Next Boondoggle: Useless $240M Kalaeloa Desalination Plant
Auditor Discovers HFD's Secret Fund
Hawaii 911 Callers to be Screened for Political Correctness
HNN: … Gov. Josh Green signed SB116 into law as Act 259 in July.
It’s designed to prevent what civil rights advocates call “discriminatory reporting,” which is when someone knowingly calls police on another person because of their race, gender, religion, or other protected identity.
Plaintiffs could receive at least $1,000 in damages if they win, plus attorneys’ fees and costs ….
SB116: Text, Status
View the full document detailing Act 259 here.
For more information about Act 259, visit the DLE’s website.
KN: People making discriminatory calls to police can now face civil penalties under new Hawaiʻi law : Kauai Now
read … New state law targeting biased 911 calls goes into effect
Honolulu County Employee Fired After Nearly 5 Years Of Paid Leave
CB: … A Honolulu county worker, who was on paid leave for nearly five years while a misconduct investigation dragged on, was fired this month following public outrage about his case.
Brandon Kaaa-Swain, an investigator in the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office, was put on paid leave in October 2020. He was accused of filing false mileage reimbursements totaling approximately $12,000.
Over the course of an investigation that apparently took 1,751 days, he received even more than he was accused of stealing. His taxpayer-funded paychecks during his leave total over $300,000, city data shows, and his pay scale increased at least twice thanks to union raises. The case drew the public’s ire after it was spotlighted in a recent Civil Beat story. The county issued him a termination letter three weeks later….
Ted Hong, a Hilo-based employment attorney, called the length of Kaaa-Swain’s leave “ridiculous.”
“It’s clear evidence of incompetence or corruption,” he said. “Somebody needs to be fired for this.”
(CLUE: Pension vesting.)
read … Honolulu County Employee Fired After Nearly 5 Years Of Paid Leave
‘Wheeling’: More HECO Rate Hikes Coming
IM: … Historically, wheeling is supported by Blue Planet Foundation, Hawaii Solar Energy Association, Hawaii Clean Power Alliance (the public policy arm of the Yamamoto Caliboso Heatherington Law Firm), and the Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies.
HECO, MECO, HELCO, KIUC, Consumer Advocate, Life of the Land, and Ulupono Initiative have significant concerns with wheeling and its impact to equity, as wheeling may increase rates to non-participants….
read … Hawaii PUC Opens Window to Intervene in Wheeling Proceeding | Ililani Media
Are utility bills going up because of the Maui wildfire?
KHON: … Q. Since you mentioned the Wildfire Safety Strategy, rates, disconnections, and public participation and input I would like to dive deeper into those. Can you first talk some about Senate Bill 897 and its impact on electric utility customers?
Yes – I am glad you asked about that. Senate Bill 897 from the 2025 Legislative session was recently signed into law by Governor Green as Act 258. This is a complex piece of legislation that is important to talk about and understand from a variety of perspectives. I can provide some context on the implications as they pertain to electric utility customers, but I note that there are broader societal considerations with the legislation that are outside of DCA’s purview.
Q. Does this legislation support Hawaiian Electric’s customer?
Yes – The legislation intends to lower Hawaiian Electric’s cost to finance resilience infrastructure investment to do things like decrease the risk of catastrophic wildfire by improving Hawaiian Electric’s credit rating and enabling Hawaiian Electric to use securitization to access financing at a lower cost than would be possible without securitization. Lower financing costs can result in less costs being passed onto customers, which is a benefit to customers. Hawaiian Electric recently filed its application to expend more than $350 million to recover the costs of implementing its wildfire safety strategy. While it is difficult to quantify the exact dollar amount on all types of customers, Hawaiian Electric’s application estimates that the average bill impact on “typical” residential customers using 500 kWh will be $1.05 for Hawaiian Electric, $2.86 for Hawaii Electric Light, and $5.41 for Maui Electric. The costs and corresponding bills will fluctuate though over the period of several decades that Hawaiian Electric will seek to recover its costs. The legislation seeks to lower Hawaiian Electric’s financing costs to implement its Wildfire Safety Strategy and supports utility customers because the customer bill impacts of implementing the Wildfire Safety Strategy may decrease with lower financing costs. I should also note that Hawaiian Electric has committed to not recovering the costs of paying claims for its Maui wildfire liabilities from customers….
read … Are utility bills going up because of the Maui wildfire? | KHON2
Grifters Scramble as $100M Green Fee Slush Fund Fills Troughs
SA: … When the legislative session begins, it’ll be up to Green to turn the Green Fee Advisory Council’s recommendations into bills for the Legislature to debate and potentially send back to Green by the time the session ends in May.
