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Friday, March 10, 2023
March 10, 2023 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 7:25 PM :: 1459 Views

Smuggling Drugs into Jails--PSD Arrests Five

Blangiardi signs Bill 25: Relating to Anti-Bias and Inclusion Policy

Hawaii Unemployment Claims Jump 26.59%

Schatz Goes YIMBY

UHERO Report predicts challenging year for Hawaii tourism

Hawaii Real personal income declined more than 6 percent last year

MN: … even as the labor market gets back to normal, economists are noting the effects of the pandemic on workers from different industries, income class and age group.

Workers in tourism-related industries have unsurprisingly seen the biggest wage gains over the past year as visitors flock back to the islands. Hourly wages for nonfarm jobs rose an average of 4 percent over the past year, but 16 percent for accommodations and food industry jobs, according to the report.

“If you look at visitor numbers, Maui, Kauai and Big Island are basically completely back to pre-pandemic levels,” UHERO Executive Director Carl Bonham said Thursday. “Oahu is still lagging because of the lack of Japanese visitors. But they didn’t lose as many jobs to start with.”

The jump in tourism-related wages may reflect a worker shortage in the industry that’s playing out across the country — a study by Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights Lab found that 20 percent of low-income employees, which dominate the leisure and hospitality workforce, are still missing from the pre-pandemic labor force, according to the report.

Maui and Kauai counties lost a larger share of their payroll jobs during the worst stretch of the pandemic from April to the summer of 2020, with the payroll job losses on Maui around 10 percentage points larger than they were on Oahu, Bonham said….

Inflation in Hawaii has been less severe than on the Mainland, “but has still taken a big bite out of purchasing power,” the report notes. Real personal income declined more than 6 percent last year…

KITV: Hawaii's economy at 80% of potential, according to economist

read … Tourism-related industries still hurting for workers even as demand soars

New stadium wouldn’t be able to support itself

SA: … As reported in Tuesday’s newspaper, one of the plans for a new Aloha Stadium envisions a total cost to the state (and its taxpayers) of about $1.5 billion over 30 years, or $50 million per year.

What do we get for that $50 million? We get fewer than 10 University of Hawaii home football games. We get nebulous, unspecified “other sporting events and a wide range of entertainment.” It appears no one has bothered to make a serious quantified estimate of what the other events could be, but let’s be really generous and say that there are 40 of these each year, or a total of about 50 events, including football.

Then we taxpayers would be subsidizing events at the new stadium to the tune of about $1 million each. It seems to make little sense to spend so much on such a lightly used facility.…

read … New stadium wouldn’t be able to support itself

It’s not your imagination: The price of rice is way up

HNN: … The price of rice has jumped 40% in just the last two years.

And that’s spurring tough calculations for family households and eateries.

The Hawaii Restaurant Association says most Hawaii distributors import their rice.

The group believes the sharp rise in prices at restaurants and grocery stores is due to fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted rice production, increased production costs and worsened labor shortages.

Eateries have already raised some prices due to inflation but are reluctant to raise them more….

read … It’s not your imagination: The price of rice is way up

Punaluu homeowner faces $188K fine for shoreline violations

SA: … An oceanfront property owner in Punaluu faces a $188,000 fine for numerous shoreline violations, including refusing to remove giant sandbags, heavy black tarps and boulders that form a tangled mess along the public beach in front of his home….

HNN: Land Board to homeowner: Turn over your land to avoid big fine for shoreline violations

read … Punaluu homeowner faces $188K fine for shoreline violations

Waiahole Valley tenants get reprieves over rent

CB: …  A state agency trying to increase ground-lease rents in Waiahole Valley for about 100 residential and farm tenants with decades-old low rates made several moves Thursday to defuse the tense situation where some fear evictions.

Board members of the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. unanimously approved a staff proposal by the agency to push back by three months an April 1 deadline for tenants to agree on new rent for the next 15 years or face arbitration and/or mediation that could result in higher rent than the 560% hike sought by HHFDC.

The agency plans to devise a subsidy program within the extension period to help pay the rent for tenants who can demonstrate that they can’t afford the agency’s offer.

HHFDC also reached an agreement in recent days with a group of 10 farm tenants for rent increases close to 280%, or around half of what was sought….

read … Waiahole Valley tenants get reprieves over rent

Citizens patrols in Waikiki are making a difference

KHON: … A look at one of the ways the Honolulu Police Department is addressing community concerns through the Citizens Patrols. Waikiki residents said that they do make a difference.

Four times a week, the Waikiki community policing team meets with residents for Citizens Patrol….

On this day, there’s a commotion across the street; and the officers go over to assist.

According to the police officers, the person was arrested for warrants and is a repeat offender in the area.

“The problem here is that we are swarming with troublemakers, and there are little consequences. They just keep on coming back and coming back and coming back,” Deutzman said.

He said that’s why he works with the police, to try to stop re-offenders from destroying the community.

This is just one of four citizens patrols hosted in Waikiki by the CPT every week, and there are others around Oahu….

read … Citizens patrols in Waikiki are making a difference

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