Hawaii Community Colleges Ranked
DEI for HPD: Sneaking in Biden’s Former Border Chief as Next Honolulu Police Commissioner
CB: … The Honolulu City Council is considering whether to approve a veteran former police chief as the latest addition to the city’s police oversight board.
After watching a lackluster performance by Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s previous Honolulu Police Commission nominee at a City Council hearing in May, Christopher Magnus, who retired to Honolulu in 2023, reached out to the mayor with policing advice. Blangiardi was impressed and nominated him to the commission instead.
“I had three prior attempts to try to put somebody with police experience (on),” Blangiardi said last week. “Unable to do so. And then along comes a guy like Chris, and it just sort of jumps off the paper.”…
Council members will have the chance to grill Magnus at an upcoming Public Safety Committee meeting Thursday afternoon. If they vote to advance him, the final step for approval would be a full council vote that can come as soon as September….
(CLUE: Civil Beat’s article leaves out everything that Hawai’i Free Press is including below.)
Politico Oct 2022: The head of Customs and Border Protection stands accused of being disengaged. Five current administration officials who work with CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus portrayed him as unengaged in his job, saying he often doesn’t attend White House meetings on the situation on the border, badmouths other agencies to colleagues and superiors, and has not built relationships within CBP and across other agencies to address the influx of migrants at the border. They complain he is unfamiliar with some of the operations of CBP and instead is focused primarily on reforming the culture of the Border Patrol, addressing its long list of allegations of racism and violence.
(CLUE: Same program for HPD.)
NPR Nov 2022: Customs and Border Protection head Chris Magnus resigns -- The shakeup at CBP comes after migrant apprehensions (and releases) at the southern border climbed to a record high of more than 2.3 million in the past year, fueling attacks from Republicans that the Biden administration's border policies are too lenient. Magnus, who is 62, was picked by the White House and confirmed by the Senate in a party-line vote. He was the first openly gay man to lead the CBP, the nation's largest law enforcement agency.
(TRANSLATION: DEI pick. Magnus had to be removed to distance Biden's reelection campaign from his out-of-control open border disaster.)
KFGO: When he was the police chief in Tucson, Arizona, he rejected federal grants to collaborate on border security with the agency he now leads and kept a distance from Border Patrol leaders in a region where thousands of agents are assigned. Roy Villareal, chief of the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector from early 2019 until late 2020, said he sought an introductory meeting with Magnus, who was then Tucson’s police chief, but that he never heard back, calling their lack of interaction “a telling sign.” Villareal could recall speaking to Magnus only three times during their overlapping tenures — each one a courtesy call from Magnus to inform him that Tucson police were about to arrest one of his agents. “He’s the wrong person for the Border Patrol,” said Villareal, who retired after 32 years in the agency. “His knowledge and understanding of border enforcement just isn’t there. … Agents will challenge him.”
2017 NYT: Opinion | Tucson’s Police Chief: Sessions’s Anti-Immigrant Policies Will Make Cities More Dangerous - The New York Times
KFGO: Magnus drew media attention in 2014 as police chief in Richmond, California, where he was photographed holding a “Black Lives Matter” sign at a protest
KFGO: Former Fargo police chief condemns actions that led to George Floyd’s death | The Mighty 790 KFGO | KFGO
NBC: Magnus' Department Covered-up In-custody death for One Month-- Video shows death of man, 27, in Tucson police custody; chief offers to resign
read … This Former Police Chief Could Be The Next Honolulu Police Commissioner
Round 2 for Pohakuloa Training Area resolution – Hawaii County Council wants UXO money for 8a Corps
HTH: … Resolution No. 234-25, introduced by Councilwoman Rebecca Villegas, also calls on the state to reject any military land swaps or lease renewals involving PTA unless requirements are established for cleanup, restoration and bioremediation. It also urges a full ka pa‘akai analysis, a legal review required to assess the impact of government actions on Native Hawaiian cultural practices….
(TRANSLATION: Lots of bogus UXO cleanup contracts for 8a Corporations.)
David Kurohara, president of the Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce, opposed the resolution, speaking during the July 22 meeting.
“Pohakuloa Training Area is a vital part of Hawaii Island’s public safety and emergency response network. Its personnel and facilities support local, state and federal agencies in critical training and rapid response capabilities,” Kurohara said.
Councilman James Hustace also voiced concern about the council’s authority on federal military matters.
“The requesting of ceasing bombing — that’s really a federal determination,” Hustace said. “I don’t think we have a say in that matter, unfortunately.”
Other council members indicated conditional support for the resolution, with amendments.
“(I) look forward to some amendments based on council member feedback, and we’ll be supporting the resolution,” Councilwoman Ashley Kierkiewicz said.
“Just practically speaking, we still at this point do need to have a strong military,” Councilwoman Michelle Galimba added. “Perhaps someday we won’t, but that time is quite far away.”
The first formal discussion about the resolution occurred July 22 during a meeting of the council’s Policy Committee on Environmental and Natural Resource Management. At that meeting, Villegas requested a postponement to Tuesday to allow time to make the resolution more clear and balanced. The motion was seconded by Councilman Dennis “Fresh” Onishi and approved, with council members Holeka Inaba and Matt Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder absent….
