Honolulu Police Department Sgt. Darren Cachola has a troubling history with allegations of abuse spanning almost his entire HPD career. 

Over the past 17 years he’s been accused of violently assaulting multiple women, including his wife, a girlfriend and the mother of his child.

Throughout it all he’s been able to keep his job as a police officer, even though police officials have fired him once. A union arbitrator gave him back his job in a decision that has been kept under wraps while the police union fights to keep it from being made public.

HPD Sgt. Darren Cachola was arrested last week in connection with domestic abuse charges. It’s not the first time he’s faced accusations of assaulting a household member.

HPD

The most recent incident occurred last week. Cachola was arrested on April 24 by HPD and charged with two counts of harassment and one count of abuse of a household member.

While HPD has refused to release details surrounding the arrest, Eric Seitz, an attorney representing Cachola’s wife, says the charges are based on an early morning attack against his client the day before. 

Coincidentally, Seitz filed a lawsuit that same day against Cachola, HPD and several officers in connection with an another alleged attack dating two years earlier. Seitz says Cachola choked the woman and other officers who responded tried to cover up the assault.

At the time in 2017, Cachola was trying to get his job back at HPD after a previous domestic violence incident — this one in 2014 –that had resulted in his termination. That one was highly publicized — he’d been caught on taping punching his girlfriend in a Waipahu restaurant. An arbitrator ultimately reinstated him in 2018.

According to the recent lawsuit, Cachola’s wife called 911 after he drunkenly strangled her. When officers arrived they convinced her not to file charges and to write the following statement:  “I got into an argument with my husband, I have no injuries, thank you.”

Seitz says when he filed the lawsuit last week he had no idea his client was again the victim of alleged abuse by Cachola.

“This guy is not deterred by anything, and the reason he’s not deterred is because he says, ‘I’m a police officer, they’re going to protect me,’” Seitz said. 

It’s a three-tiered problem, he said. 

The police department doesn’t respond appropriately, the union fights like hell to defend the officer and the Honolulu Police Commission — the sole independent oversight agency that’s supposed to be a check on problem officers — doesn’t have much power when it comes to discipline.

“As long as institutionally these kinds of abusers are protected and defended it’s going to go on until someone is killed,” he added. 

“These guys have guns. These guys are trained to kill. As far as I’m concerned the police department and the union are enabling them by placing them out there on the street at great risk to the public.”

‘This Isn’t Shoplifting, People’

Darren Cachola captured the public spotlight in 2014 when he was caught on surveillance video punching his girlfriend in a Waipahu restaurant.

He would soon become the symbol for HPD’s struggle to address domestic violence both within its own ranks and outside the department when officers responded to domestic calls.

Images of Cachola taking full-bodied swings at his girlfriend sparked outrage in the community and reverberated in the halls of Honolulu Hale and the Hawaii State Capitol, particularly among women lawmakers.

The Hawaii Women’s Legislative Caucus immediately demanded answers from then-Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha.

Although police responded to the restaurant, Cachola was never arrested or charged. The responding officers didn’t write any police reports. Instead, they gave him a ride home because he was too drunk to drive.

Kealoha said at the time that there wasn’t enough evidence to support an arrest. He then kicked the case over to Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Keith Kaneshiro for a second opinion.

Kaneshiro’s office convened a grand jury that refused to indict Cachola. Witnesses at the restaurant the night of the fight refused to testify, prosecutors said at the time.

And Cachola’s girlfriend, who was called to the grand jury, also denied Cachola was acting out of line. She said the two of them were just playing around.

That didn’t stop Kealoha from firing Cachola in 2015 and disciplining the officers who responded to the incident.

But the termination didn’t stick. Cachola with the help of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers appealed his discharge through a grievance process allowed under the collective bargaining agreement.

“It’s embarrassing.” — Honolulu Police Commission Chairwoman Loretta Sheehan

For nearly three years the appeal played out behind closed doors, and in 2018 — a year after Kealoha himself was forced out and indicted for public corruption — HPD Chief Susan Ballard announced Cachola was getting his job back.

Not only would he be reinstated, but he was also owed back pay. According to HPD, an arbitrator had reduced his firing to a six-month suspension.

The union, meanwhile, has tried to block access to the arbitrator’s decision by filing legal challenges in court that have been opposed by both HPD and Civil Beat.

Honolulu Police Commission Chairwoman Loretta Sheehan says she’s not yet allowed to discuss the results of Cachola’s arbitration due to SHOPO’s ongoing legal challenge.

Like others in the community, she says she’s struggling to comprehend the recent allegations against Cachola and why he’s still on the police force.

She also said she’s disappointed that another officer, Cpl. Justin Castro, was arrested last week on domestic violence charges.

“It’s frustrating to see Sgt. Cachola back in the news and it’s frustrating to have him repeatedly tarnishing the reputation of the department,” Sheehan said.

“It’s embarrassing. It begs the bigger question of whether HPD beat officers, the prosecutor’s office, judges, probation officers and even the state legislature view violence against a woman as an unfortunate incident or a violation of the basic human right to live safely. This isn’t shoplifting, people.”

Honolulu Police Commission Chair Loretta Sheehan has tried for years to get Hawaii law enforcement to take domestic violence more seriously.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The Problem Continues

Sheehan was appointed to the police commission by Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell in 2016 in part because of her background  advocating for domestic violence victims.

She participated in the legislative hearings that resulted after the 2014 Cachola video surfaced and even then urged stricter enforcement of the laws that were already on the books.

Still, with Cachola’s arrest she said she’s jaded by the lack of progress.

In addition to Cachola and Castro, two other HPD officers were arrested in April and charged with misdemeanors related to incidents of domestic violence.

Troy Stewart, a nine-year veteran officer who was arrested April 21 at Honolulu International Airport near the Hawaiian Airlines baggage claim after her allegedly shoved a woman, according to news reports.

HPD would not reveal the name of the fourth officer.

All four officers have been stripped of their police powers and reassigned to administrative jobs.

At a press conference Tuesday, Ballard said criminal and administrative charges are pending against three of the four officers.

Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard says she is addressing the problem of domestic abuse by police officers through new programs within the department.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

State prosecutors have declined to pursue the charge of abuse of a household member against one of the officers, but administrative charges against him are still pending, Ballard said.

If any of the officers are convicted, Ballard said they “will more than likely lose their job.” Domestic abusers are prohibited from possessing a firearm under a federal law passed by Congress in 1996.

Approximately five to seven HPD officers face domestic violence charges in a typical year, according to Ballard. The four April incidents mark the first domestic violence charges against HPD officers this year.

“Any time an officer is involved in domestic violence we take it very seriously,” Ballard said, adding that she has started addressing the topic of domestic violence, as well as infidelity, when she meets with officers during regular reviews. 

Ballard said the department is also ramping up voluntary resilience training and partnering with the police union to examine other ways to support police officers in avoiding domestic violence.

Numerous bills have been introduced in the Legislature over the years to improve the prosecution of domestic violence in Hawaii and provide support for victims of abusers, but hardly any have become law.

The same goes for most legislation seeking to address officer misconduct and the lack of transparency that surrounds it.

That’s why Sheehan says she’s curious to see if Seitz’s lawsuit will go anywhere.

The legal action targets Cachola and his pocketbook directly, meaning that if a jury sides with the plaintiff justice won’t have to come from the institutions that repeatedly fall short of holding abusers accountable.

‘He Has A Jealousy Problem’

In 2002, six years after Darren Cachola joined HPD, the mother of one of Cachola’s children filed for a temporary restraining order against him citing a series of violent episodes, from choking and kicking to biting and forced sex.

According to court records, the woman said Cachola would harass her both at home and at work. She said on one occasion he even kicked through a metal security door and threw beer bottles at her home.

“He has a jealousy problem,” she wrote. “I think that if I begin a relationship he will come after me. He has attacked people for just looking or talking to me.”

A judge initially granted the restraining order on June 21, 2002 and made sure a copy was sent to Cachola’s commanding officer at HPD.

“If this restraining order is granted, Darren will lose his position and possibly lose his job.” — Katherine Kealoha

A hearing was set for July and Cachola hired Katherine Kealoha, who was then an attorney in private practice, to represent him in the case. 

Kealoha is the wife of the former police chief. Today, the couple currently faces a slew of federal felonies related to corruption and abuse of power.

But back then, in court papers, Katherine Kealoha accused Cachola’s ex-girlfriend of lying and trying to manipulate the system to get Cachola into trouble at HPD.

Katherine Kealoha, seen here with her husband, former HPD chief Louis Kealoha, once represented Darren Cachola in a case involving a temporary restraining order.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Kealoha then described Cachola as a caring father who would do anything to see his kid. She also offered two character witnesses to testify about how Cachola is “physically big in stature, but is very soft at heart.”

“If this restraining order is granted, Darren will lose his position and possibly lose his job,” Kealoha wrote. “Darren has not hurt, harmed or threatened (her) in any way; yet she has been able to control the very job that Darren has worked so hard to get.

“Darren’s employment is directly and adversely affected by this restraining order, which is not warranted.”

On July 2, 2002, the temporary restraining order was dissolved, but the conflict was not over.

Seven years later, in 2009, Cachola and the woman, who had since gotten married to each other, filed competing restraining orders.

The woman said Cachola had continued to physically abuse her while Cachola said she was using the opportunity to make false complaints against him in an attempt to threaten his job.

SHOPO ‘Opens The Door’ For Cachola

Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard has made domestic violence a top-tier issue since taking over the position, although some advocates have said her department has fallen short.

Ballard declined an interview earlier with Civil Beat about Darren Cachola’s recent arrest. And at the press conference Tuesday, wouldn’t elaborate on the specific allegations against him. 

She said any change in the process covering discharge and the officer’s ability to file a grievance would have to come through the Legislature.

SHOPO president Malcolm Lutu also did not respond to Civil Beat’s requests for comment.

But in an interview with KHON2 News last week he said the allegations described in the latest lawsuit against Cachola are false and that the other officers named in the complaint were cleared of any wrongdoing.

As for Cachola getting his job back, Lutu said that’s just how the process works.

“That opens the door for SHOPO to actually get these guys reinstated or get their days back,” he said.

Civil Beat reporter Brittany Lyte contributed to this report.

The post Why Is It So Hard To Fire Honolulu Police Sgt. Darren Cachola? appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

The full Senate is scheduled to vote Thursday on a bill that strengthens the authority of a state office separate from the Hawaii Department of Education to oversee expansion of high-quality public pre-kindergarten in the state.

Senate Bill 78, which clarifies that the Executive Office on Early Learning shall have the administrative authority over state-funded pre-K, is a catch-all piece of legislation that would also sustain funding for 18 existing public charter school pre-K classrooms, add funding for 10 new public pre-K classrooms and provide more than $10 million in appropriations to DOE programs unrelated to pre-K, such as its Early College program, school health services and applied behavioral analysis.

Carol Taniguchi, chief clerk of the Hawaii Senate, said Tuesday the bill is set for a final vote Thursday after the Senate worked out its disagreement with the House.

Thursday is the last day of the 2019 legislative session. If SB 78 passes, the bill will head to the governor’s office.

Smock-wearing preschoolers play together at the water table at Linapuni Elementary in Kalihi in this 2017 photo.

Suevon Lee

At the center of the bill, whose original content was altered in a classic gut-and-replace, is a provision that clearly establishes the early learning office’s administrative control over state-funded pre-K, including oversight of funding, curriculum, instruction, assessment and professional support to instructors.

The contents of House Bill 921, which was the original legislation that sought to clarify the early learning office’s administrative control over state-funded pre-K, were put into SB 78, a bill that once proposed a study for the adequacy of education funding.

With that original language now stripped, the bill — at 45 pages long — also proposes $4 million in funding next school year to continue 18 public charter school pre-K classrooms that were at risk of being yanked due to the upcoming expiration of the federal preschool development grant that helped establish those classrooms.

It also includes a sizable general appropriation to state DOE for programs that are hallmarks or provide key services.

Sen. Michelle Kidani, chair of the Senate Education Committee, spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday to encourage a vote for the bill, specifically citing funding for existing and additional pre-K classrooms.

The Bill’s Specifics

The early learning office was statutorily established in 2012 to build out the framework for high-quality early childhood learning in Hawaii.

Attached to the DOE for administrative purposes only, the independent state entity was charged with expanding high-quality public pre-K in Hawaii. Subsequent legislation since 2012 spoke to the legislative will to enshrine that authority in statute in the midst of political forces threatening to upend that authority.

This year signified the most bruising political fight yet around that issue.

With the governor pleading cooperation, school superintendent Christina Kishimoto has gone on the record to state she felt the DOE should be more involved in public pre-K expansion to ensure seamless integration from pre-K to kindergarten on up through 12th grade.

At recent Board of Education meetings, the superintendent has referred to the DOE as a “PreK-12” state agency rather than the usual K-12 description.

The governor kicked off this legislative session with a robust call to arms for universal pre-K, championing an ongoing partnership between the early learning office and the DOE.

Ige’s “Hawaii Early Childhood State Plan 2019-2024″ reflected that pledge. That plan, says the text of Senate Bill 78, “confirms the need for information-sharing and collaboration between diverse settings to support children and families as they move between settings and transition into kindergarten and the primary grades.”

But behind the scenes, the partnership has been short of seamless, although the two entities in theory agree on the need to expand pre-K without compromising on quality.

