Multiple tax hikes moving through the Legislature
Gun Bills Die in Committee
Request for Public Comments – Applicants for Hawaii Supreme Court
Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted February 11, 2023
Legislative Agenda: Abortion, Cannabis, Suicide
Kim, DelaCruz, Kidani: Regents Should Dump Lassner to Help Boost Aloha Stadium Boondoggle
2,000 appeals received disputing current Honolulu property tax assessments
SA: … Property owners filed about 2,000 appeals disputing their new assessment valuations the City and County issued in December.
The figure, finalized after the mid-January deadline, marks an 18% increase from the year before, according to city spokesperson Ian Scheuring. Scheuring said that according to the Real Property Assessment Division, appellants win “roughly 30% of the time.”
Exactly when those appeals will conclude remains unclear. “The budget process moves forward based on revenue projections,” Scheuring said. “So the Department of Budget and Fiscal Services does not wait for an exact figure before moving forward with the budget.”
Filing an appeal requires a $50 deposit, so about $100,000 will hit the city’s general fund to cover postage and administrative costs for the Department of Budget and Fiscal Services, Scheuring said. If an appeal succeeds or is compromised, the person who filed the appeal recoups the cost.
Appeals are heard by one of three Real Property Tax Assessment Boards of Review, appointees to which are unpaid volunteers. Most of the volunteers work in real estate and development.
“I don’t even have a meeting until March,” said Patrick Chandler, a Realtor with Corcoran Pacific Properties who sits on the first Board of Review.
read … 2,000 appeals received disputing current Honolulu property tax assessments
How Just One Person Gets To Decide Important Issues Like Term Limits
CB: … Should the Hawaii Constitution be amended to make 16 years the maximum amount of time anyone can serve as a legislator? Don’t ask the state’s voters. And don’t ask the full state House and Senate. And don’t even ask the members of the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs who conducted a public hearing Wednesday on House Bill 796.
Just ask Committee Chair David Tarnas, who put the matter to rest all by himself.
In one more example of the dictatorial power of committee chairs in the Hawaii Legislature, Tarnas singlehandedly torpedoed one of the proposals of the House Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct.
At least he said why he did it. The fact is that chairs sometimes kill bills with no explanation whatsoever, which happens to be the subject of another Standards Commission proposal, HB 725, that was also deferred without a vote at the same hearing….
read … Why Does Just One Person Get To Decide Important Issues Like Term Limits?
SB678: Homelessness Industry Wants to Tax Your House to Line Their Pockets
CB: … Last Tuesday, Puanani, a woman in her 50s living in a homeless encampment in Kapaa, Kauai, walked for two hours to the Hoomana Thrift Shop (owned by author of this commentary) to testify via Zoom in support of a housing bill that could change her life (boost my salary).
Senate Bill 678 would increase the sales tax on multimillion-dollar homes in Hawaii to increase the stateʻs funding for homeless services, affordable housing and land conservation.
By increasing the tax rate to 2%-6% on homes selling for over $2 million and dedicating 10% to homeless services (ie for me), the state funding for homeless services would increase from $11 million a year to $40-$50 million a year….
(This was a billion dollar failure in Calif. Now the homelessness industry is trying to line its pockets in HI.)
Rowena Pangan is owner of the Hoomana Thrift Store in Kapaa, Kauai. It's a training center for people with learning disabilities (See how this works?) ….
(The first rule of bureaucracy: “Maintain the problem.’)
TGI: Property sale tax could create $2.1 million for Kaua‘i homelessness Industry Grifters
read … Kauai's Homeless Deserve To Be Heard On Housing Policy
Hawaii lawmakers weigh bills creating gun-free zones
SA: … The state Senate Committee on Public Safety and Intergovernmental and Military Affairs last week held a discussion, then passed Senate Bill 1230, which includes schools, hospitals and government facilities on its list of sensitive places.
Introduced by state Sen. Glenn Wakai, SB 1230 would, as initially written, impose reporting and temperament requirements for firearm ownership, including suitability based on behavior or any prior indictment for certain crimes. SB 1230 also could make concealed carry in sensitive places a misdemeanor, with vehicle transport exceptions….
SB 1230, Wakai noted, moves next to the state Senate’s Judiciary Committee for further review and possible passage.
In addition to SB 1230, the state Legislature has introduced at least eight other bills relating to the concealed carry of firearms in sensitive places. Besides schools and day care centers, variations of these state-level bills call for the prohibition of carrying concealed firearms at churches, shelters, public protests, entertainment centers, voting centers and even on private property unless consent is expressly given.
Under some of these measures, anyone caught carrying a concealed weapon in a sensitive place could face a misdemeanor or felony offense.