RELATED: Army’s ‘Much More Aggressive Model’: Wrap-up Master Lease Negotiations in 60 Days
read … Round 2 for Pohakuloa Training Area resolution - Hawaii Tribune-Herald
City Council pushes pair of bills to ease homeowner tax burdens
SA: … Bill 50 proposes to raise the base real property tax exemption for all eligible homeowners from $120,000 to $140,000. This change will help reduce the taxable value of owner-occupied homes, decreasing property taxes for qualified homeowners.
If a home’s assessed value is $1 million, the owner would pay property tax on $860,000 of the assessed value, Bill 50 indicates.
Bill 49 proposes to increase the real property tax exemption for homeowners age 65 or older from $160,000 to $180,000, lowering the taxable value of their property and reducing their property tax bill.
If a home’s assessed value is $1 million, the senior owner would pay property tax on $820,000 of the assessed value, Bill 49 indicates.
On Aug. 6, the Council voted 8-0, with Radiant Cordero absent from the meeting, to separately pass both bills on their second of three readings.
The Council’s Budget Committee is expected to further review these measures on Tuesday.
If adopted by the full Council, both ordinances would apply to the tax years beginning July 1, 2027, and thereafter.….
read … City Council pushes pair of bills to ease homeowner tax burdens | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
First-time homebuyer program most popular among Maui fire survivors seeking aid from $1.6 billion federal grant
MN: … On Monday, the county rolled out the first three Ho‘okumu Hou programs funded by a $1.6 billion federal grant to help fire survivors rebuild homes they lost in the Aug. 8, 2023 wildfires or afford to buy a home for the first time. Residents also can receive up to $1.2 million for reconstruction or up to $400,000 for reimbursement of already built homes.
Just days after the launch, 446 people had applied: 355 for the first-time homebuyer program, 59 for single-family homeowner reconstruction and 32 for single-family homeowner reimbursement, the Maui County Office of Recovery reported on Wednesday at a meeting in Lahaina.
The surge in first-time homebuyer applications — which prioritize fire survivors but are also open to all first-time buyers under the income limits — reflect the impacts of the fire on renters as well as the island’s ongoing housing crisis at a time when the median price of a home is $1.3 million and a condo is $675,000.
Of the 4,000-plus households approved for assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the fire, 80% were renters. This percentage “is significantly higher than is typical of FEMA temporary housing options,” according to a 2024 study by the Argonne National Laboratory, which was asked by FEMA to look into its post-fire temporary housing programs and whether they’d caused property owners to increase rents or displace residents.
The report concluded that housing was already limited and renters were paying high rates before the fire destroyed an estimated 4,005 housing units. There wasn’t enough data to show that the temporary housing programs had impacted rental costs, though it “may have influenced the behavior of some property owners.”
In a University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization survey of nearly 1,000 people who lived and worked in Lahaina and Kula, about 45% of respondents said they were renting before the fire; as of July, that had jumped to about 60%.
More than 70% said they were paying less rent than before the fires, but more than 50% also said they had less income than before the fires. For about half of respondents, out-of-pocket expenses for their units were less because rental assistance covered all or nearly all of the cost.
Last year, Hawai‘i had the second-highest median gross rents in the country, and Maui had the highest median Craigslist asking rates at $2,550, according to UHERO’s Hawai‘i Housing Factbook released in May….
read … First-time homebuyer program most popular among Maui fire survivors seeking aid from $1.6 billion federal grant : Maui Now
Immigrant Sent Cash To Family In Mexico; ICE Used That To Nab Him
CB: … He lived quietly with his fiancée, tended to his tile and counter business, coached an adult soccer team until he suffered a leg injury. And when Gregorio Cordova Murrieta went to a MoneyGram in Pearl City to send cash to his family in Mexico — one of millions of people across the United States who regularly make similar transactions — he never imagined it would one day upend the life he’d built in Hawaiʻi.
But federal immigration agents have access, in part through an obscure database run by an Arizona nonprofit, to records of millions upon millions of money transfers made in the U.S., including names, addresses and other details identifying the senders.
And in what several experts said is the first such instance they know of that data being used to investigate a solely immigration-related offense, Homeland Security Investigations used it to track down Cordova, 48, a Mexican citizen. …
read … Immigrant Sent Cash To Family In Mexico; ICE Used That To Nab Him - Honolulu Civil Beat
Two Lawsuits Demand More Hawaiian Immersion Programs
CB: … In February, Harley Miner showed up to Waiau Elementary on the first day of kindergarten registration, only to find out the Pearl City school near her home had no space left for her son.
Miner planned to enroll her son in the elementary school’s Hawaiian language immersion program since the family speaks Hawaiian at home and he attended an immersion preschool. But Oʻahu has few public schools that offer Hawaiian immersion programs starting in kindergarten, and Miner later learned that families had lined up at 4 a.m. on registration day to enroll their kids at Waiau. …
She put her son on Waiau’s waitlist but ultimately sent him to Ke Kula Kaiapuni ʻo Ānuenue, a Hawaiian immersion school in Pālolo Valley, where he takes the bus every day….
read … Students Are Missing Out On The Right To Hawaiian Immersion, Lawsuits Say - Honolulu Civil Beat
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