Kishimoto has expressed urgency to roll out public pre-K classrooms at a faster pace. The early learning office, under director Lauren Moriguchi, has cautioned against too rapid an expansion in order to focus on hiring highly qualified instructors and building a proper foundation for a high quality early learning system.

DOE Superintendent Christina Kishimoto has been a strong proponent of pre-K and wants her agency to be more involved in expansion of programs.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The DOE would still retain authority over establishing new federally funded Title 1 and special education pre-K classrooms.

Senate Bill 78 states that while the school superintendent shall sign all drafts for the payment of money, the EOEL director shall be “the final authority on drafts for the payment of moneys, all commissions and appointments, all deeds, official acts, or other documents related to the executive office on early learning.”

It also clarifies that the early learning office director’s role is supervising and directing the planning, evaluation, and coordination of early learning programs; administering funds; employing and retaining staff; and contracting for services.

The bill explicitly bars the DOE from establishing general ed pre-K classrooms, aside from those exceptions mentioned above, but says it shall continue to provide those services like facilities and capital improvement work to new pre-K classrooms that are “generally provided to schools.”

It also lays out criteria for prioritizing new openings, including the school-area population of at-risk or underserved children and commitment of school principals to implement high-quality pre-K program in their schools.

SB 78 also appropriates $362,000 in the 2019-20 school year and $989,000 in the 2020-21 school year for the early learning office to open 10 additional classrooms and authorizes the Department of Finance to issue general obligation bonds in the amount of $6.5 million to retrofit 10 classrooms on DOE campuses to expand public pre-K.

As far as general funding to the DOE, it appropriates $1.5 million to expand the DOE’s Early College program, $7.6 million for skilled nursing services and $1.8 million for ABA services to students.

“Going back to the composition of the bill, it has things that everyone needs,” said Rep. Justin Woodson, chair of the House Lower and Higher Education Committee.

The post Bill To Expand Public Preschool Teed Up For Full Senate Vote appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

A San Francisco-based company that offers down payment assistance to public school teachers looking to purchase a home has entered Hawaii in a partnership local business and education leaders hope will help retain teachers.

Landed Inc., founded in 2015, has formed partnerships with school districts in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver and San Diego. Its model is based on helping teachers in high-cost areas stay in the communities they serve by helping with a down payment in exchange for a share in home appreciation down the road.

The Hawaii partnership was unveiled Tuesday at the Hawaii Community Foundation offices in downtown Honolulu.

Landed Inc. co-founder Alex Lofton said at Tuesday’s press conference the company’s model is “not a grant, but a shared investment in a home.”

Suevon Lee/Civil Beat

“What do we do? We help educators buy homes in expensive places so teachers and staff of schools can continue to commit to their communities,” said Alex Lofton, the co-founder of Landed and the son of a fourth-grade schoolteacher, during the press conference.

The company has so far helped 200 people purchase homes in the metropolitan areas it currently serves, amounting to more than $100 million in home investments. Landed has raised $25 million in total investment, including $5 million from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, according to the San Francisco Business Times. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife own more than 700 acres of land on Kauai.

Landed generates revenue by receiving part of sales commissions from real estate agents representing homebuyers, according to this detailed Education Week article describing how the process works.

Exploring a potential partnership first happened during discussions at the 2018 Hawaii Executive Conference, an annual gathering of CEOs and business leaders here and globally, but talks really got underway in February, when Landed representatives came to Hawaii and met with different community organizations, according to Micah Kane, the CEO and president of Hawaii Community Foundation.

“We want to give those individuals who are considering becoming teachers some confidence that there’s tools to help them thrive here when they do go into that industry,” he said. “This program specifically is about supporting those who have at least two years of tenure in Hawaii. We really are focused on teacher retention but it will definitely help as a recruitment tool.”

High Home Prices, Higher Teacher Turnover

Hawaii lost 1,300 teachers last year, with at least 500 leaving Hawaii for the mainland due to the high cost of living in Hawaii. The average teacher salary in Hawaii is $57,000, which ranks 18th in the nation, but drops to dead last when adjusted for cost of living, according to one analysis. The median average price of a single-family home on Oahu is $810,000 and median price of a condo is $427,000.

The Hawaii Department of Education does not track data on how many of its 13,700 teachers statewide own homes. But the inability to own a home or condo here is a widespread issue among many young professionals, teachers included.

“I have anecdotal data: they’re constantly saying it’s difficult to live in Hawaii, own here, and be able to plan for their family’s future and that’s what they’re most concerned with,” said school superintendent Christina Kishimoto in an interview after the press conference, which featured remarks from Gov. David Ige and business leaders.

School superintendent Christina Kishimoto said of the 1,300 teachers who left the DOE last year, 500 left for the mainland due to Hawaii’s high cost of living.

Suevon Lee/Civil Beat

Landed’s model is based on a premise called shared equity. In this case, the company will provide half a down payment of up to $120,000 per family, in exchange for a 25% share in appreciation or loss when the home is sold or refinanced after 30 years.

The arrangement is available to any teacher, administrator and support staff member who has worked at a Hawaii public school for the last two years and is committed to continue working at a Hawaii public school for the next two years.

The house they’re looking to purchase must be a primary residence, although candidates need not be first-time homeowners. Participants must qualify for a primary mortgage with one of Landed’s four main lending partners: First Hawaiian Bank, Bank of Hawaii, American Savings Bank and Central Pacific Bank, and also contribute a 10% down payment.

A down payment of at least 20% helps homeowners avoid private mortgage insurance and lowers monthly mortgage payments.

Earlier this year, Landed received approval from Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored enterprise, to become an official federally conforming down payment assistance program, said Ian Magruder, Landed’s director of partnerships who helped manage the Hawaii launch.

Magruder said the questions the company gets the most from potential participants is on the appreciation-sharing and other cost-benefit analyses.

“Oftentimes they find out once they look at their finances, paying private mortgage insurance on top of a bigger loan just increases the monthly costs, so Landed ends up being a better deal,” he said. “But it’s up to each teacher to look at the numbers themselves and decide.”

The company is partnering with Hawaii Community Assets, a nonprofit HUD-approved housing counseling agency, to provide free homebuyer education and pre-purchase counseling to teachers who are contemplating the program.

Corey Rosenlee, president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, which has pushed for higher teacher pay, cautioned that teachers “will have to do their homework” when it comes to exploring this arrangement.

“The reality is, teachers have to be able to earn salaries so that they can afford a home,” he said. “There were housing bills in the Legislature (this session) and all of them failed.”

Landed is planning a series of eight informational sessions at various high schools around Hawaii to answer questions from teachers. The talk story sessions are scheduled to take place at the following schools on the following dates. The sessions will all be held from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Monday, May 13: Kauai High School

Tuesday, May 14: Farrington High School and Castle High School

Wednesday, May 15: Mililani High School and Kapolei High School

Thursday, May 16: Maui High School

Friday, May 17: Konawaena High School in Kona and Waiakea High School in Hilo

The post Partnership Aims To Help Hawaii Teachers Buy Homes appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Robert Mueller and Alex Kotlowitz are soulmates.

Mueller is the proprietor of Mueller’s Home and Hardware in Marshalltown, Iowa.

Just kidding. You all know who he is. He’s The Dude, the seer who prepared the parchment called the Mueller Report, which he has now finally bestowed to true believers who should have been more skeptical about their faith.

Alex Kotlowitz? He is the author of the recent and powerful book, “An American Summer: Love and Death In Chicago,” about families living with constant violence in the city’s highest-homicide neighborhoods.

The two are soulmates because each teaches the same important lessons about the limits of the legal system. Both show that the legal system is a blunt, constrained instrument.

Taken together, they are powerful reminders that we tend to be way too law-centered in the way we think about serious issues, whether they involve Jared Kushner or the family of an innocent child on Chicago’s south side who died in a crossfire.

Both Mueller and Kotlowitz are trying to get people to understand the limits of the moment and the importance of the long-term. The legal process is just one chapter in a much longer, complex, meandering story. And as Kotlowitz puts it and Mueller would agree, “Time has a way of revealing things.”

Legal language dominated the entire waiting-for-Mueller process. It led to the expectation that Mueller was going to be the definitive master using the magic wand power of law to show exactly what went on about Russia, conspiracies, the whole shebang. Clarity — getting to the bottom of this.

And the biggest expectation of all was that the next steps in the process would be clear and bold.

This undue faith in law’s power created “Hawaiian Wedding Song” moments. The Report was to be:

The moment I’ve waited for.

I can hear my heart singing.

Soon bells will be ringing.

Ain’t no moment, and it’ll be a while, if at all, before your heart sings and the bell rings whether you like Trump or not.

That in essence is the lesson that both Kotlowitz and Mueller teach about law. Let’s look more closely.

Many writers have analyzed the Mueller Report’s contents.

I want to focus on the Report’s implicit teaching moments about law, which go something like this:

First off, it is crucial to understand that our mission was defined, and most importantly, limited by legal rules and procedures. That meant that we focused on whether people we investigate actually violated actual laws. But as you can see in the report, we uncovered many other activities that might be considered unseemly, unethical, sleazy, or even violations of democratic norms.

Those things all go well beyond our purview. Not our job. It’s up to others with different rules and different objectives to decide whether to make use of this additional information. We encourage it. That means you, Congress.

We don’t apologize for the fact that those next stages are ambiguous, unpredictable and political. Time to rid yourself of law-dependency and get on with your lives.

At one level the people Kotlowitz writes about are extraordinarily intertwined with the legal system. They have friends and relatives who have been murdered. They may be killers themselves or witnesses who have to testify, or try mightily to avoid testifying.

So, law casts a huge shadow, but Kotlowitz shows that these obvious legal moments are just what he calls “snapshots.” And a snapshot focuses on a moment in time.

The U.S. Capitol Building.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

To understand the impact of violence, you need to go far beyond the focus on law. Instead Kotlowitz offers: “A set of dispatches, sketches of those left standing, of those emerging from the rubble, of those trying to make sense of what they’ve left behind.”

There is little definitive about the stories these dispatches tell. Like the stories you hear and tell yourself, they are intermittent and tangential — a “disjointed slide show that occasionally gets stuck in a single moment.”

That is exactly how Kotlowitz reveals them, telling a portion in one section, then later on coming back to it.

So here is Kotlowitz’s message about the difference between law and life:

“I told friends about this book, they’d roll their eyes. Such grimness. Such despair. Such darkness. I know what they were thinking: Why would I want to go there? Why would you want to go there? Indeed, this is a book about death — but you can’t talk about death without celebrating life. How amid the devastation, many still manage to stay erect in a world that’s slumping around them. How despite the bloodshed, some manage, heroically, not only to push on.”

More dramatic than Mueller, but the same sense that focusing on “the legal” limits understanding and overly simplifies reality.

When I was a University of Hawaii ombudsman, I spent a lot of time listening to distraught, angry people who felt that they were treated unjustly and had not found anyone who could make things better.

They wanted me to help them find the person — a judge, a high-level university official — who could free them from their agony once and for all.

My job was not to argue that they were wrong but rather to give them a reality check. My advice then was typically the advice that Mueller and Kotlowitz give you now.

It’s this: when we feel injustice, it is too easy to think that the legal process will definitively rid the injustice. Law seldom works that way for exactly the reasons Kotlowitz and Mueller show in contexts that could not be more different from one another.

As for the Mueller Report and the future of Trump, the report is simply a snapshot — a single moment in a disjointed slide show called politics.

The post Neal Milner: We Are Caught In The Crossfire Surrounding The Mueller Report appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

In the wake of a series of coordinated attacks that claimed more than 250 lives on April 21, the government of Sri Lanka shut off its residents’ access to social media and online messaging systems, including Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Snapchat and Viber. The official government concern was that “false news reports were spreading through social media.”

Some commentators applauded the move, suggesting the dangers of disinformation on social media justified shutting down communication networks in times of crisis. Five years of research on the impact of shutdowns and other information controls on societies worldwide have led me to the exact opposite conclusion.

A diverse community of academics, businesses and civil society groups shares my view. The blackouts deprived Sri Lankans of impartial news reports and disconnected families from each other as they sought to find out who had survived and who was among the dead and injured. Most strikingly, recent research suggests that the blackouts might have increased the potential for protest and violence in the wake of the attack.

Concerned about the spread of “false news,” the Sri Lankan government shut down access to social media and online messaging systems in the wake of a series of terrorist attacks.

Getty Images/iStockphoto

A Constellation Of Control

Sri Lanka’s latest social media shutdown was not an isolated incident. The first time Sri Lanka took a similar action was amid violent unrest in 2018. It was one of 188 network shutdowns or large-scale disruptions to digital communication that year all around the world, according to digital rights advocacy organization Access Now.

Overall, since the Arab Spring began in 2010, governments have carried out at least 400 shutdowns across more than 40 countries. Those include hundreds of ephemeral shutdowns in India, where they first emerged as a localized response to unrest in the northern region of Kashmir and subsequently spread to most other states.

The number also includes so-called “digital sieges,” which last for weeks or months at a time. For example, long-lasting, government-imposed blackouts have ravaged burgeoning digital economies such as that of Anglophone Cameroon and have disconnected businesses, relatives and communities in Chad for more than a year.

In study after study, civil society organizations have documented the human rights problems caused by internet shutdowns and the economic damage they produce.

