December 15, 2025 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

Hawaii Daily News Read

Monday, December 15, 2025

December 15, 2025 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 2:34 PM :: 275 Views

Two Telescopes Stop Paying Rent on Mauna Kea and another cancels $500M upgrade-DeFries Doesn’t Notice

Origins of the Great Hawaiian Revival of 1836-1842

DHHL ‘Paper Leases’ Scheme Failed Last Time, and the Time Before That

CB: … By the end of 2026, the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands plans to issue 7,000 (paper leases) ….

A similar effort in the early 2000s was scrapped after the department failed to deliver homes for a majority of people it had signed early agreements or paper leases with.

Of the more than 1,400 people who were issued paper leases between 2005 and 2006, only 580 have received homes, according to department data from this year. More than 700 are still waiting, while the rest had their awards rescinded or canceled.…

Working off recommendations of a federal task force, Gov. George Ariyoshi’s administration issued about 2,500 leases for undeveloped land. At the time, DHHL anticipated developing enough land to fulfill those leases in 10 years. Because of a lack of consistent funding from the state, it took three decades to clear most of the list, according to an analysis by the department.

The strategy was revived in the early 2000s after Republican Gov. Linda Lingle made a campaign promise to distribute land to each of the more than 20,000 people then on the Hawaiian homes waitlist in the first five years of her administration. It was a lofty goal that the state never came anywhere close to meeting.

By the end of Lingle’s first term in 2006, DHHL issued 1,434 paper leases — more than half of the roughly 2,500 leases eventually issued during her administration. Officially called Undivided Interest awards, they were issued to waitlist applicants for specific projects that were being planned with a promise that they would be able to occupy the homes once they were built.

… In 2012, Civil Beat found that 1,100 of those paper lessees still didn’t have homes.

…The state stopped issuing new paper leases in 2006.

Being dragged along for years without ever getting a home created a lot of distrust among lessees, a 2019 analysis of the program ordered by DHHL found.

“They feel that the Department was only interested in reducing the waiting list of Applicants and increasing the ‘reported’ number of Lessees,” the report said. “The actual awards provided hope to many, but with unfulfilled promises.”…

read … Hawaiʻi Is Reviving A Risky Play To Get Hawaiians Into Homes - Honolulu Civil Beat

City Council seeks web-based transparency into Honolulu finances

SA: … “Each year, the city collects and expends more than a billion dollars for various programs and services, such as the maintenance of public roadways and the development of affordable housing, and the citizens of Oahu have a right to know how the city is spending its funds,” the bill states.

To gain more information about the city’s spending habits, “the Council finds that the creation of new, user-friendly digital tools that expand public access to the city’s financial information can help augment public oversight, reduce waste, and improve the overall efficiency of government,” the legislation states.

According to the measure, “open checkbook”-style web-based systems “are easy-to-use, online platforms created by state and local governments for the purpose of making detailed government spending data available to the public.” …

read … City Council seeks web-based transparency into Honolulu finances | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

“The devil is in the details” Honua Ola (again) eyes new (grossly overpriced) power purchase agreement with Hawaiian Electric

HTH: … The president of Honua Ola Bioenergy — formerly Hu Honua Bioenergy — ~~said~~ (again claims) there is “an agreement in principle” for a third power purchase agreement for Honua Ola (ILWU + KSBE) to sell electricity for Big Island consumers to Hawaiian Electric Co.

“The devil is in the details,” Warren Lee told the Tribune-Herald on Thursday. “But we’re talking.” …

However, any contract between Honua Ola and HECO is subject to approval by the state Public Utilities Commission….

Henry Curtis, executive director of the environmental nonprofit group Life of the Land, on Nov. 24 described the facility-in-waiting at the former Hilo Coast Processing site as “still alive and kicking on 6,439th day” on his Ililani Media online blog.

As a result of legal challenges by Curtis, the PUC revoked a waiver of competitive bidding on a power purchase agreement with HECO granted to Honua Ola in 2017.

The revocation stated Honua Ola’s then-estimated price for electricity over the course of a 30-year contract, about 22 cents per kilowatt hour, was more than twice that of comparable solar power generation projects on the books.

The regulatory panel ruled the waiver wasn’t in the public’s interest.

In May 2021, the state Supreme Court, in a 5-0 vote, also sent the issue of the power purchase agreement back to the PUC….

read … Honua Ola eyes new power purchase agreement with Hawaiian Electric - Hawaii Tribune-Herald

With Obesity Growing On Oʻahu, Food Bank Push To Grab Property Tax Revenues May Go To A Vote

CB: … Against a backdrop of increasing ~~hunger~~ (obesity) and ~~upheaval in food assistance programs~~ (lines of people in shiny new cars getting free food), the Honolulu Charter Commission today is set to consider a proposal to use a slice of property tax revenue to create a fund to increase food security for Oʻahu residents.

(IDEA: Vote ‘NO’.)

The proposal, put forward by the Hawaiʻi Foodbank and one of 276 before the commission, proposes directing an estimated $8 million or so a year to food-related programs around the island.

(If they don’t have to raise money they will decay into a useless bureaucracy managing ‘positions.’)

If commissioners advance it, that would start a months-long process that could end in a November 2026 ballot measure. …

read … With Hunger Growing On Oʻahu, A Push To Put Food Security To A Vote - Honolulu Civil Beat

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