Peaceful disagreement and civil discourse
DoE Absenteeism still running at 24%
Report: 41% of Big Island Tourists Staying in TVRs
Registration Open for 2025-2026 Hawaiʻi LifeSmarts Competition
Recycling: Green Executive Order Exempts Bottle Distributors from Audit Requirement
Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted September 19, 2025
Rail Contract Designed to Hide Upcoming $300M Change Order
CB: … There was only one bidder for the city center contract — Los Angeles-based construction giant Tutor Perini Corp. — which submitted a proposal last year to do the job for nearly $1.66 billion.
That is the largest single rail contract to date, but records released by HART to Honolulu Civil Beat earlier this year show Tutor initially proposed a price tag of $1.977 billion to build the last 3 miles of elevated guideway and six rail stations.
HART bargained that price down to $1.659 billion, but a summary of those negotiations makes it clear that some costs under that contract have not been nailed down yet.
In particular, a document HART released to Civil Beat earlier this year shows HART and Tutor agreed to revisit the big-ticket issue of the cost of the six city center rail stations later. Those stations will be bid out to subcontractors after Tutor has completed the designs for each one.
Tutor’s original bid proposed a contract price of $90 million per station, according to HART’s most recent progress report on the project, which works out to a total of $540 million for the six stations.
But in the negotiations that followed, HART and Tutor agreed to reduce the contract price of the six rail stations to $300 million — or just $60 million per station — and to revisit the issue later.
The “Summary of Negotiations” document released by HART explains the city center contract with Tutor will be structured so that “when the final design submittal for a station is completed, the Design-Builder shall submit a proposal for a fixed priced of the Stations Construction Work applicable to that station (a ‘Station Price Proposal’).”
The document summarizing the negotiations continues: “Upon completion of final design submittals for all stations, the total amount of all of the Design-Builder’s Station Price proposals shall be summed (the ‘Revised Stations Price’) and HART shall issue” an order for an “adjustment” to the contract price.
In other words, the $300 million listed for the station costs in the Tutor contract is essentially a placeholder that both sides expect to revisit later. …
read … Financial Risks Loom Over The Honolulu Rail Project
Hawai'i 3rd highest Homeowners Association Fees
CB: … The median monthly fee paid to a homeowners or condo association last year in Hawaiʻi was $470, the third-highest in the nation, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The data shows Hawaiʻi was far less than New York’s median of $740, but close behind the median for the District of Columbia of $505.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and New Jersey all came in below Hawaii with monthly medians between $300 and $400, according to the 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates released Sept. 11.
At the other end of the scale, homeowners in 27 states — including Alaska, Wyoming, Arkansas and Oklahoma — pay less than the national monthly median of $135….
read … Data Dive: Hawai'i Is Near The Top In Homeowners Association Fees - Honolulu Civil Beat
Why Honolulu Bus Fares May Be On The Rise
CB: … The City Council is scheduled discuss the new rates at a budget committee hearing Tuesday morning. Along with raising the monthly adult fare from $80 to $90, Bill 54 would raise the cost of an annual adult fare from $880 to $990, seven-day passes from $35 to $45, the monthly youth fare from $40 to $45 and the annual fare for kūpuna from $45 to $50, among other changes.
Single fares would still be $3, but riders who pay with cash would be charged an extra 25 cents to encourage Holo card use. TheHandi-Van fares would go from $1.25 to $1.50 for a single ride, and from $35 to $50 for annual passes….
read … Why Honolulu Bus Fares May Be On The Rise - Honolulu Civil Beat
Congress May Put an End to Pesticide Hysteria Campaigns
CB: … A new federal proposal could tie the hands of regulators (lawyers and hucksters), leaving children and communities exposed to proven toxins for decades (competitors searching for a new way to get their pesticides into the market).
Section 453 is buried in the U.S. House appropriations bill for fiscal year 2026, which begins Oct. 1. It is a short clause that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from updating pesticide warnings in a timely (hysterical) fashion (to juice chemophobia campaigns to get the EPA to bump off a competitor).
The EPA conducts a full review of the safety of individual chemicals only once every 15 years. Section 453 would lock pesticide safety standards in place between reviews, even if strong (competitions gin up fake) new evidence of harm emerges (so they can push their products onto the market)….
Just last month, a landmark (repetitious) study (backed by an anonymous donor) (provided a really good example of the emotionally charged junk science that is being deployed for competitive advantage). (It) ‘proved’ that Hawai‘i’s 2018 decision to ban chlorpyrifos for agricultural use was the right call. Researchers from Columbia University ‘found that children exposed in utero to chlorpyrifos still showed profound brain damage on MRI scans more than 15 years later. These children carry an invisible but devastating legacy of exposure.
QUESTION: How is a 2025 ‘study’ a ‘landmark’ if the same issue was ‘studied’ in 2012?
2012: Common Insecticide May Harm Boys' Brains More Than Girls' | Scientific American ‘in 2001 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned its residential use’
(CLUE: Same type of study found far less dramatic effects in 2012. And chlorpyrifos was banned for residential use 24 years ago but you are being told that you are on the cutting edge of the revolution, LOL! This is how you get played.)
MEANWHILE: Pregnant women should not use cannabis, new medical guidelines say - Hawaii Tribune-Herald
read … Stop Congress From Limiting EPA Rules On Pesticides - Honolulu Civil Beat
Cruise Lines Groups’ Tax Suit Should be Tossed, Hawaii Unsurprisingly Argues
BL: … Cruise line industry groups’ lawsuit accusing Hawaii of imposing an unconstitutional tax on short-term accommodations should be dismissed because the law bars federal courts from intervening in state tax matters, state and county authorities said.
The federal Tax Injunction Act prohibits the US District Court for the District of Hawaii from interfering in state tax administration when a speedy and adequate remedy exists in state court, Hawaii and several counties, including Honolulu, said in a Sept. 19 motion to dismiss.
The primary purpose of the TIA is “to limit drastically federal district court jurisdiction to interfere with so important ...
read … Cruise Lines Groups’ Tax Suit Should be Tossed, Hawaii Argues
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