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May 1, 2023 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 11:47 AM :: 1418 Views

An amazing day at the Capitol

Grassroot Institute Week in Review

Property tax simplicity gains traction on Kauai

Rail: ‘If you build it, make sure you have all your money first’

How Rising Interest Rates Are Driving Up The Cost Of Living In Hawaii

CB: … The income required to become a homeowner in Honolulu has virtually doubled in the last three years, as rising home prices and soaring interest rates have combined to push homeownership out of reach for the vast majority of people living in the state.  

In 2020, a family with 5% down and an annual income of $168,000 could afford to purchase a single-family home in Honolulu, based on sales data analyzed by the National Association of Realtors. By the end of 2022, that figure had risen to a jaw-dropping ​​$326,000 in required annual income. 

The growing cost of real estate is just one of many ways that interest rate hikes are impacting people in Hawaii. Purchasing a new car or paying off credit card debt are also increasingly difficult — particularly for people without good credit or the income to pay down debt fast. 

In a recent analysis by LendingTree, Honolulu ranked as one of the top cities where even people earning six figures might be struggling to make ends meet. According to the study, a family of three in Honolulu making $100,000 a year would need an additional $865 a month to make ends meet for basics including child care and housing….

read … How Rising Interest Rates Are Driving Up The Cost Of Living In Hawaii

Tax relief plan falls far short of what was promised to working families

HNN: … After prioritizing tax relief for low and moderate-income families and repeatedly promising tax cuts in the range of $350 million, the legislature is poised to approve a plan offering more than $200 million less.

Details of the plan remained fuzzy Saturday after Friday afternoon and evening’s frenzied close of the legislatures conference committee sessions.

As recently as Thursday, Senate President Ron Kouchi and House Speaker Scott Saiki were publicly describing the tax package as between $300 and $350 million, although the options for how to provide relief were still up in the air.

In the end, they approved House Bill 954, which increases the amounts for the income tax brackets and personal exemption and standard deduction amounts (and provided annual cost-of-living adjustments); amends the taxable income brackets and income tax rates for each filing status; increases the household and dependent care services tax credit; increases the refundable earned income tax credit; and increases the income thresholds and credit amounts of the refundable food/excise tax credit.

The legislature had earlier rejected exempting food and medical care from the excise tax. On the final day, they also rejected giving all residents a one-time tax credit and several other tax breaks.

House Speaker Saiki told Hawaii News Now Saturday that the total value of the tax relief package was “approximately $128 million.”

The tax relief package may have been reduced as lawmakers decided to fund other high-priority spending programs (create positions).  However, the highly-touted promise of relief for families living “paycheck to paycheck” will not have the hoped-for impact ….

read … Tax relief plan falls far short of what was promised to working families

Blangiardi: Drag story hour imposed on young kids by adults

HNN: … “I’ve seen what’s going on with the drag story time imposing on young kids, and it just seems to me young kids are just precisely that. And they’re so unaware and evolving in the world, and it just seems to be an adult-orchestrated thing. This seems like somebody is trying to prove a point and we’ve gone over a line.” – Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi on the Rick Hamada program…

KITV: Kid's event sparks objections with some adults at Keiki Community Fair

read … Drag story hour at park went on as planned despite protest

Aloha Stadium: Even the Bare-Bones Model is Over the Limit

SA: … A state assessment in 2022 estimated that it would cost $430 million to develop a new stadium with bleacher seating for 25,000 spectators and no roof on a “less desirable” location within the 98-acre site in Halawa.

That’s more than the $399.5 million taxpayer spending cap Green has agreed to with leaders in the Legislature as part of his effort to alter the already long-delayed redevelopment project….

What had been the preferred plan in 2021 — a 30,000-seat “mid-range collegiate” stadium with a partial roof and compromised sight lines — has an estimated $470 million price tag and is a big step down from a 2019 original “premium” stadium plan featuring 35,000 covered seats and an adjacent amphitheater costing an estimated $670 million, according to state Department of Accounting and General Services assessments.

One new stadium concept assessed by DAGS earlier this year has an estimated cost within the state’s budget, at $320 million, and features some of the seating for 27,500 spectators on a tiered grassy embankment along one side of the facility….

read … Bleachers, no shade in revamped Aloha Stadium plan

Opening Hawaii’s Secret Court Files

CB: … When she was 15, the plaintiff said was sexually assaulted and emotionally abused by her guardian, a “high-ranking official” in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, according to court records. 