Only recently have researchers begun to ask a more fundamental question: Do massive disruptions to digital communication achieve their intended purposes? Sri Lanka’s government is one of many to publicly claim that their goal in severing communication links is to prevent the spread of disinformation and decrease violence based on those falsehoods – but not a single one has followed a shutdown with any sort of evidence that it worked to protect public safety.

Exploring The (Dis)connection

Of course, the coexistence of social media and social turbulence does not necessarily imply that one causes the other. Many scholars have tried to figure out if there is a link between access to social media and violence, but it’s an extremely difficult task.

For one thing, social media websites and services are always changing how their systems work, making them hard to study over time. Connectivity also advances at a lightning-fast pace: In 2018, for instance, internet penetration in rural India increased at an annual rate of 30%, connecting hundreds of millions of people for the first time. Today, roughly three Indian citizens are introduced to the internet every second.

Shutdowns, however, are fixed in time and space, and their effects blanket large swathes of an area’s population. This lets scholars study their effects with more confidence. Paradoxically, then, one of the best methods of evaluating technology’s effects on society may be to examine what happens when communications are suddenly cut off.

Shutting down social media in the midst of a crisis leaves the government as the only official gatekeeper of information.

Research on early blackouts has shown that Egypt’s disappearance from the global internet in 2011 backfired spectacularly, spreading protesters away from Tahrir Square and into numerous decentralized pockets of resistance. Coordination of the demonstrations swiftly moved from Facebook event pages to individual efforts in each neighborhood. This proved impossible for security forces to subdue. Ten days later, the Mubarak regime fell.

In the Syrian Civil War, the government used shutdowns as a weapon of war, following up with increased violence against civilians. In Africa, authoritarian governments that own the communication infrastructure and leaders who rule in virtual perpetuity are more inclined to pull the plug, but there is no evidence to suggest that shutdowns are effective in discouraging street protest or violent unrest.

Indeed, official explanations for shutdowns – if the government acknowledges them at all – are often at odds with their likely true motivations, which include silencing opposition figures and ensuring a state monopoly on information during contentious elections.

In the midst of a crisis, this leaves the government as the only official gatekeeper of information. That becomes especially problematic when the government itself becomes a conduit for false and potentially harmful news, as was the case when Sri Lankan media circulated police reports that falsely identified a student at Brown University as a terrorist following the recent attack.

What happens without a connection?

Protests are not monolithic forces, and their participants can adapt to changing circumstances – including a sudden lack of information and even a blockage of communication and coordination. The global proliferation of shutdowns and rapid improvements in data about protests and conflicts enable researchers to analyze not only whether protests continue during internet blackouts, but also how they shift and change.

In India, state governments have faced thousands of peaceful demonstrations, as well as episodes of violent unrest. The country has become by far the world’s most prolific executor of deliberate internet blackouts over the last several years.

To find out the role of internet access in these events, I used precise, daily-level data on thousands of protests that occurred in the 36 states and Union Territories of India in 2016, as well as data tracking the location, timing and duration of shutdowns from a variety of cross-referenced news sources and civil society groups.

The results were striking: Under a blackout, each successive day of protest had more violence than would typically happen as a protest unfolded with continued internet access. Meanwhile, the effects of shutdowns on peaceful demonstrations, which are usually more likely to rely on careful coordination through digital channels, were ambiguous and inconsistent.

In no scenario were blackouts consistently linked to reduced levels of protest over the course of several days. Instead of curtailing protest, they seemed to encourage a tactical shift to strategies that are less orderly, more chaotic and more violent.

Darkness Is A Phone Call Away

Recent events only seem to confirm these dynamics. The regimes of Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria and Omar al-Bashir in Sudan both resorted to shutdowns before imploding. The drastic measures did nothing to rein in the protests in either country. Instead, shutting off internet access may have accelerated their downfalls.

Even if shutdowns are ineffective, they can be tempting for governments that need to be seen taking action. Vague and often antiquated laws let them implement drastic measures like shutdowns easily and quickly, with a written order or even a simple phone call.

But every time a government uses the tactic, it makes others more likely to follow suit – in the same country and around the world. The evidence shows that this takes a heavy toll on their citizens, both economically and in terms of human rights, without offering them any additional protection or safety.

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

The post Shutting Down Social Media Only Fuels Violence appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

In 2005, Honolulu was “the best city in the world.” That’s according to the mayor’s preface to the department and agency report the City and County of Honolulu issues annually.

In it he lauds the dedicated city employees who “have enabled me to have a successful and productive first year as Honolulu’s Mayor.” On the document’s cover he is pictured performing a duet at his inauguration.

The report is over 300 pages in length. Viewed from the harsh reality of 2019, it seems an oddly optimistic collection of short-term measures designed to preserve the status quo. Visions for Honolulu’s long-term future are few, perhaps because it seemed so bright.

Derivations of the word “homeless” appear only 24 times. “Rail” surfaces briefly in a brief section outlining mass transit aspirations. Honolulu was a less fractious and economically divided place in 2005, and its praises were easier to sing.

In the 2018 version of the report, which features a rainbow above Honolulu Hale and no karaoke photos, “addressing homelessness and affordable housing” has been elevated to one of the current mayor’s six priorities. Another has been in place since 2013: “building rail better.”

Honolulu’s next mayor could be elected as early as August of 2020. Candidate filing will begin in February. The consideration of candidates should begin with changing the paradigm of how we discuss the city’s future.

Honolulu faces a collection of problems bordering on intractable, many of which were less prevalent in Honolulu’s halcyon past. Each of the issues has both short- and long-term implications; most are interrelated, and none can be addressed with a patchwork approach.

Traffic has only worsened since 2005.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

In the years since the Great Recession homelessness has become a greater problem across the nation, yet it seems more obvious and pervasive here. Its existence can’t be ignored. The new baseline is that Honolulu residents and businesses must attempt to exist around homelessness and its effects.

Traffic congestion is another ugly reality of life in Honolulu. When population and vehicle count growth aren’t accompanied by new roads or, more sensibly, viable alternatives to individual ownership of vehicles, the result will be increased congestion. Hawaii has added more people than roads; more vehicles on roads built for a previous era is an irreversible recipe for congestion and resident frustration.

Poor road conditions are a recurring concern in annual reports, despite the city’s enhanced efforts to rectify them. In 1970, there were just over 400,000 registered motor vehicles in Hawaii. By 2017 the number had tripled. More cars and more use mean more damage to road surfaces no matter how much money is devoted to repaving projects.

Homelessness also has increased over the years.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Our high cost of living is part of the baseline. Terming it a “Hawaii premium” or the “price of paradise” may work as a marketing tool, but does little for families unable to afford to live here, as the recent report of continuing Honolulu population decline in 2018 makes clear.

While Honolulu’s efforts to recognize and address the issue of climate change deserve praise, it too is part of the daunting reality the state faces as it considers its future.

Land use is at the heart of the challenges facing Honolulu; moving out of the way of sea level rise means radically transforming communities. In addition to being hugely expensive, rerouting the roads that ring the island will mean uprooting communities that have grown around them. Honolulu’s new baseline includes community vulnerability and the threat faced by areas at the center of local economic activity.

“Traffic congestion is another ugly reality of life in Honolulu.”

Homelessness is a product of many factors, so incentivizing the creation of affordable housing, assuring adequate mental health care capacity, reducing the amount of vacant housing, and creating jobs that pay workers enough to live here all need to be part of the same conversation.

Likewise, potholes and congestion both result from road use, so encouraging multimodal transportation options has to be part of the solution.

Success and productivity aren’t only measured by how Honolulu’s problems can be kept from growing in scale, but by our ability to chart a correct and viable direction. Addressing ongoing and future challenges isn’t meant to be easy. It is also why we elect leaders.

The post Remember When Honolulu Was A Pretty Good Place To Live? appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

A bill requiring charter schools to turn over financial records upon request from the state charter school commission cleared both chambers of the Legislature, signaling potential changes to the way financial information is shared by these schools.

House Bill 622 will next go to the governor for his signature. The measure was significantly pared down by the time it was reported out of conference committee Friday.

The proposal initially would have set up a central banking system through which funds would be distributed to the 36 charter schools via the commission rather than to the schools directly. That version sent a shudder through many of the schools’ leaders and did not survive the conference committee.

HB 622 imposes a one-year wait period before anyone affiliated with a charter school can serve on the state charter school commission, whose members are appointed by the Board of Education, seen here.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The revised measure shortens the “wait period” to one year before anyone affiliated with a charter school can serve on the voluntary commission, which serves as the authorizer and renewer of schools and whose members are appointed by the Board of Education.

A charter school would also need to give the state commission “full access to its fiscal and accounting books, documents and files,” upon request, the bill says.

In another departure from the current system, the commission would be responsible for selecting three independent auditors, one of which the school would designate to complete its required annual audit.

Under the current system, the schools select their own auditors.

When HB 622 was advancing through the Legislature, people were concerned it would cut off much of the autonomy these schools have. They are public schools but not part of the Hawaii Department of Education.

Charter schools are run by independent governing boards who choose school leaders, set curriculum and monitor the school’s finances.

Increased Scrutiny

Several recent incidents involving accounting irregularities at schools and the possible filing of federal investigations as a result caused the overall charter school network to come under legislative scrutiny this session.

“The overwhelming majority of charter schools don’t have any issues with their financial operations,” Rep. Justin Woodson, chair of the House Lower and Higher Education Committee, said. “We have not discovered any issues. They run pretty well. We definitely need to continue to support them.”

Nevertheless, the lawmaker added, “there are concerns with a small number of them with how they are handling their finances.”

Some charter school leaders who were vocal in their opposition to the prior draft of HB 622 said the attention the measure generated detracted from what’s most crucial for charter schools: more funding for services.

Steve Hirakami, founder and director of Big Island’s Hawaii Academy of Arts & Science, said he believed the bill was aimed at keeping the focus away from “the real missing ingredient: funding and facilities.” He called the bill “radically obnoxious.”

The perennial proposal to provide a separate facilities funding stream for charter schools — which must pay for their facilities using operational funds — once again didn’t get very far this session.

Another bill, House Bill 1526, which would have provided $892,000 per year for teacher incentive pay for hard-to-staff areas or for national board certification died in conference.

The post More Fiscal Transparency Appears On The Way For Charter Schools appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

WAILUA NUI, MAUI — “That right there, what they’re doing is very important,” says Ed Wendt. “I want to plant there next week.”

He’s pointing to a field in East Maui blanketing the slope below him where men and women are turning over dirt to prepare another taro patch. It is late morning and Wendt is standing on his family’s ancestral land facing the rows and rows of taro plants sitting in foot-deep water.

As he talks, water rushes down a man-made stream behind him and a sliver of blue ocean is visible in the distance.

Four years ago, the view was drastically different. The water dried up, the consequence of stream diversions by Alexander & Baldwin, one of Hawaii’s largest landowners, for its vast sugar holdings in East Maui. Wendt ended up substituting pumpkins because it was so dry. Jungle grew over the fallow land.

A court ruling in 2016 forced the release of several streams and Wendt has spent the last three years restoring the farm with his family, neighbors and help from local nonprofits.

But it’s a bittersweet victory after three decades of legal and political battles that seem to have no end in sight.

It’s a fight that’s pitted one of Hawaii’s most powerful companies — Alexander & Baldwin — against farmers like Wendt and advocates for Native Hawaiian traditional and cultural practices.

The company has diverted streams from East Maui to its sugarcane fields since before the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. After more than a century of diversions, the 2016 decision forced the company to release several streams, replenishing Wendt’s land and other properties. But some diversions continue, and the issue involves multiple streams, multiple landowners and is far from resolved.

Alexander & Baldwin has said that they have complied with the law. A spokesman declined to comment for this story.

The Legislature this week failed to approve a bill to give A&B a seven-year lease to continue  stream diversions. House Bill 1326 would also have helped utility companies and several other farming and ranching businesses. The political debate pitted business interests and Gov. David Ige against environmental groups.

But for Ed Wendt and his wife Mahealani, the fight has always been both personal and cultural. Wendt, a combat veteran, feels like he’s been forced to spend nearly half his life engaging in endless legal and political battles because it’s his kuleana as a Kanaka Maoli.

“I went to a foreign country to kill Vietnamese to protect your rights from the communists. To me this is a battle. This is my home,” he says on a recent morning.

He’s sitting outside their plantation house, on the property the couple shares with his son and their goats.

Wendt says for many years, A&B’s diversion of streams made it nearly impossible for him, his sons and many of his neighbors to cultivate taro. He used to run a poi mill but was unable to sustain it.

“Our food source, our water source, our culture was torn apart,” he says.

Mahealani and Ed Wendt’s land was so dry before their stream was restored that they planted pumpkins rather than taro.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

One day the patches would be dry. The next day it would rain and the taro would be nourished. But soon the water would dry up again and the plants would get really hot under the sun.

The next time it rained, the earth would be cracked and the water would be hot. Six months into growing, some of the taro would be rotting. A year later, half the crop would be ruined.

Wendt calls what happened “cultural genocide.”

“We lost decades, two decades of teaching our own children to farm,” he says. “You cannot farm if you don’t have no water.”

His eldest son gave up on farming. His youngest kept trying but struggled. They weren’t the only ones.

The Wendts’ neighbors, Jerome Kekiwi Jr. and Norman Bush Martin, say the lack of water kept their own taro fields dry for years too. Martin got a job at the county because he couldn’t rely on farming for income anymore. But both say they can’t imagine leaving farming completely. Something always draws them back.

“It’s the love for the haloa,” Martin says, referring to taro.

