequity.”

Only in the land of aloha would this even be a possibility.

The post It’s Absurd That REIT Income Is Not Taxed In Hawaii appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

HONOLULU (AP) — New census figures indicate the population on Oahu fell by tens of thousands over the previous eight years.

Census data from 2010 to 2018 shows Oahu’s overall population decreased by 62,000.

Net migration loss on Oahu from 2016 to 2017 was more than 14,000, while about 13,000 more residents departed than arrived between 2017 and 2018.

A county population previously headed for 1 million dropped from nearly 993,000 in 2016 to 980,000 by 2018, figures showed.

Oahu’s population declined by about 62,000 people in the last eight year, driven in part by the high cost of living and a booming mainland economy

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

No other county experienced a population drop close to Honolulu County, which includes all of Oahu, with Maui County the only other showing a net migration loss.

Oahu’s high cost of living and employment in mainland states were likely factors, officials said.

“The mainland in recent years is booming with more job opportunities,” said Eugene Tian, Hawaii’s chief economist.

Military deployment also contributed. Oahu’s military population decreased from nearly 50,000 in 2014 to about 43,000 in 2018, according to the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism.

Hawaii’s state population also fell from nearly 1.43 million in 2016 to 1.42 million in 2018.

Honolulu County now makes up 69% of the state’s population, down from 72.3% in 2000. The Big Island makes up 14.1% of the state population, while Maui County has 11.8% and Kauai County has about 5%.

Tourist numbers have gone in the opposite direction. Visitor arrivals to Hawaii reached an all-time high in 2018 for the seventh year in a row.

The post Census: Oahu’s Population Declined From 2010-18 appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

While nearly all lawmakers wanted to increase Hawaii’s minimum wage this year, state House and Senate negotiators threw in the towel Friday afternoon.

The sticking point was “serious concerns,” as Rep. Aaron Johanson said, from the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

The agency advised that allowing one rate increase from the current $10.10 an hour to $15 an hour by 2024 — but also allowing an increase to just $13 for employees that are provided health care — could invite legal challenges.

Rep. Aaron Johanson, second from left, and Sen. Brian Taniguchi, at right, meeting on the minimum wage bill Thursday at the Capitol. The measure died Friday.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

A last-minute proposal from Johanson to his counterpart, Sen. Brian Taniguchi, called for an annual incremental increase to $15 in 2024.

Instead, the two sides deferred House Bill 1191 but promised to bring up an improved measure next January.

Taniguchi expressed disappointment while Johanson termed the turn of events “bittersweet.”

As HB 1191 went into conference committee two weeks ago, the bill called for raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2023. It would also provide an  income tax credit for small businesses to offset their higher overhead.

As well, any full-time worker employed by the state would see their wage grow to $17 an hour.

But that option also presented difficulties, because it created different standards for different workers.

And the tax credit could be seen as a subsidy which might, as Johanson said, bring “unintended consequences” to the state’s 1974 Hawaii Prepaid Health Care Act. It requires employers to provide health care to employee that work at least 20 hours a week.

“We do not want to compromise health care,” he said.

Top Priority

House and Senate leaders said at the beginning of session in January that there was broad agreement on raising the minimum wage. Gov. David Ige wanted the increase as well.

But early disagreement surfaced on the exact figure. Was $15 acceptable, or should it be $17 an hour — described as “a living wage” — given the high cost of living in Hawaii?

Ige and lawmakers also wanted to make sure that local small business, which in addition to having the health care mandate also face high taxes, were not overly burdened. The tax credit was seen as a way to ease their pain.

Supporters wearing Living Wage Hawaii shirts listening to a minimum hearing earlier this year.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Members of the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii and social justice groups like Faith Action for Community Equity and many others packed conference committee rooms as the bill moved through session.

By Friday, however, with a 6 p.m. deadline hovering for all bills to stay alive, Johanson and Taniguchi — the labor committee chairs — reluctantly agreed to try again next year.