In 2005, she sued her alleged abuser and the church, a multibillion-dollar institution and major Hawaii landowner, and the case was settled out of court shortly thereafter, court records show. It all stayed a secret for years.

It was one of more than 600 civil cases the state court system marked as “confidential” between 2005 and 2022, according to the Hawaii State Judiciary. …

After obtaining a list of Circuit Court civil case numbers with a so-called “confidential flag” in 2020, the nonprofit’s executive director Brian Black has been working to unseal them one by one. 

The cases he’s unsealed so far, including the aforementioned Mormon Church case, raise questions about why they were sealed in the first place. 

The divorce proceedings of Peter Kubota, a Hilo Circuit Court Judge, were sealed at his ex-wife’s request before he joined the bench, even though divorce records in Hawaii are generally public records. …

In another case hidden from public view, the Hawaii Department of Human Services sued a woman accused of fraudulently obtaining over $50,000 in public assistance payments. The case was sealed at the defendant's request, with no objection from the state, the unsealed docket shows. A judge ordered the case’s disclosure after the Law Center entered a motion to unseal it. 

Also sealed was a case of alleged sexual assault filed against Our Lady Of Good Counsel, a Roman Catholic Church in Pearl City, and one of its former volunteers. The plaintiff asked for the case to be sealed at the same time she asked for a "Jane Doe" designation. A judge granted both requests. The church denied liability and the case was set to go to trial but was ultimately resolved via confidential binding arbitration, the unsealed court records show….

Wagner found a 2013 news article about a case against Geico and wanted to read the court records. The case was filed by a former Geico attorney who said the insurance company retaliated against him for informing clients of their rights.

But when Wagner tried to look up the case in the court’s online search engine, he got a pop-up telling him the case was confidential. …

Some Hawaii files were sealed for no discernible reason. 

That was the case with a lawsuit from the 1970s involving the late Art Rutledge, one of Hawaii’s most powerful labor leaders. There was nothing secret about it. It was covered in the Honolulu Advertiser at the time. 

“When the judge held a status conference on that motion, none of the attorneys knew why the case was flagged as confidential, so the judge just unsealed it,” Black said. 

A climate change lawsuit filed against the Hawaii Department of Transportation by 14 minors also ended up with a confidential marking. 

The lawsuit was publicized at the time it was filed but was subsequently sealed, perhaps by accident. In a court filing, Judge Jeffrey Crabtree said the case was marked as involving juveniles, which apparently locked the case out of public view. At the law center’s request, the judge ordered that to be undone. 

This not the first time Hawaii’s system of secrecy has drawn attention. In 2002, then-Honolulu Star-Bulletin reporter Rob Perez revealed that numerous divorce cases were granted the privilege of absolute secrecy, including the wife of University of Hawaii football coach June Jones. …

Off the news: Beyond records’ pay, and privacy, wall

read … The Problem With Hawaii’s Secret Court Files

Four Years Later the Maui Council’s ‘Plan’ for Affordable Housing has Accomplished nothing

CB: … In 2019, Stand Up Maui, a nonprofit affordable housing advocacy group worked with the Maui County Council to fund the creation of a Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan to build 5,000 homes by 2026.

Hawaii Community Assets won the contract and created the plan, which was presented to the Maui County Council on July 19, 2021. So far, the plan’s implementation has been slow and incomplete….

2022 Kihei: Amid a housing crisis, Maui council kills affordable housing project

2023 Waiehu: No Surprise: Council ‘Progressives’ Work hard to Kill Affordable Housing on Maui

read … White Collar Make-Work

Homeless kauhale villages in Hawaii supported at Legislature

SA: …The full House and Senate also will consider a conference committee proposal to provide $15 million in fiscal year 2024 and $33 million in fiscal year 2025 for more kauhale tiny-home villages across the islands.

Green has been pushing the kauhale idea since he was lieutenant governor, and it became reality with the opening of the first one in 2021 in Kalaeloa, called Kama‘oku.

Kama‘oku’s 37 120-square- foot tiny homes were built on 1.5 acres of decommissioned Naval Air Station Barbers Point land off Yorktown Street at a cost of $20,000 per unit. It includes communal men’s and women’s showers and toilets, a communal kitchen and outdoor areas to encourage community.

The newest funding likely will lead to 20 or more new kauhale across the islands, each designed according to specific locations and needs, said James Koshiba, the state’s homeless coordinator.

His office has gotten interest from private landowners and nonprofit organizations and faith-based groups offering their land for a kauhale….

read … Homeless kauhale villages in Hawaii supported at Legislature

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