“The love for the kupunas, you know what I mean?” Kekiwi says. “The love for the aina and the water.”

Generations Of Farming

Wendt remembers watching his son Lance trying to grow taro when the streams dried up. Lance picked up a huli — a taro stalk — and put it into a bucket of water, trying to make it grow.

“It turned me inside out,” he says.

Wendt grew up farming in East Maui, the sixth generation of a long line of Hawaiian farmers. The orange tree in his backyard is 150 years old.

Ed and Mahealani Wendt hold petitions signed by hundreds of East Maui residents opposing stream diversions.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

But taro is more than just a family tradition  — for many Hawaiians, it holds deeper significance, Mahealani explains.

They believe taro was created by Wakea, the Sky Father, and Ho’ohokuokalani who had a stillborn child. The family buried the child in the earth, and Ho’ohokuokalani watered him with her tears. The stillborn grew into taro, which became the brother of the Hawaiian people.

When Wendt was a kid, A&B was already diverting streams, but farmers’ frustration grew as water became more scarce. By the 1990s, farmers were so frustrated that kupuna asked Wendt to be their spokesman. Hundreds had signed a petition urging A&B to give the water back.

It would take a lot more than asking to achieve their goal.

Now that the streams are restored, this waterfall is nearly always flowing, Ed Wendt says.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Getting the water back has involved going to the Water Commission, the Board of Land and Natural Resources and the courts. It’s meant multiple lawsuits and months of contested case hearings. By now, some of Wendt’s fellow plaintiffs have died.

The conflict has also meant awkward disagreements with neighbors. Alexander & Baldwin and its subsidiaries have been major employers on Maui for decades and employ many Maui residents.

The early years were the worst, Wendt says. The trick, he says, is to “eat humble pie” — listen to your neighbor’s frustrations and try not to get upset.

“The humble pie sour,” he says, half-jokingly.

By now, Wendt, who is in his 70s, and Mahealani are exhausted. The group recently had to repeat a contested case hearing after A&B decided to stop its sugar operations.

A&B has sought to continue its existing stream diversions even after selling the sugar lands to another company. Efforts to get a longer lease for diversions approved by the Legislature this year prompted Mahealani to fly to Oahu to testify.

“It tears me apart,” her husband says. “I’m overwhelmed with all of this. The length of time it has taken.”

Over the years, Wendt has become familiar with the details of Hawaii’s constitution and now can recite the names of A&B executives and state officials from memory. More than a decade ago he met and married Mahealani, who was then the head of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, the nonprofit that represented his case. By 2019, they have told this story many times.

Mahealani Wendt, center, protests outside of the state capitol in 2016.

Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat

Mahealani Wendt sums up their philosophy like this:

“The most important thing is that Hawaiians have a home in their homeland,” she says. “Anything that separates them from the land or water that are essential to their identity as native peoples, I think we have to do whatever we can to protect it.”

The whole process left both of them even more disillusioned with the legal system and with politics than when they started out.

“This is about sovereignty,” Wendt says. It’s about “being able to go to the taro patches, being able to go to the ocean.”

Farming full-time may be increasingly difficult as the cost of living in Hawaii rises, but preserving taro fields provides a physical space to practice Hawaiian culture as more of the islands are paved over to make way for hotels and high-rises.

Like Kahoolawe and Mauna Kea, fighting for the restoration of streams has for the Wendts become another way to push for indigenous self-determination in a land where their way of life is increasingly rare.

A Changing Community

The Wendts live an hour and a half away from Kahului, down the winding, narrow road that follows stunning cliffs lining Maui’s eastern shore. The road to Hana is among the island’s top tourism attractions, and it’s common to see tourists parking on the roadside to photograph the breathtaking views.

Over the past few decades, Maui has gotten a lot more crowded and urbanized. The county’s population soared 63% between 1990 and 2017. But in the census block group that encompasses Wendt’s neighborhood, the community is shrinking. The population fell 12% over the same time period, from 1,107 people to just 975 people.

The roads in East Maui are narrow and surrounded by lush greenery and views of stunning waterfalls.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Wendt knows that’s true without looking at the data. Many of the people who signed the original petition to A&B are dead now. Some moved away for better opportunities and jobs. The schoolhouse closed and now kids take buses to classes further away.

“Of course people have to move away,” he says. “They have no food, they have no job, so people, you know, move away. So eventually, no more people.”

Wendt says he understands because he also once worked in construction as a carpenter and building contractor. But when he goes to visit his mother in Kahului with its big box stores and wide roads, he feels like he’s in California.

He doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Wailua Nui — nor for the valley to be completely emptied of the families like his who have lived there for generations.

Young adults dig and rebuild a taro patch or lo’i at Ed Wendt’s taro patch in Wailua Nui, Maui.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Nationally, farmers have struggled to make ends meet and find younger people to carry on the work. Cultivating taro in rural Maui means pulling grass, turning mud and other manual labor that can be grueling with no harvest for at least a year.

But there is hope. The Wendts have partnered with local nonprofits like Malama Haloa to restore the taro fields.

Joseph Henderson is among nonprofit staffers who work at Wendt’s farm.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

On a recent morning, Joseph Henderson, 29, is among several men chopping branches to clear Wendt’s farmland of invasive species. Further down the slope, other staffers turn over mud to prepare another taro patch.

Henderson says he’s one of several staffers at the local nonprofit who spend several days a week learning at Wendt’s farm. On other days, they prepare poi for schools. It’s part of what it means to be Hawaiian.

“It means everything to get the water back. That’s our number one kuleana as Kanaka is to malama haloa,” he said, referring to protecting taro.  “It’s sacred.”

Restoration

Some afternoons Wendt goes down to the beach near his house to fish. There’s a cove where the river meets the ocean and the saltwater waves engulf the freshwater stream, lapping over smooth blue-gray stones.

Since the streams were restored, Wendt sees more seaweed and more fish. The fish can now swim upstream, all the way up the waterfalls and back, he says. It’s like the cove has new life.

This is one of the places he disappears to when he gets too frustrated dealing with everything. This time, he lingers and it’s clear he doesn’t want to go home for another call with his attorney.

An hour later he’s sitting with Mahealani, their son Lance and three other taro farmers outside their home. Together they make up the group representing the district, which is made up of Ke’anae and Wailua Nui.

Kekiwi is the new president of the group, known as Na Moku Aupuni O Ko‘olau Hui. Wendt resigned last year to make way for younger leadership. It was Kekiwi’s father who originally asked Wendt to lead the group.

Jerome Kekiwi Jr., the new head of the community group representing local farmers, gets ready to ride off on his quad.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Kekiwi kept trying to farm his family’s land but it wasn’t easy. Getting water meant dropping what you were doing on the farm, going up the river and coming back down with water. Thousands of huli died, he says.

“We were cleaning streams and rivers without water. Just waiting and waiting,” he says.

Taro doesn’t grow from seeds. Farmers take the stem of a taro plant, and replant it. The manual labor requires turning mud, digging ditches and clearing brush. To grow, the plantings needs a lot of water, plus ducks to protect them from invasive apple snails.

Kekiwi wishes his father and others were alive to see the water come back.

“There’s nothing that can replace all the times that we lost, you know? All the people we lost, all the huli we lost,” he says.

“The species of taro, the species in the river, that we lost, the opihi, the opai, the io ai, the fish, the whole ecosystem that we lost. Now we try to bring back and replenish again —”

Martin interrupted his fellow farmer, ““It’s going to take a while.”

“I always tell them,” Wendt says. “It took 150 years to put us in this situation. It going to take 150 years to get us out.”

The post This Native Hawaiian Taro Farmer Has Been Fighting A&B For Decades appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

The loss of native forest birds and other native species in Hawaii remains one of the most painful testaments to the devastating impact foreign contact continues to have on the Hawaiian Islands.

Yet, conservationists seeking to remedy the ongoing loss of Hawaii’s native ecosystem are advocating for a rather frightening solution: genetically engineered mosquitoes.

This is a bad idea. Messing with nature has often resulted in devastating impacts on Hawaii’s environment, yet, incredulously, House Bill 297 would allow for the Department of Agriculture to explore the importation of these mosquitoes at a “landscape scale.”

This effort specifically looks at deploying gene drive species here in Hawaii. This takes individual animals created with “gene editing” technologies, in this case mosquitoes, and forces genetic modification through the entire population.

The Legislature has authorized a study of whether a genetically edited version of the Aedes aegypti mosquito could reduce the local mosquito population that threatens native birds.

Getty Images/iStockphoto

The goal of proponents is well intended.

But the use of these “ecotechnologies” is new and largely unproven.

Very few places have been so bold as to release these species into the wild, therefore the wide-spread impacts of unleashing genetically edited animals into wild ecosystems remains largely a mystery. The use of largely unproven and unregulated technologies into an ecosystem as fragile as Hawaii’s should be cause for serious concern.

Equally concerning is the substantial funding these efforts have received from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, a U.S. military agency whose mission is “to make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security.”

In October, the Associated Press reported that this agency was “exploring the possibility of deploying insects to make plants more resilient by altering their genes. Some experts say the work may be seen as a potential biological weapon.” DARPA provided a whopping $65 million towards gene drive research, making the U.S. military the world’s largest government funder of such technology.

Skepticism About the Technology

There are also real questions as to whether the technology even works as promoted. One of the founders of this technology, Harvard biologist Kevin Esvelt, published research in November 2017 entitled, “Current CRISPR gene drive systems are likely to be highly invasive in wild populations.”

“CRISPR” stands for “clusters of regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.” “CRISPR” (pronounced “crisper”) is actually the popular, shortened form of “CRISPR-Cas9.” CRISPRs are specialized stretches of DNA.

The protein Cas9 (or “CRISPR-associated”) is an enzyme that acts like a pair of molecular scissors, capable of cutting strands of DNA, allowing for modifications or “editing” of the DNA. Due to its ease, the technology has become widely popular throughout the world.

Yet, additional studies have shown that there is a concerning error rate with the technology  and also that wild populations develop protective mutations to protect them from the gene drive. Studies also show these species to potentially be highly invasive if released into the wild.

Mongoose, introduced by plantation owners in the 1880s to control rodents have instead caused massive damage to native species and ecosystems.

A Troubling Track Record

There is certainly a problematic history regarding the intentional release of alien species into Hawaii’s native ecosystem. One that perhaps needs to be remembered and carefully considered as the state moves forward in the importation of these species to Hawaii.

It is rather unsettling that the legislature is authorizing the state to move forward towards the release of a genetically edited alien species with the potential to become highly invasive in a wild environment.

Invasive alien species pose one of the most significant global threats to biodiversity today. These species are introduced, frequently through human action, into an ecosystem outside their natural geographic range, and have a demonstrable environmental or socio-economic impact.

In Hawaii, many were deliberately introduced to control other invasive species (e.g., mongoose to control rats). Yet, these species ended up having devastating effects. Of the top 10 countries with the highest recorded IAS, 60% are in the Pacific.

Mongoose

One example of this is the mongoose. Mongooses were deliberately introduced to Hawaii by plantation owners in 1883,  with the intent to control invasive rodents. Yet, rather than controlling or eradicating rodent populations, mongooses have coexisted with rats and mice, and instead caused the decline or extinction of native bird, amphibian, reptile and mammal species.

Having little to no understanding of the species, the businessmen failed to understand they were introducing nocturnal predators to hunt diurnal prey. As the mongoose has no predators in Hawaii, the mongoose population thrived in the islands and continues to cause widespread devastation to native species and ecosystems.

Roi, Toau, Taape

In the 1950s, the Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Fish and Game (now Division of Aquatic Resources) intentionally released a number of alien fish species into the waters of the Hawaiian Islands.

Three species of reef fishes, Lutjanus fulvus (Blacktail Snapper, toau), Cephalopholis argus (Peacock Hind, roi) and Lutjanus kasmira (Bluestripped Snapper, taape), quickly took hold and became a widely known invasive threat to the native species and ecosystem.

Gorgilla Ogo

Researchers with the University of Hawaii intentionally introduced Gorgilla Ogo (Gracilaria salicornia) into the nearshore coastal areas of Kaneohe and Waikiki off the Island of Oahu for aquaculture purposes. The species quickly grew out of control and severely damaged coral ecosystems into which it had been intentionally introduced.

Since introduction, conservation groups and community groups have spent millions of dollars trying to control and remove the species from the foreign waters.

The use of CRISPR technologies continues to create heated debate globally. Controversy erupted last year when a Chinese scientist announced he’d use the technology to genetically edit the DNA of twin girls when they were embryos, resulting in the world’s first genetically edited babies.

While we should be making all reasonable efforts to protect the native species we have left here in Hawaii, if past is precedent (and it often is) the importation of alien gene-edited species has a far greater potential to do devastating harm to our island ecosystem than it does to do good.

We simply cannot afford to continue to allow our islands to become testing grounds for “well-intentioned” environmental errors.

The post Trisha Kehaulani Watson: Hawaii’s Fragile Ecosystem Is No Place To Mess With Nature appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

The full Senate is scheduled to vote Thursday on a bill that strengthens the authority of a state office separate from the Hawaii Department of Education to oversee expansion of high-quality public pre-kindergarten in the state.

Senate Bill 78, which clarifies that the Executive Office on Early Learning shall have the administrative authority over state-funded pre-K, is a catch-all piece of legislation that would also sustain funding for 18 existing public charter school pre-K classrooms, add funding for 10 new public pre-K classrooms and provide more than $10 million in appropriations to DOE programs unrelated to pre-K, such as its Early College program, school health services and applied behavioral analysis.