The post Minimum Wage Increase Dead For 2019 Session appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

The state Department of Public Safety may soon be subject to more effective public scrutiny, improved conditions in the jails for inmates and people suspected of crimes and see much-needed pre-sentencing reforms.

Two bills passed Friday came in the waning days of a tumultuous legislative session where the shortcomings in the state’s corrections department were highlighted by news reports of a riot at the overcrowded Maui Community Correctional Center and an effort to unseat public safety director Nolan Espinda. He was nevertheless reconfirmed in his post Wednesday amid allegations of wrongdoing and mismanagement.

But even as they voted to let Espinda keep his position, lawmakers pledged to do a better job supervising the department. On Friday, a conference committee unanimously a measure designed to make it easier to keep tabs on the department’s performance in the future.

Sen. Clarence Nishihara, left, and Rep. Gregg Takayama shepherded major justice reform measures through the Legislature.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

House Bill 1552 — which still needs to get through the full House and Senate and then Gov. David Ige — was initially a narrow bill to provide more oversight of the department and address long-standing criticisms of the state’s correctional system. In the final weeks of the session, the measure was modified to include bail reform and a more comprehensive system to monitor the workings of the corrections department.

The measure would create a five-member criminal justice oversight commission, assisted by an independent, experienced administrator with correctional system experience, who would investigate complaints at the state’s jails and prisons and monitor inmate treatment and re-entry programs.

The commission, to be located in the state attorney general’s office, would also establish maximum inmate population limits for each state detention facility.

The bill would create a criminal justice institute, a separate body to collect information about how the public safety department is operating and review how inmates are being treated. It would track how recent changes in criminal justice practices in Hawaii are actually working, monitor national trends in corrections systems nationwide and look for ways Hawaii can benefit from new programs and procedures elsewhere.

Another part of the bill expedites the bail process so that people suspected of minor crimes no longer sit in jail for long periods while they await their trials. Suspects who are not dangerous would be permitted to post bail seven days a week instead of being kept in detention over the weekend if they are arrested on Friday.

The legislation was initially proposed at the urging of a blue-ribbon task force including judges, prosecutors, parole authorities, criminal justice reformers and Native Hawaiian activists who found the corrections system is “not producing acceptable, cost-effective, or sustainable outcomes and needs immediate and profound change.”

Hawaii Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald attended the conference committee hearing where the bill was passed. The committee was led by Rep. Gregg Takayama, chair of the House Public Safety, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, and Sen. Clarence Nishihara, chair of the Senate Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs Committee. Conferees unanimously passed the measure.

“It’s historic, a big day,” Recktenwald said.

Takayama said he was very pleased with the vote.

“I’m so happy,” he said. “I think this is one of the key achievements for public safety, and for the Legislature, this year.”

Hawaii Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald is flanked by Sen. Clarence Nishihara, left, and Rep. Gregg Takayama after a conference committee agreed on a bill that would put in place better prison oversight and improvements to the bail system.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Another measure, House Bill 336, which would require the public safety department to provide information about inmate deaths also passed the full Legislature Friday and is now on its way to the governor.

Critics of the state’s corrections department have raised particular questions about inmate deaths and suicides, particularly those of women, that they said had not been thoroughly explained.

The bill requires the department of public safety to report the deaths of inmates or guards within 48 hours to the governor, who will provide the information to the Legislature. It also requires the department to preserve forensic evidence that would allow investigators to determine if there is any indication that a sexual assault led to the death.

The public safety committee chairmen said a $5.1 million appropriation had been arranged to repair the Maui jail, and a total of $5.4 million to house inmates from Halawa Correctional Facility who are being held in Arizona because of construction delays at Halawa.

On Thursday, the House Finance and Senate Ways and Means Committee authorized about $8 million for additional construction of facilities at the Maui jail.

As the conference committee meeting ended, Nishihara, who had led the ultimately unsuccessful effort to unseat Espinda, exchanged a warm smile of congratulations with Takayama, his peer on the House side, soon after they passed the oversight legislation.

“It’s a satisfying end to the last conference committee,” Nishihara told Takayama.

The post Legislative Committees Move Prison And Bail Reform Closer To Reality appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.