Among the county measures is Bill 57: the City and County of Honolulu’s draft ordinance first introduced by Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration in September following the high court’s June ruling in New York State Rifle &Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which, to the consternation of those in law enforcement and for many governors and mayors across the country, overturned a pivotal New York gun safety law….
read … Hawaii lawmakers weigh bills creating gun-free zones
Hawaii Senators Approve Bill To Promote Research Into Legalizing Shrooms and Ecstasy
MM: … Hawaii senators have approved a bill in committee to promote research into the therapeutic potential of psilocybin, MDMA and other alternative treatments (shrooms, ecstasy, and other club drugs) for mental health conditions. And a House panel separately held a hearing of a measure to create a psilocybin-focused working group.
(Translation: They need a working group to generate excuses for legalization.)
There’s been significant interest in psychedelics policy in the Aloha State this session, with a main focus on creating a research framework that could inform future legislation on providing regulated access to the substances.
The Senate Health and Human Services Committee unanimously approved an amended bill from Sen. Chris Lee (D) on Friday that would create a “beneficial treatments advisory council” that would be responsible for exploring state and federal regulations on certain psychedelics, in addition to reviewing scientific literature related to using them for mental health treatment….
(Translation: Medical shrooms for …uh…’pain’.)
read … Hawaii Senators Approve Bill To Promote Research Into Legalizing Shrooms and Ecstasy
HB1165: Carbon Offsets Have Created A new Industry -- Suing Carbon Offset Scams
IM: … Should Hawai`i endorse carbon offset projects? HB 1165 would establish that role for the Hawai`i Department of Transportation. The bill is scheduled to be heard tomorrow.
The Department of Transportation shall “assist air travelers with purchasing verified carbon offsets for their air travel from providers of the offsets,” and “shall maintain a list of public and private entities that provide verified carbon offsets for passenger air travel.”…
What is the liability to the State to enforce voluntary offsets? A new industry is forming: suing fake carbon offset programs.
The Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and SourceMaterial, a non-profit investigative journalism organisation, conducted a nine-month investigation of the forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations, and determined that are largely worthless….
A Bloomberg investigation found that one environmental organization generated offsets to protect trees even though those trees were protected by another non-profit while another environmental organization began selling offsets in 2013 for purportedly protecting the trees it never intended to cut them down….
read … Carbon Offsets Have Created A new Industry -- Suing Carbon Offset Scams
Many Hawaii schoolkids going without routine vaccinations as Antivaxxer Conspiracy Theories Spread
SA: … During the 2019-2020 school year, 3.4% of schoolchildren had missed routine vaccinations or had incomplete immunization records. This figure jumped fivefold this school year to 18.6%.
The numbers include children who obtained religious and medical exemptions from state vaccination requirements, as well as students who didn’t provide medical records showing that they had all of the required shots….
The percentage of students claiming religious exemptions from vaccination requirements increased from 2% during the 2019-2020 school year to 3% this year…..
At Kona Pacific Public Charter School, 36% of its 188 students have claimed religious exemptions from state vaccination requirements, according to DOH’s data for this school year. Overall, 66% of its students had incomplete vaccination records. At Montessori School of Maui, 1 in 5 of its 171 students had religious exemptions from vaccinations, a rate similar to Myron B. Thompson Academy on Oahu.
Some of the state’s public schools also have high rates of unvaccinated students, including Hanalei Elementary School on Kauai, where 37% of students have religious exemptions, and Haiku Elementary School on Maui, where 25% of students have exemptions.
Many of the schools with the highest rates of students with vaccination exemptions had similarly high rates prior to the pandemic, but the latest data also shows there has been an uptick in some schools. For example, at West Hawaii Explorations Academy, a public charter school serving students in grades 6 through 12 in Kailua-Kona, the percentage of students with religious exemptions increased from 19.4% just prior to the pandemic to 25% this year. The rate at Hanalei Elementary School jumped to 37% from 26% during that same time period, while the rate at Doris Todd Christian Academy on Maui jumped to 22% from 11%.
The religious exemptions are widely seen as a legal loophole that allows parents to skirt vaccine mandates for their kids, and some states have tried to reign them in. In 2015, California became the first state to repeal religious and personal belief exemptions from school vaccinations following a major measles outbreak at Disneyland….
Breeding Pairs: Unvaccinated Dating Service Launches in Hawaii
SA Editorial: Urgency on youth vaccination lag
read … Many Hawaii schoolkids going without routine vaccinations
Hawaii’s lodging industry workers missing out, expert says
SA: … “Real average hourly earnings were $25 in 2022 and were $25 in 2007, in 2022 dollars. Real earnings were $24, in 2022 dollars, 20 years ago,” Brewbaker said….
De Venecia said the union standard is now $27.28 an hour for housekeepers; however, even that is not enough to satisfy the 2018 union campaign, “One job should be enough.”
In 2018, when Local 5’s Marriott and Kyo-ya workers went on a 51-day strike to achieve a better contract, de Venecia said the union had deemed $33 an hour as a livable wage.
“Now it would be more like $44 an hour,” de Venecia said….
read … Hawaii’s lodging industry workers missing out, expert says
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