Carol Taniguchi, chief clerk of the Hawaii Senate, said Tuesday the bill is set for a final vote Thursday after the Senate worked out its disagreement with the House.

Thursday is the last day of the 2019 legislative session. If SB 78 passes, the bill will head to the governor’s office.

Smock-wearing preschoolers play together at the water table at Linapuni Elementary in Kalihi in this 2017 photo.

Suevon Lee

At the center of the bill, whose original content was altered in a classic gut-and-replace, is a provision that clearly establishes the early learning office’s administrative control over state-funded pre-K, including oversight of funding, curriculum, instruction, assessment and professional support to instructors.

The contents of House Bill 921, which was the original legislation that sought to clarify the early learning office’s administrative control over state-funded pre-K, were put into SB 78, a bill that once proposed a study for the adequacy of education funding.

With that original language now stripped, the bill — at 45 pages long — also proposes $4 million in funding next school year to continue 18 public charter school pre-K classrooms that were at risk of being yanked due to the upcoming expiration of the federal preschool development grant that helped establish those classrooms.

It also includes a sizable general appropriation to state DOE for programs that are hallmarks or provide key services.

Sen. Michelle Kidani, chair of the Senate Education Committee, spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday to encourage a vote for the bill, specifically citing funding for existing and additional pre-K classrooms.

The Bill’s Specifics

The early learning office was statutorily established in 2012 to build out the framework for high-quality early childhood learning in Hawaii.

Attached to the DOE for administrative purposes only, the independent state entity was charged with expanding high-quality public pre-K in Hawaii. Subsequent legislation since 2012 spoke to the legislative will to enshrine that authority in statute in the midst of political forces threatening to upend that authority.

This year signified the most bruising political fight yet around that issue.

With the governor pleading cooperation, school superintendent Christina Kishimoto has gone on the record to state she felt the DOE should be more involved in public pre-K expansion to ensure seamless integration from pre-K to kindergarten on up through 12th grade.

At recent Board of Education meetings, the superintendent has referred to the DOE as a “PreK-12” state agency rather than the usual K-12 description.

The governor kicked off this legislative session with a robust call to arms for universal pre-K, championing an ongoing partnership between the early learning office and the DOE.

Ige’s “Hawaii Early Childhood State Plan 2019-2024″ reflected that pledge. That plan, says the text of Senate Bill 78, “confirms the need for information-sharing and collaboration between diverse settings to support children and families as they move between settings and transition into kindergarten and the primary grades.”

But behind the scenes, the partnership has been short of seamless, although the two entities in theory agree on the need to expand pre-K without compromising on quality.

Kishimoto has expressed urgency to roll out public pre-K classrooms at a faster pace. The early learning office, under director Lauren Moriguchi, has cautioned against too rapid an expansion in order to focus on hiring highly qualified instructors and building a proper foundation for a high quality early learning system.

DOE Superintendent Christina Kishimoto has been a strong proponent of pre-K and wants her agency to be more involved in expansion of programs.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The DOE would still retain authority over establishing new federally funded Title 1 and special education pre-K classrooms.

Senate Bill 78 states that while the school superintendent shall sign all drafts for the payment of money, the EOEL director shall be “the final authority on drafts for the payment of moneys, all commissions and appointments, all deeds, official acts, or other documents related to the executive office on early learning.”

It also clarifies that the early learning office director’s role is supervising and directing the planning, evaluation, and coordination of early learning programs; administering funds; employing and retaining staff; and contracting for services.

The bill explicitly bars the DOE from establishing general ed pre-K classrooms, aside from those exceptions mentioned above, but says it shall continue to provide those services like facilities and capital improvement work to new pre-K classrooms that are “generally provided to schools.”

It also lays out criteria for prioritizing new openings, including the school-area population of at-risk or underserved children and commitment of school principals to implement high-quality pre-K program in their schools.

SB 78 also appropriates $362,000 in the 2019-20 school year and $989,000 in the 2020-21 school year for the early learning office to open 10 additional classrooms and authorizes the Department of Finance to issue general obligation bonds in the amount of $6.5 million to retrofit 10 classrooms on DOE campuses to expand public pre-K.

As far as general funding to the DOE, it appropriates $1.5 million to expand the DOE’s Early College program, $7.6 million for skilled nursing services and $1.8 million for ABA services to students.

“Going back to the composition of the bill, it has things that everyone needs,” said Rep. Justin Woodson, chair of the House Lower and Higher Education Committee.

The post Bill To Expand Public Preschool Teed Up For Full Senate Vote appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

In public policy, there is often a gap between intention and reality. Local efforts to deal with the housing crisis reflect this divide.

In effort to increase affordable housing supply, the City and County of Honolulu requires that developers set aside affordable units for low income residents.

The intention is solid. But these affordable units don’t always end up occupied by those who need them.

Consider new developments in Kakaako. As a university lecturer, I was surprised to learn that many of my students occupy the affordable rentals. These students are not working professionals or young couples saving to buy a home. Most will leave after graduation.

A few of my students live at Keauhou Lane. My lecturer salary would qualify me for an affordable unit at 80% of gross median income, but if I moved in with a working spouse, we would not qualify.

You might argue that any increase in supply is good. But no public official advocated building affordable dormitories for foreign students. This was not an intended effect of the policy.

Many of the city’s new housing developments are in Kakaako.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Obviously, our affordable housing system is limited. Income measures do not account for foreign students whose parents pay rent. And there is little ability to differentiate between types of renters, whether they are long-term residents or students from out of state.

A focus on household income obscures other valid considerations when assigning housing. For instance, focusing on income doesn’t allow authorities to give preference to long-term residents. And efforts to reduce roadway traffic are slowed by an inability to distribute housing based on workplace location.

Simply, not all households of equal income should be treated equally by housing authorities.

Unless we’re careful, we may suffer from more unintended consequences as new, ambitious housing policies are introduced.

Inspiration From Abroad

One novel idea for dealing with the housing crisis was advanced in the Legislature this session, though it died in committee.

With his ALOHA Homes Initiative. SB1,, Senator Stanley Chang intends to increase housing supply to match demand by building high-density condominiums on state land near public transit stations. The units will be offered for sale with 99-year leases, and owner-occupancy will be required.    

Chang found inspiration for his plan abroad, studying “jurisdictions that have successfully solved similar problems in the past.” Thus, Chang visited Vienna and Singapore, two highly-regarded models for public housing.

Though both models are successful, their approaches vary. Vienna uses a highly subsidized rentership model. In contrast, Singapore offers mostly unsubsidized units for sale on 99-year leases.

In theory, either model could work in Hawaii. But Chang believes the Viennese model would be a hard sell.

“I don’t believe the Legislature and voters have the appetite to increase subsidies,” he said.

In addition, the Viennese rent control model only works because there is enough supply to meet demand. Insufficient supply has caused similar rent control models to fail in cities like San Francisco and New York.

“In California and New York, you have the lucky people with rent controlled units and the unlucky people who pay market rates,” Chang said. 

Because of the weaknesses in the Viennese model, Chang believes the Singaporean model is best for Hawaii.

Offering units for sale helps to increase the supply because construction is not reliant on government subsidies.

One of the key provisions in Chang’s measure is removing any income limit or preference for first-time home buyers when selling the ALOHA Homes units. This would not affect existing stock of public housing.

Chang believes that income restrictions are inappropriate when dealing with public goods.

“Everyone needs a house, no matter how much or how little you make,” he said. “The department of education doesn’t ask your income when you send a child to public schools. There’s no income restriction for public parks or public transportation. Public services are for the public.”

State Senator Stanley Chang has proposed a Singapore-style housing plan to build condos with 99-year leases on state land. Owners would have to live there.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

And public services should not have an expiration date. Hence, the 99-year leases ensure security and stability for occupants, so they won’t have to move until they die.

In Singapore, most people own their public housing units. And when allocating housing, the government prioritizes families. This allows Singaporeans to invest in their community for the long-term.

I visited Singapore last summer and noted the cleanliness of public housing. Not all public developments were luxurious, but they’re certainly preferable to those in Hawaii.

Because of the high rate of ownership, Singaporeans take pride in their communities and volunteer to beautify their residences. In Hawaii, tenants change frequently, disrupting any sense of community. Because renters have little stake in the property, many public housing projects lapse into disrepair.

In addition, renting creates a permanent reliance on government assistance. Rent for affordable units is not low enough that renters can save for a down payment on property. Instead, they remain in a twilight zone where they can live comfortably, but only as long as they remain in public housing.

Some version of the ALOHA Homes Initiative should help the state transition from a culture of renting toward a culture of ownership. However, this transition will require more resources for first-time homeowners.

A City Of Renters

The City and County of Honolulu Affordable Housing Strategy notes that while “most renters aspire to purchasing their own homes, few have the resources necessary to secure a mortgage.” These renters don’t have funds necessary for a down payment, and few have sufficient creditworthiness.

In the short-term, increasing the supply of rental units is necessary to supply for housing needs. For this reason, the strategy prioritizes the creation of rentals rather than units for purchase.

In the long-term, policy makers have to address the underlying economic conditions. They need to improve the ability of renters to purchase units. Otherwise, even ambitious plans like Chang’s will come up short.

What Can Be Done?

If Honolulu is going to mimic Singapore, we need to do more than increase the role of government in housing provision. We must also change the way we allocate affordable units and encourage home ownership.

We should prioritize those who have a long-term commitment to Honolulu — people who intend to raise a family here. These people pay taxes over a lifetime and join community organizations that enrich our city.

Policies favoring ownership over renting can help achieve this goal. Chang’s ALOHA Homes Initiative is a step in the right direction, but it will not succeed unless would-be homebuyers receive assistance.

Any housing solution will require a nuanced approach from housing authorities. We already suffer from a simplistic, income-based approach to allocating existing housing. As new policies advance, let’s be sure they don’t fall into the gap that separates intention from reality.

The post Sterling Higa: A Promising Plan To Ease Honolulu’s Housing Crisis appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

As young students, we are taught about simile, metaphor and analogy. This is an important part of schooling, but the only folks who go on to study analogies in earnest are lawyers.

Why is this so? Because a big part of presenting a case to a court involves comparing it to prior cases with similar facts. This matters because of the doctrine of stare decisis under which court precedent can impact current judicial decisions. Most people aren’t specifically trained in using analogies and this has had adverse consequences for our public discourse. Let’s try some examples.

Some tell us that the rail project is like H-3. No, it isn’t.

H-3 was a highway/freeway, which is the kind of standard infrastructure that existing government agencies build.

Hawaii has never done a big rail project and created a new entity to run things, which in itself was part of the problem. Weak analogy.

Some tell us that the part of the marvel of the Hawaiian culture was that it did not have private property rights for individuals, which is what destroys the environment because of the profit motive. We are told that real estate development is just like when a big, stinky oil company comes to town and dumps toxic effluent into a river. No, it isn’t.

The problem with the river is that water gets carried downstream to others and the problems associated with the toxic effluent are exported to third parties (an externality, an economist would say). Common ownership without a strong sense of kuleana or noblesse oblige can be disastrous.

Consider the decimation of fishes in waters around our islands. Those waters are jointly “owned” by all of us. This is an example of the tragedy of the commons, not of the evils of private property. The trick is to get folks to take care of the land, and while Hawaiian culture had a social structure and culture that did that, private property rights can also.

Rail and H-3 are not analogous. Don’t be weak.

Example: One of the modern solutions to the loss of endangered species is to make a business out of selling the right to hunt them in a controlled way. The owner conserves because it is profitable to do so.

Some tell us that we must cut business regulations across the board for the economy to flourish. But cutting regulations on an oil company is not the same thing as cutting regulations on a company that makes cherry pies in terms of the risk to the environment.

We might want heavy regulations on a bank, given its importance to the economy and the fact that it plays with other people’s money and uses fractional reserve lending, even if we don’t want heavy regulations on the mom and pop florist on the street corner. Not everything is the same thing.

Some tell us that tax cuts will pay for themselves because of the Laffer Curve. Well, that depends where on the curve you are.

Watergate Is Not Russia-gate

If you are in a world just prior to the JFK tax cuts, where some had a tax rate of 90%, it is not surprising that a reduction in the tax rate stimulates the economy enough to produce extra tax revenues that pay for the tax cut. But if you have already been through tax cuts from JFK to Ronald Reagan, to Bush 43 to Barack Obama to President Donald Trump, and you are still calling for tax cuts that will pay for themselves, you’re missing something. Like maybe giant public deficits and debt. Weak analogy.

Some like to compare President Trump to former President Richard Nixon. Weak analogy. The Watergate burglary happened during Nixon’s re-election campaign, while he was a sitting President; the alleged Russia collusion events happened prior to President Trump taking the oath of office.

Richard Nixon came from a small town in California and his parents were part of the lower middle class. He went to Duke Law School on full scholarship and graduated third in his class, then later served as a naval officer during World War II.

“The world is complex and dynamic. Look to the specific facts of the situation and work out from there.”

Nixon was a foreign policy expert who began our relationship with China, despite being a staunch anti-communist, and presided over such frighteningly conservative events as the enactment of the EPA, OSHA and the Clean Air Act and the Water Pollution Control Act.