Act 96 then requires the state to begin distributing the increased TAT in July.
“We want to show immediate results in year one,” Jeff Mikulina, the chair of the new, volunteer climate fee advisory group, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “We want to get the money deployed quickly. I hope people see that the money is put to good use.”
There will be “no shortage of great ideas” how to spend the money, Mikulina said. Possibilities include anything from coral reef education to hurricane roof clips to addressing sea-level rise.
The increase in the TAT is expected to generate an estimated $100 million a year to equally fund three separate “buckets,” according to the new law…
read … Clock is ticking on how to spend new green fees | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Precedent: Cruise Line Suit Defeated Alaska’s version of Green Fee
IM: … This lawsuit marks only the second time CLIA has sued a state in the U.S. The first was in 2016, when the group challenged cruise passenger head taxes in Juneau, Alaska. That case also centered on the tonnage clause, and in 2018, a federal court sided with the industry, ruling that fees must directly fund services provided to vessels. The dispute ended with a settlement in 2019 ….
read … Cruise Lines Sue Hawaii Over First-of-Its-Kind ‘Green Fee’ On Passengers
Immigration Raids Throw Long Shadow Over Big Island Coffee Harvest
CB: … Miranda, whose harvest just started, usually employs about 20 expert pickers, each of whom she said can handpick 300 to 400 pounds of cherries a day. About half her normal crew is no longer available. Three pickers told her they were going back to Honduras; her daughter purchased their airline tickets. Others were arrested and deported, including her brother-in-law even though, she said, he has a work permit. Her sister, who also picks cherries, was arrested too. She is fighting deportation on the grounds that she was in the process of getting her residency and work authorization.
Miranda and other coffee farmers in Kaʻū — where the harvest generally runs later, often into February —and the Kona Coffee Belt, where picking is completed earlier, are already estimating they will suffer crop losses of 20% to 30% this year. …
read … Immigration Raids Throw Long Shadow Over Big Island Coffee Harvest - Honolulu Civil Beat
Purposeful Build delays add to housing shortage
SA: … A Locals In My Backyard (LIMBY) Hawai‘i report shows that in countless projects, developers slow-roll construction. After big projects are approved, not much changes in terms of our housing production enabling prices to continue rising.
These market-driven delays are driving our housing shortage. Right now, in Honolulu, around 42,000 homes could be built in projects with both Land Use Commission and C&C approval, and 24,200 units are in projects already started.
But the market isn’t rushing to build those homes. Instead the Hawaii Housing Planning Study (HHPS) estimates that only 12,600 units will be built across all of Hawaii between 2023-2027. That low production is why by the end of 2027 Honolulu will end up with a shortage of 25,700 homes.
No one is stopping Royal Kunia II from breaking ground. Or Ho‘opili from building faster. Developers have the go-ahead to build; they just aren’t.
This is counterintuitive, but it may well be intentional.
For instance, in our review LIMBY Hawai‘i found that DR Horton, the developer approved to build 15,000 units in Ho‘opili, planned to pace building to maintain prices. In its master plan for the project, the developer is quite explicit about it; noting that the pace of construction “will be determined according to market absorption.”
Market absorption is just a shorthand way to measure supply and demand. What DR Horton and other developers are saying quite publicly is that they plan to limit production such that new home prices meet their targets. Developers like any business prefer higher prices.
Such delays can clearly be beneficial to developers. In the nine years that it took to complete 1,110 units at Mehana in Kapolei, the average price of a home increased by $307,000 while construction costs only ticked up $73,000….
(CLUE: Hawaii's restrictive zoning practices are what enables the type of developer profiteering described in this article.)
read … Column: Build delays add to housing shortage | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Data Dive: Who Uses The Most Water In Hawaiʻi?
CB: … The urban center of Honolulu makes up about 23% of the state’s population, but accounted for almost 40% of water consumption in the state in 2024.
With a population of nearly 345,000, the metropolitan area — marked by its high rises and resorts as opposed to the rest of the island of Oʻahu — used more water last year than all three other counties combined. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that individual city dwellers are using more than their rural peers.
Several of the county’s top water consumers, including the airport and the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa, are located in urban Honolulu. The state doesn’t have recent data breaking down whether the majority of the water is guzzled by industry, irrigation or residents.
The average single-family household in Honolulu County uses about 9,000 gallons of water each month, according to the county Board of Water Supply. But the biggest individual water users are actually golf courses, large resorts and industrial facilities….
(But fake water shortage claims are used to kill housing, not resorts.)
read … Data Dive: Who Uses The Most Water In Hawaiʻi? - Honolulu Civil Beat
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