Analogies are tricky because the closer you look, the more the analogy tends to fall apart. They are useful as rhetoric, but risky as an analytical tool. They tend to be attractive to people with lazy minds. Lawyers must use analogies in their profession, but non-lawyers should be mindful of the perils.

The world is complex and dynamic. Look to the specific facts of the situation and work out from there.

Or maybe a simple illustration will be more effective. Have you ever gone on a date and said to the person across the table: “You remind me of such and such actress (or actor)?”

Did it go over big? Or was that pretty much the end of the evening?

Not everything is the same thing. Can we stipulate to that, please?

The post Analogies Are For Lawyers And Lazy Minds appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

PAHOA, Hawaii Island – Increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of government rebuilding efforts, lava evacuees are again relying on each other to reclaim access to properties that survived the largest volcanic eruption in two centuries.

“We want to come home,” said Michael Gornik, co-founder and director of Polestar Gardens, a 20-acre nonprofit organic farm and meditation retreat left isolated by flows from the massive Kilauea eruption that unexpectedly began one year ago today.

Although a 5,000-square-foot home and temple were destroyed, “None of the land was touched,” Gornik said.

His is among dozens of properties that fingers of lava went around. Many dwellings survived intact, while crops are no longer exposed to toxic gasses that ceased with the eruption last September.

“It is overwhelming how many people want (to reopen) the road back to Kapoho kai,” said Susan Kim. She is among them even though she said her home and 5-acre parcel were buried last June.

The new upper terminus of Pohoiki Road, located a few miles outside of Pahoa, continues to attract curiosity seekers despite the posted signs warning the area is off-limits.

Jason Armstrong/Civil Beat

Kim and Gornik are members of I Mua Lower Puna, a coalition of affected landowners formed to highlight the need for restored access. The group plans a public meeting on the issue May 10 in Pahoa.

Driving routes remain blocked by the mountains of rock covering sections of all three roads that form a triangle linking the outskirts of Pahoa with coastal Kapoho and Pohoiki.

“There’s 55 homes in here,” Gornik said of those remaining just within the Noni Farms Road area off of Highway 132. “It’s not right they don’t help out. We’ve been paying taxes forever.”

Hearty residents have implemented their own solutions, just as they did throughout the eruption phase when community volunteers cleared land to establish Puuhonua o Puna Info and Supply Hub.

While Hawaii National Guard troops kept residents from their homes and mainland Red Cross volunteers learned the area, Hub volunteers distributed clothes, food and compassion to those who needed it — no questions and no charge.

The desire to return had residents first disobeying no-trespassing signs to carve footpaths through the jagged rocks and over which they trudged supplies and materials. Some still make those arduous journeys, while others have joined together to bulldoze primitive connector roads.

“We don’t need studies.” — Deb Smith, Kapoho Vacationland Community Association

Turns out the biggest contributor is also Puna’s most infamous.

Puna Geothermal Venture, whose power plant remains shuttered, connected its recently reopened access to what’s left of a bordering community that includes Gornik’s farm, said Mike Kaleikini, senior director of Hawaii affairs for Ormat, which owns PGV.

“April 1st was the first day residents could go home through our driveway,” Kaleikini said.

While PGV employees are happy to begin working toward reopening the 38-megawatt power plant by year’s end, they understand that feeling pales compared with the joy evacuees experience upon their own return, he said.

“A majority of these families have not been home for 10 months to a year,” he said.

PGV obtained county, state and federal approvals required to build its own two-lane, gravel access road extending more than a half-mile, and then repeated the regulatory process before bulldozing the connector that’s about 200 to 300 yards long, Kaleikini said.

He was unsure how much PGV paid for the engineering and bulldozing work, but said it took about three weeks to build a surface over which cars can pass.

“It was a temporary situation helping out a neighbor,” he said. The access is limited so far to 210 affected landowners, their family members — including about 20 children — and agricultural lessees verified to have properties inside the kipuka.

Deb Smith, Kapoho Vacationland Community Association president, said it was a “blow to all of us” to see PGV open an access road while the county studies its own alternate routes.

“It seems like the people are getting left behind,” said Smith, a 20-year resident. “It’s getting more and more frustrating and stressful.”

Smith said she and her husband, Stan, last month purchased a neighbor’s home and partially inundated lot to replace what they lost.

“We have something to go back to,” she said.

Smith, who has moved five times in the past year, estimated that restoring vehicle access would mean building less than a half-mile of new roadway over the former intersection of Highways 132 and 137.

“It seems like it’s very doable,” she said, adding Kapoho homeowners are raising money to re-establish their private roads.

A new access road built by private landowners means Mike Gornik and select other evacuees no longer have to hand-carry supplies and materials to their isolated, yet largely intact properties.

Courtesy: Ann Gornik

In December, the county reopened part of Highway 137 to Isaac Hale Beach Park and a few coastal homes.

Initial surveying of Highway 132 has been completed, and ground surveying is about to start, Mayor Harry Kim said last month in a presentation before the Hawaii County Council, which had requested an update.

The road work will cost an estimated $40 million, Kim said in his presentation.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay the whole cost of rebuilding a temporary road over Highway 132, provided the work is completed by Oct. 5, Diane Ley, county research and development director, said in an email.

“Otherwise, the county will have to cover costs after that day,” Ley said of the FEMA deadline.

The county’s risk assessment is nearly done, while a private consultant is working on a “recovery framework” addressing infrastructure, economic and other impacts that’s targeted for completion by the end of 2019, she said.

The county has spent $8.3 million of its aid money, which includes an initial $22 million from the state, along with another $60 million in state loans and grants, $2.2 million from FEMA and $177,000 in private sector donations, she said.

Kim told lawmakers that he hopes surveying work on Pohoiki Road will start “as soon as we get well underway on Highway 132.”

Kim’s comments created a social media firestorm among angry evacuees.

“We don’t need studies,” Smith said.

Kaleikini said PGV, which has fulfilled its promise to retain its 30 full-time workers, is paying for security to operate an access checkpoint and may look at reopening Pohoiki Road, which abuts its plant, in the future.

“Hopefully, the county will pull through and beat us to that,” Kaleikini said.

The post Big Island: Lava Evacuees Are Moving Home Despite County’s Slow Pace appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Hawaii Gov. David Ige started the 2019 Hawaii Legislature losing his chief of staff and finished it losing his administrative director.

The exit of top advisers bookended a session in which Ige saw most of his proposed legislation go down to defeat, he met resistance in the House and Senate over budgeting and had a couple of close scares on Cabinet appointments.

But the governor had only positive things to say at a press conference following the gaveling to a close of the Legislature.

Gov. David Ige was all smiles after the Legislature concluded business Thursday.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

“I think we made progress in critical areas,” Ige told reporters, emphasizing in particular his view that there is legislative support to create more affordable housing and to ease homelessness. “It’s not everything that we asked for, but it allows us to continue to build the momentum in the areas (where) we have already made progress.”

Ige used the word “progress” multiple times and cast such a positive spin on the legislative session that KITV reporter Brenton Awa asked him, “Does anything get under your skin?”

Smiling, Ige responded by saying, “I’m sorry. I’m a positive person. And we are making progress and I will continue to advocate for the things I believe our community sees as priorities.”

‘Everything Is About Compromise’

When Ige was sworn in for a second term six months ago, he asked his former colleagues in the House and Senate to collaborate to move the state beyond gridlock.

He had defeated U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa by a comfortable margin in the August Democratic primary, even though he was considered the underdog and she had the backing of top legislators.

Ige then rolled over Republican Andria Tupola in the November general election in a landslide bigger than the one that closed the Pali Tunnel earlier this year.

A few weeks later, as he submitted a two-year budget plan, the governor proposed spending $125 million for flood control for the Ala Wai Canal, $315 million for affordable housing and $400 million for education infrastructure.

The House floor on Thursday before sine die.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

And in late January, in his State of the State address, Ige called for a universal preschool system, an increase in the counties’ share of the hotel tax and a higher minimum wage.

But the tax bill died, lawmakers could not agree on how to raise the wage and universal preschool is nowhere near a reality. There will be no $125 million for the Ala Wai, though there is in the biennium budget debt service payments toward that goal.

The Legislature did pass a bill making clear that the Executive Office on Early Learning has authority over state-funded pre-K. The legislation also includes funding for 18 charter school pre-K classrooms, money for 10 new public pre-K classrooms and more than $10 million in appropriations to Department of Education programs such as the Early College program.

There is also $700,000 for the Hawaii Promise program that helps community college students. But the program will not be expanded, as the governor wished. His budget request to that end was $19 million. He didn’t get it.

But Ige sees a glass half full when it comes to pre-K.

“I think everything is about compromise,” he said. “I’m glad that they agreed and we are expanding public pre-K. I will be an advocate for expanding it until it’s universal and every public school student has an opportunity.”

There’s Always Next Year

Ige, who spent almost 30 years as first a representative and then a senator before being elected governor in 2014, understands how the Legislature works. As a former chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, he also understands how the budget works.

On Thursday, Ige said he still needed to review the budget worksheets to see exactly how much money went to support affordable housing and homeless programs.

“I think we made progress in critical areas.” — Gov. David Ige

Asked if he was disappointed by the failure of one of his priority bills — allowing the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. to enter into 99-year leases of units in residential condominiums located on state lands — Ige took the long view.

“We will continue to look at state lands, at making state lands available,” he said. “The 99-year lease was really our opportunity to find a way to increase the number of affordable, for-sale units, and I still believe that that is the key. I know that the Legislature was looking at a number of measures that authorize 99-year leases.”

The governor said the HHFDC will be part of a study tour to Singapore to see first hand how that city-state handles housing.

Senate President Ron Kouchi during the last day of session. He rejects media portrayals of political tension between him and the governor.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Also dead for the year are several other pieces of legislation that the administration has backed: the establishing of an airport corporation, and increasing the state fuel tax, motor vehicle registration fee and vehicle weight tax.

But, like everything that was left on the cutting room floor this session, they can be reconsidered next session.

In the meantime, the administration will now turn its attention to scrutinize closely hundreds of bills on the governor’s desk, including contentious measures to decriminalize marijuana and to tax short-term vacation rentals. The governor declined to say much about either at this point.

Now Hiring

Ige will also be looking for new blood to join his administration.

He credited Ford Fuchigami, his departing administrative director, for his hard work and dedication and expressed satisfaction that Mike McCartney, his former chief of staff, will now lead the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

But McCartney’s confirmation vote was close Thursday — 15 to 10 — and Ige sat next to a lei-bedecked McCartney as Sen. Glenn Wakai harangued the nominee from the Senate floor as being the wrong guy to run DBEDT.

Ige’s public safety director, Nolan Espinda, also went through a bruising confirmation fight before ultimately winning Senate approval. Same goes for William Aila, the deputy at the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

Mike McCartney, center, was confirmed by a 15 to 10 vote in the Senate to lead DBEDT.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Aila will now serve as interim at DHHL, after Ige withdrew Jobie Masagatani’s reappointment to the top post. And Robert Yu, the deputy at Budget and Finance, will be the interim director now that Rod Becker is leaving.

Though Ige’s appointment process was bumpy, he did see unanimous confirmations for two top jobs: Suzanne Case for a second term as Department of Land and Natural Resources chair, and Clare Connors as attorney general.

Senate President Ron Kouchi pointed to the confirmation process as illustrating the Senate’s willingness to work with the governor. He rejected as “trash” media reports that the politics of elections would hamper the Senate’s work with the governor.

Speaker of the House Scott Saiki, left, had Gov. David Ige as a special guest on the House floor Thursday.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

House Speaker Scott Saiki said there had been a lot of coordination between his chamber and the administration.

“And there’s been a willingness to work together and collaborate,” said Saiki. “Going into next session there will be some results from that relationship.”

Said House Finance Chair Sylvia Luke, “Once an election is over and we’ve taken our positions, then we have to come together and do the people’s work …We don’t have the luxury to be holding grudges. We have a constitutional responsibility to do the people’s work.”

Getting Water Rights Right

Also on Ige’s plate is a resolution to the water permits crisis. He had backed the passage of House Bill 1326 to extend diversion of state waters, but the Senate did not have the votes.

Asked what he would do to help farmers and ranchers who may see their access to water end on Jan. 1, Ige said he is working diligently on the issue.

“We have as an administration made a commitment to resolving the water issues, and we’ve made tremendous progress,” he said, again using a favored word.

“We’ll make sure that DLNR has the resources it needs to work through the process,” he said. “But I think people are forgetting that we are trying to issue long-term leases for water that has never, ever been done in the state of Hawaii … It has to be done right.”

Civil Beat reporter Blaze Lovell contributed to this article.

The post Chad Blair: Despite Legislative Setbacks, Ige Sees ‘Progress’ For His Agenda appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

The bitter fight in the state Senate in the past week over Senate Bill 1292, the so-called Airbnb bill allowing the state to tax vacation rentals, reflected geographic divisions in the chamber as much as political differences.

Short-term rentals are generally illegal in the state but have nevertheless proliferated because owners can earn more money renting properties to visiting vacationers than to Hawaii residents. The bill, which squeaked by on a vote of 13 to 12 after one senator changed his vote, will allow hosting platforms to act as tax collectors for the state if Gov. David Ige signs off on it.

The vote came after three dramatic showdowns in the Senate.

Sen. Kurt Fevella pleaded with fellow lawmakers to vote no on the Airbnb bill.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The three most passionate opponents of the bill were Democratic Sens. Laura Thielen and Gil Riviere and the chamber’s sole Republican, Sen. Kurt Fevella. They all argued vehemently against the bill, saying it would allow the state to profit off a business that is hurting their communities by causing rents to soar.

What the three have in common is that they represent beachfront districts on Oahu that are hugely popular with tourists and have become magnets for short-term rental operators providing overnight accommodations in homes that formerly housed Hawaii residents.

Thielen’s district spreads from Kailua through Waimanalo to Portlock and Riviere’s encompasses northern Oahu from Kaneohe to Waialua. Fevella’s district, the area including Ewa Beach, is proving increasingly attractive to budget vacationers.

On the other side of the debate, arguing that the state should not be leaving potential tax revenue untapped, were lawmakers from areas that are less attractive to tourists and Airbnb operations, particularly those from neighbor islands, and the Senate’s leadership, which supported the bill’s passage and the $46 million a year in estimated revenue it would bring.

Airbnb has long sought the ability to serve as a tax collection agent for the state government. Gov. David Ige’s administration was secretly negotiating such a deal with the booking platform before the 2018 legislative session.

The deal ultimately stalled in the face of opposition from a diverse group that included affordable housing advocates, neighborhood groups, hotel companies and hotel worker unions.

This year, the debate at first played out quietly, as two separate bills moved through the Senate and the House that provided for taxation of short-term transient vacation rentals, or TVRs, but also contained provisions to help regulate them. House leadership eventually dropped its version of the bill and did not appoint conferees to negotiate the final measure.

Meanwhile, Airbnb protested the Senate version of the bill, saying it raised privacy issues for the providers of short-term rentals and the hosting platforms.

In the end, what was left was a stripped-down Senate version that allowed for taxation but also contained provisions that would keep information about the rental operations confidential.

Thielen and Sen. Glenn Wakai, chairman of the Energy, Economic Development and Tourism Committee, reached out to the House to try to reach agreement on a revised bill. According to Wakai, House leaders refused to do so.

“The House was not interested in anything other than taxing TVRs,” he said in an email.

The public debate played out last week and at first it looked like opponents of the bill had won.

Late Friday, the Senate voting the measure down 12 to 12, which effectively killed it.

Sen. Laura Thielen spoke in opposition to the Airbnb bill on the floor of the Senate.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

But on Monday morning, it was alive again. Senate Ways and Means Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz told senators they would lose funding for popular measures if they did not change their minds, and a re-vote was held. Sen. Clarence Nishihara, who had previously opposed the bill, switched his vote to support it.

He did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

In an interview after the vote, Thielen blamed the leadership of the Senate and the House for forcing a bill she considers highly problematic when they could have crafted a bill with enforcement mechanisms.

Indeed, Senate leadership supported and overwhelmingly voted for the measure. Those voting yes were Senate President Ron Kouchi, Vice President Michelle Kidani, Majority Leader J. Kalani English and Majority Caucus Leader Dru Kanuha.

Lawmakers from the neighbor islands voted for the Airbnb bill by a 3-to-1 margin, with six voting yes and two voting no.

Kauai, Maui and the Big Island have all enacted ordinances regulating short-term rentals in some way, leaving Oahu with the weakest enforcement. Some neighbor island legislators made that point on the floor.

Sen. Roz Baker, who represents Maui and who voted for the measure, blamed the state’s problem on the City and County of Honolulu and its failure to act. She said that city administrators told state lawmakers last year that they knew where all the illegal rentals are and how much they are earning. She said that Honolulu did not need more information from the state.

Sen. Gil Riviere who represents the North Shore was one of 12 senators who opposed the Airbnb bill.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The bill’s opponents described how their neighborhoods are changing in the face of increasing tourism and visitors who prefer boutique housing in residential areas than the hotel districts.

“Over the years, I’ve seen the vacation rental industry destroy our island home by replacing local families,” Thielen said on the floor. “I come from a community that would not understand me doing anything but a no vote on this.”

Thielen said that the Kailua neighborhood she grew up in and that she still represents was “whfft! gone long ago,” to vacation rentals, and that now she is fighting for Waimanalo, Kaneohe and Hawaii Kai.

“This is going to get worse and worse,” she said.

Fevella said Ewa Beach is “getting slapped, cracked and everything you can think of” because vacation rentals are displacing long-time families.

“Beautiful, plenty local families, plenty ohana are getting ripped apart by these vacation rentals,” he said. “Simple country homes, built in the 1940s, early ’50s, three bedroom, very small, very country, and now 15 vacation rental adults decide to rent them.”

He begged his fellow lawmakers to vote no on the bill.

“In Ewa Beach, my community speaks loud to me; they do not want this,” he said.

“No neighborhood, not yours, not mine, should be subject to something that’s not legal,” he said.

But for Wakai, whose district includes Kalihi, Hickam and Pearl Harbor, and for the rest of the dozen on the other side, the issue was much simpler.

“There are only a handful of TVRs that I know of in Kalihi and Salt Lake,” he wrote in an email. “My constituents are not beating down my door on this issue.”

The post Airbnb Bill: Where Lawmakers Live Determined How They Voted appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Ask House Speaker Scott Saiki how this year’s legislative session went and he’d probably say swimmingly. Ask Senate President Ron Kouchi, however, and he’d compare his chamber to a canoe, with paddlers all stroking the water in different directions.

“It’s been incredibly difficult,” Kouchi said from his lectern Thursday, moments before the Senate adjourned its 2019 session. 

He said the Senate, where 24 of 25 members are Democrats, were deeply divided on some major issues. “Clearly everybody feels like everybody’s paddling in a different direction,” he said.

The disparate reactions by the Legislature’s leaders as session closed on Thursday highlighted the divide between how the two chambers approached some of Hawaii’s most pressing issues like minimum wage and taxing illegal vacation rentals in the last days of the legislative session.

Senate President Ron Kouchi presides over the Senate’s last session before adjournment Thursday.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Kouchi’s statements before the close of session also topped off a tense several weeks for the Senate that saw itself at odds over several high-profile gubernatorial nominations, and most recently, a vote to tax vacation rentals that split the Senate.

The House forced the Senate’s hand on Senate Bill 1292 by refusing to negotiate during conference committees.

A Different Way Of Doing Business

Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English took issue with the House’s inactions on several measures during conference committees. Typically, the House and Senate send negotiating teams to talk over their differences on bills in the last two weeks before the end of the session.

But the House didn’t send negotiators to the table on several measures.

“We understand you may not like the bill, but you passed a version, now come and negotiate your version,” English said. “At least show up. If negotiations fail, they fail. But at least we tried.”

SB 1292, the bill to tax illegal vacation rentals, was one of those bills. The House did not come to the table on that bill or a similar one, House Bill 419, forcing the Senate to take the House’s position on SB 1292.

House Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke told reporters Thursday morning that the House’s draft of SB 1292 had language backed by the state Department of Taxation, and that it’s up to the counties now to find the illegal vacation rentals.

The Senate wanted stricter enforcement by the state over hosting platforms like Airbnb and HomeAway along with potential tax revenue of $46 million a year that could come with it. The current version of SB 1292 would still collect the tax revenue, but makes the hosting platforms the tax collector, effectively shielding the location of the rentals.

Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English speaks to reporters after the Legislature adjourned Thursday.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

“The theory is, a half loaf of bread is better than no loaf of bread,” English said regarding the Senate’s concession to the House.

The take-it-or-leave-it tactics also worked on SB 78, a catch-all measure that keeps the administrative authority of state-funded pre-K under the Executive Office of Early Learning, sustains funding for 18 existing public charter school pre-K classrooms, adds funding for 10 new public pre-K classrooms and provides more than $10 million in appropriations to DOE programs like its Early College program.

The House refused to negotiate, and with an April 25 deadline looming, the Senate took the House’s draft.

While the Senate faced several major bumps in the road since January, English said that this has been one of the smoother sessions he’s seen.

“Overall, I think we’re ending on a nice note. Everyone’s not too happy and not too sad,” English said.

The two chambers were also able to find compromise on a number of measures that Saiki highlighted Thursday including all-mail voting, decriminalizing a small amount of pakalolo and implementing criminal justice reform.

Saiki also touted the House’s lead on implementing the state’s zero-based budget system, an effort to drill down into how and where state departments spend their money.

Kouchi struck a more somber tone in his closing remarks to the Senate, saying that, while the senators may share vast differences, they all “ran to make a difference, to make a better Hawaii.”

The post Senate Closes The 2019 Session With Some Sharp Divisions appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

Billing errors have led the local agency overseeing Honolulu rail to overpay project contractors in several cases, including one of the agency’s main consultants helping to manage construction, according to the state auditor’s office.

Further, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation doesn’t always require the necessary documentation to justify rail costs when its contractors and Hawaiian Electric Co. submit their invoices, according to a summary of the auditor’s latest report on the project.

That report, done by the private firm Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, is slated to come out Friday.

Baker Tilly relied on a relatively small sample of rail invoices over a couple of years and uncovered faulty payments totaling thousands of dollars, State Auditor Les Kondo said Thursday.

It’s the latest in a string of audits scrutinizing the project, which has seen its costs nearly double to $9 billion.

It remains unclear whether the isolated issues flagged by Baker Tilly extend to other rail contracts. “There’s some leakage. How much? I don’t know,” Kondo said.

He downplayed the report’s significance, in part because some of the overpayments were small, and called his office’s first two audits on rail more important.

State Auditor Les Kondo speaks about the first HART Audit.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Nonetheless, HART board members discussed at length the report’s findings — and HART’s response — during a subcommittee meeting Thursday. The rail agency then repeatedly declined to provide a copy of the draft report that its board members had discussed, citing instructions from Kondo not to do so.

Instead, the local agency provided a summary list of 11 findings from the auditor’s upcoming report and HART’s responses. HART officials said the summary used the auditor’s own wording.

It’s not clear whether the summary that rail leaders discussed publicly on Thursday lacks important context from the state’s yet-to-be released audit.

It’s to be the auditor’s fourth and final chapter in a series of state-mandated probes into problems that have dogged rail under HART and city management.

The auditor’s report, along with a similar series released by the city auditor, have shed more light on the causes that helped dramatically drive up costs in recent years besides the hot construction market, which rail officials mainly cite.

It comes as the rail project finds itself embroiled in a federal criminal investigation and as HART attempts to significantly alter its approach mid-construction, switching to a public-private partnership, in hopes of finishing the full 20-mile, 21-station transit line by 2026.

On Friday, HART is expected to trim the candidates looking to finish rail to Ala Moana Center to no more than three finalists. Under state procurement law it can’t say who those finalists are — or even how many there are, according to agency officials.

Earlier this year the Honolulu City Council also authorized a forensic audit to probe for a potential fraud or malfeasance — a step they hope will help recover some of the public’s trust on a project whose estimated cost has grown to more than $9 billion.

A rail station takes shape in Waipahu. A summary of the latest state auditor’s report flagged problems with HART’s handling of billing and invoices in some cases.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

One of the state auditor’s more notable findings, according to the summary, was that HART at one point declined nearly $124,000 in savings it stood to gain from its core systems support contractor, Lea + Elliot. Agency officials believed — erroneously — that they had a policy of waiving such savings if they didn’t amount to at least 3% of the contract’s overhead, according to the summary.

In its response HART acknowledged that it had erred in believing there was such a waiver policy in the first place. Lea + Elliot will credit the full amount going forward, according to HART.

The rail agency waived those savings in 2015 and 2016, a particularly fraught era in the project’s recent history, in which rail’s total cost estimate spiked dramatically.

HDR Engineering, a consultant whose employees are among some of rail’s top managers embedded in HART, frequently billed the rail agency using incorrect rates between 2016 and 2018, according to the audit summary. The firm overcharged the local agency more than $5,000 in that time, it added.

HART said it’s seeking that money back from HDR and vetting its procedures to “mitigate discrepancies.”

In a separate audit released in January, the state found that HART doesn’t properly hold accountable the project’s consultants, who have an “obvious profit motive.”

The latest state audit also found that HART doesn’t require Hawaiian Electric Co. to provide enough supporting documentation for its costs on the rail project, and that rail’s on-call contractors can bill the project using different rates at different times for identical tasks.

However, board members took issue with some of the other findings. They disagreed with the auditor that HART should require contractors to collect so-called “lien waivers,” which the auditor said could protect the agency from future subcontractor claims.

“Some of these observations strike me as off base,” said Terrence Lee, the volunteer board’s vice chairman.

FTA Stands Firm on City Rail Payments

Meanwhile, as the HART board discussed the state auditor’s report and other matters Thursday, a mainland delegation from Federal Transit Administration, including Regional Administrator Ray Tellis, waited upstairs in the agency’s Alii Place offices to discuss the future of the project.

HART Executive Director Andrew Robbins looked to sway rail’s FTA partners to release project funding earlier.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

The FTA tentatively plans to start releasing rail’s remaining federal dollars in February, once the costs of switching to a public-private partnership become clearer.

HART Executive Director Andy Robbins has said he hoped to convince the FTA to resume payments of that $744 million later this year instead.

He also aimed to convince the FTA to allow the city to delay paying the bulk of its $214 million obligation to rail construction until 2026. The FTA, however, wants to see the city start those payments in more “stable” amounts, starting now.

It’s not clear that Robbins succeeded. In a statement released after the meeting Thursday, HART said the FTA officials reiterated their desire to see the city payments earlier.

“We understand the Honolulu City Council will address the provision of the City Subsidy in the coming weeks,” Robbins said in that statement.

Read the HART summary of the state report here:

The post Final State Audit On Rail Finds Overpayments To Contractors, Billing Issues appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

A hot controversy over an unpopular construction project at Waimanalo Bay Beach Park got even hotter Friday as Honolulu City Council member Ikaika Anderson called for a halt to the project and Mayor Kirk Caldwell said no.

Almost 9,000 people have signed an online petition in opposition to a multi-million-dollar plan by Honolulu to build a new sports field complex at the beach park, located on land near Bellows Air Force Station that is known as Sherwood Forest.

Opponents say the construction is endangering important archaeological sites and threatening to destroy the breeding grounds of the hoary bat, or opeapea, a nocturnal tree-roosting mammal indigenous to Hawaii. An endangered species, the opeapea holds a special place in Hawaiian culture as an aumakua, a family ancestor god.

Construction trucks came in recently and began tearing out Waimanalo’s Sherwood Forest.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

After an organizational meeting last week drew more than 100 people, scores of opponents have mobilized sign-waving protests along Kalanianaole Highway, with passing drivers frequently honking and shouting their support for the effort to stop the project.

The plan had been in the works for about a decade, but many residents only became aware of it last week when construction crews arrived and became tearing out trees and their roots and other vegetation, a process known as “grubbing.”

“We didn’t know about it; we found out when they started bulldozing,” said Kalani Kalima, a Waimanolo resident who has emerged as a leader in opposition to the project. “The government is pushing these kinds of projects down our throats.”

Late Friday afternoon, Anderson, who lives in Waimanalo and represents Windward Oahu, released a letter asking Caldwell to “pause” the construction work, which he acknowledged had been highly criticized because of what he called misperceptions over the scope of the work.

Anderson, who has been a supporter of the project, said that a preliminary version of the master plan suggested grubbing on the site would not occur between April 15 and Aug.15 to avoid interfering with the breeding season of the hoary bat. But the final master plan, he  said, identified the time period to avoid grubbing as June 1 to Sept. 15.

“This inconsistency coupled with a general concern for the well-being of the hoary bats does give good reason for us to pause the current work to honor the April 15 cease-work date,” Anderson wrote, asking for the city to stop the construction work immediately.

Waimanalo Sherwood Forest demonstrators waving signs along Kalanianaole Highway.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

About a half hour later, another press release began making the rounds, this one from Mayor Kirk Caldwell.

Caldwell said that stopping the project now would cost taxpayers as much as $300,000, because it would mean stopping a construction project where the contract was already awarded.

“Therefore, the city will proceed with the completion of Phase 1, which includes a multi-purpose field, a play apparatus and an 11-stall parking lot at a cost of $1.42 million,” Caldwell wrote.

Caldwell said the city would review with Anderson “whether to proceed with any additional work phases.”

Waimanalo resident Karin O’Mahony, who opposes the project, said she thought the letters were transparent political gestures designed to create the appearance that the city was taking residents’ concerns seriously.

“It all feels so disingenuous to me,” O’Mahony said. “I’m disgusted by all of them.”

Archaeologists have identified the Bellows beach area as one of the earliest sites of Polynesian. migration to Hawaii.

The post Caldwell Refuses To Halt Construction At Waimanalo Beach appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

HILO, Hawaii Island – Women are learning traditional Hawaiian culture through a contemporary connection to Queen Kapiolani, and they’re using a lowly regarded invasive species to do it.

A weeklong program that introduced student volunteers to the art of canoe carving was held in Hilo last week as part of the 56th Annual Merrie Monarch Hula Festival.

It was funded through a $26,000 grant the Smithsonian Institution awarded under its American Women’s History Initiative, said Kalewa Correa, curator of Hawaii and Pacific America at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.

The unique hands-on opportunity attracted 22 women, ages 17 to 65, who built a replica of the outrigger canoe Queen Kapiolani gave to the Smithsonian in 1888, he said.

Ray Bumatay, a master canoe carver known as kalai wa‘a, likened Hawaiian outrigger canoes to a sibling that he can easily envision in a massive albizia tree.

Courtesy of Dino Morrow

“I was just really stoked to foster a generation of women carvers,” said Correa, who applied for and obtained the funding. “I see the interest and energy is there.”

When he and other experts were examining the historic canoe last year, they learned that Smithsonian caretakers were mistakenly classifying as historical artifacts the protective packing material included when it was shipped to Washington, D.C., more than a century ago.

“It’s bringing together history, and it corrects the Smithsonian’s records,” Correa said of the project.

It costs too much money to send the replica to the Smithsonian and for the museum to maintain it, Correa said. So he will offer it to the Big Island charter school that best demonstrates its desire to use the canoe and the ability to care for it.

Female Carvers A Rarity

While many women have captained Hawaiian outrigger sailing canoes, few have learned of the canoe’s origins and how to create one, Correa said.

“There’s two women carvers in the Pacific right now who are apprentices,” Correa said.

One is Alexis Ching, who served as project manager.

“It’s the first event teaching women, so it’s a pretty big deal because women didn’t carve,” Ching said.

She called it a “prototype.”

“It’s the first time that most of these ladies have touched a chainsaw,” Ching said, adding that participants were required to wear protective shoes and other safety gear.

Besides the replica, two larger outrigger canoes were built so the student carvers could work on the various phases of construction, she said.

About a third of the participants want to continue learning to carve canoes, and additional classes are planned.

“This is beyond what I expected as far as the retention rate,” Correa said. “For me, it was a total win.”

Student Alexis Cullen said she has paddled canoes for years, but never carved one.

“Women like power tools, too,” Cullen said.

Also unusual was the choice of tree used to build the canoes.

Traditional outrigger canoes are made from koa, a prized hardwood that is expensive and hard to find. Few koa trees from which a 25-foot or longer canoe can be made still grow in Hawaii, and most of those are on protected government lands.

Women students learn how to carve a traditional Hawaiian outrigger canoe as part of an educational project done last week in Hilo.

Courtesy of Dino Morrow

But one tree that is plenty big, accessible and of little value is the invasive albizia that’s caused widespread damage in Puna and poses growing threats statewide.

“This is the perfect tree for what we teach people,” master carver Doug Bumatay said.

Along with being cheap to obtain, albizia is also a soft wood that master Hawaiian canoe carvers, known as kalai wa‘a, say works great both as a teaching medium and on the ocean as a finished vessel.

“With koa, you don’t want them to make a mistake,” said master carver Ray Bumatay, who is mentoring Ching and helped teach the new women students. “With albizia, you want them to make a mistake so you can show them how to fix it.”

The resulting canoe “is just as good as any canoe,” said Bumatay, who founded the Paddlers of Laka Canoe Club and has gone to Japan to carve canoes.

Project Manager Alexis Ching, second from left, said of the Hilo project: “It’s the first event teaching women, so it’s a pretty big deal because women didn’t carve.”

Courtesy of Dino Morrow

To artisans like Bumatay – he has numerous miniature canoes displayed throughout his home – a canoe is more than just a vessel for travel or fishing.

“It’s like my sister, my brother,” he said. “It was once a living thing, and once it dies, you bring it back to life.”

Bumatay said he started using albizia in 2001 when he became the first Hawaiian carver invited to the International Festival of Canoes held on Maui. Given 14 days to complete a canoe, Bumatay said he was done in just seven.

The use of curved jigs, false walls and other specialized building techniques his family invented along with the soft albizia expedited the task, he said.

“You can’t beat this,” Bumatay said of the wood.

Selecting the proper koa tree was a process that Bumatay said started with him staring, sometimes with a cold beverage around, at a particular tree until he was able to envision the canoe within it.

“As soon as I saw that red line, I was on my way,” he said. “From then on, it was easy.”

Bumatay said he hopes he’ll be able to envision his next albizia tree as a replica of the Hawaiian canoe used in the 2016 Disney hit “Moana.”

The post Big Island: Hawaii’s New Generation Of Women Canoe Carvers appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.

It’s 5:40 p.m. on Friday, April 26, and time is ticking on the 2019 Hawaii Legislature.

In just 20 minutes, when the clock hits 6 p.m., scores of bills will die unless House and Senate conferees agree on a draft.

One of these, Senate Bill 1374, would set up a Hawaii Retirement Savings Program for private sector employees. It’s on death’s door, even though it passed both chambers unanimously earlier in the session.

Wearing their iconic red shirts and led by state director Barbara Kim Stanton, more than a dozen AARP Hawaii members occupy Conference Room 423 waiting for Sens. Brian Taniguchi, Sharon Moriwaki and Kurt Fevella and Reps. Aaron Ling Johanson, Sylvia Luke and Bob McDermott to vote on SB 1374.

AARP State Director Barbara Kim Stanton, in foreground at left, listens to state Sen. Brian Taniguchi explain why the Hawaii Saves bill did not pass.

A vote never comes, though, and soon the clock runs out, as it does on every last day of conference committee at the Legislature unless leadership elects to go into overtime. Out of more than 3,000 bills introduced in January, barely 300 will cross the finish line by sine die.

Johanson and Taniguchi, the conferee chairs, gently try to explain to AARP that SB 1374 never received “release” from Luke, chair of the House Finance Committee, and Donovan Dela Cruz, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee — the money committees.

This happened even though Taniguchi, the bill’s author, told Johanson that the Senate was willing to accept the draft revised by the House. It’s a draft that leaves blank the amount of funding for the Hawaii Saves program, as it is called, and says the bill — should it become law — won’t go into effect until the year 2050 (which, I might note, is also when the 39-year old Johanson will have long reached the eligibility age to join AARP himself).

Blank dollar amounts and so-called defective dates are common elements of legislating at the Hawaii Legislature, a sort of poison pill to make sure lawmakers don’t accidentally pass bills. Taniguchi’s original bill called for funding Hawaii Saves with $300,000 over the next two fiscal years and for it to become law July 1.

‘Where Is Chair Luke?’

But AARP doesn’t want to talk about that, and Stanton, a veteran lobbyist, wants to know exactly what happened to the bill — and what comes next.

“So, what now?” Stanton asks Taniguchi and Johanson. “Because our volunteers would like to know.”

Johanson says the bill is in “closer form” and will come back next year, adding, “We need all chairs to agree.”

“So, where is Chair Luke?” Stanton asks and then states the obvious: “She’s not here.”

Johanson and Taniguchi explain that there is no WAM and FIN approval on SB 1374, seeming to suggest without actually saying it that there is no reason for Luke to be in Room 423 at 6 p.m. on the last day of conference committee because SB 1374 is dead.

“So, it’s going to be deferred until next year?” Stanton asks, already knowing the answer but wanting her members to hear it from the legislators themselves.

“Unfortunately, yeah,” Johnson replies.

Stanton groans.

“This is terrible,” she says.

Media Blitz

It’s not as if AARP did not work hard enough to call attention to SB 1374.

In addition to lobbying heavily for it all session long and submitting guest editorials to media, Craig Gima, the AARP’s communications director, issued no less than five media advisories in the days leading up to the April 26 deadline arguing for the bill’s merits but warning of its vulnerability. House leadership was blamed for “trying to kill the bill in secret,” as one advisory said.

Gima issued one more press release after SB 1374 died, too, again pinning the blame on the House.

“A similar Hawaii Saves bill died last year when the House, at the 11th hour, pulled their conferees from meeting,” it says. “Senate Bill 1374 had widespread support among small businesses, workers and taxpayers.”

AARP Hawaii lobbied for favored legislation at the Capitol on April 26.

AARP Hawaii

The bill certainly had a lot of support including from the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice and the Oahu County Democrats. But insurance and banking interests opposed SB 1374.

“This AARP plan has been introduced in approximately 30 states, most of which have rejected it,” Oren Chikamoto of the American Council of Life Insurers in Hawaii said in testimony. “It is an expensive employer mandate that requires the business owner to offer the state plans and automatically enrolled their workers. It also poses significant costs, risks, legal complexities and significant liabilities for the state and its private insurers.”

Asked why the bill died, House Speaker Scott Saiki told me the same thing Taniguchi and Johanson told AARP: The money chairs could not reach agreement.

Opponents of such bills are likely quite satisfied with such outcomes. Still, the last-minute collapse of bills with broad support happens all the time, leaving backers of bills deeply frustrated over their experience with the legislative experience.

Out of more than 3,000 bills introduced in January, barely 300 will cross the finish line by sine die.

“This is really disappointing,” Stanton told Taniguchi and Johanson that Friday. “Because people really worked hard with the petitions, sign-holding, calling people, and we had really good information provided. And I know the Senate had $400,000 going in this bill, and I know that in your first daft you had $150,000. We would think there would be something to reach a reasonable compromise.”

“And I think that that’s what so discouraging about the public process,” she continued, “that, all along, since January, you’re trying to find out how to have the public be heard. And to have it down to the wire like this, to lose on a technicality, or they’re not here, I think I’m speaking for the whole group that this is really disappointing. And so, I don’t know what else can be done.”

Taniguchi’s advice is that AARP try to talk Stanton out of retirement, a recognition that she has been very good at her job, SB 1374 to the contrary. That gets a few chuckles and nods. At least one AARP member says Stanton will be back anyway lobbying for important legislation.

And that means Stanton, Gima, AARP, legislators and me will probably be in Room 423 on the last Friday of April 2020 as the money chairs once again try to reach agreement — or not — on dozens of important bills lingering on life support.

The post Chad Blair: This Is What It Sounds Like When Bills Die appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.