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Sunday, July 5, 2026

July 5, 2026 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 10:16 AM :: 102 Views

Let freedom ring

AG: $35K Bribe investigation "broader and more complex than initially anticipated"

UHERO: Honolulu remains among nation’s least affordable

Pandering to protesters: UKIRT is third Maunakea telescope decommissioned

Hawaiʻi patients spent $230M+ on out-of-state cancer care, 2021–2023

SNAP Disaster Imminent

Corruption: AG Sacrifices Three Politicians to Save System

CB: … In April, Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez did something unusual for a Hawaiʻi attorney general: She issued target letters.

These weren’t subpoenas or requests for interviews. A target letter is one of the strongest signals prosecutors can send to a potential criminal defendant. It tells someone the government believes they may have committed a crime and should consider hiring a lawyer.

According to news reports, three target letters were sent. Two recipients have been identified: Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke and Leo Asuncion Jr., the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission and one of Luke’s campaign treasurers.

Its still not clear who got the third letter. But Department of Human Services Director Ryan Yamane resigned his position in the administration amid acknowledgements from the governor that he was part of the AG’s investigation.

(TRANSLATION: 3 politicians sacrificed to save system. AG pau.)

Regardless, the results were immediate. Luke took a leave of absence that continues today, and Yamane resigned shortly afterward.

Then everything seemed to stop….

Hawaiʻi’s attorney general, not federal prosecutors, is leading this investigation most likely because of a 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Snyder v. United States. The court ruled that federal bribery law covers only traditional bribery: payments made to influence an official’s actions before those actions happen. It does not cover payments or rewards given afterward, when there was no advance agreement.

In simple terms, federal law still punishes “pay-to-play.” But it no longer reaches what many call “play-to-pay,” the unspoken understanding that someone who helps you today will be rewarded later. Fortunately, Hawaiʻi law is broader and covers “play-to-pay” too.

Hawaiʻi’s bribery statute does not separate bribes from gratuities. Instead, it focuses on whether the public official intended to be influenced. That means conduct the federal government can no longer touch can still count as bribery under Hawaiʻi law. That difference matters a lot right now….

It likely explains why the U.S. Attorney’s Office, after years of investigating this matter, handed part of its case to the state in January. And we now know the investigation goes beyond the original $35,000 given to an unknown influential legislator in a paper bag.

It also includes Yamane’s ties to the state’s Covid-19 testing contract with the National Kidney Foundation, through which Tobi Solidum’s consulting firm allegedly made off with more than $7 million. The state’s investigation may be even broader than that, since no one knows how much of the federal investigation has actually been handed over to the AG’s office.

This also explains why the stakes are so high.

Because of the gap the Supreme Court’s decision created, Hawaiʻi’s attorney general may be the only prosecutor with the authority to fully investigate what lobbyists Milton Choy and Tobi Solidum’s money actually bought. If her office lacks the ability, or the will, to follow the evidence wherever it leads, even to an uncomfortable political conclusion, there may be no one else who can….

(TRANSLATION: ‘Defend Hawaii’ is more of a reality than ever! Go buy a sticker from Buntenbah!)

…the attorney general had the option of bringing in experienced outside help and turned it down. Particularly when the AG’s office contracts out complex civil cases to larger, more experienced firms.

In written testimony before the Senate Ways and Means Committee in March 2024, Lopez’s own department opposed a bill that would have clearly given her the power to appoint special counsel. The department argued the bill was unnecessary because the attorney general already had that authority, including the ability to assign cases to county prosecutors or the Department of Law Enforcement. But when called upon to use this authority, the AG flatly refused any suggestion to seek outside counsel with more in-depth criminal law experience.

Gov. Josh Green backed her decision to keep the investigation in-house…

(TRANSLATION: She knows exactly what she is doing. It was planned this way from the start. And Green is in on it.)

We’ve seen this movie before.

After the Kealoha corruption scandal, Hawaii’s political establishment largely accepted the idea that a few “bad apples” had been removed and nothing more needed to be done. No one seriously examined the state and county failures that let the misconduct happen in the first place. We simply moved on. Years later, the Honolulu Police Department still struggles, cycling through police chiefs while many of the underlying problems remain unresolved….

Read … Does The Hawaiʻi AG Have The Will Or Ability To Finish What She Started? - Honolulu Civil Beat

SD18 Democrats have ‘til Thursday to Nominate

CB: … After some initial confusion over what to do, Oʻahu County Democrats have come up with a plan to replace Michelle Kidani, the state senator who resigned June 30 citing health reasons.

Qualified candidates seeking the Senate District 18 seat (Mililani Town, Waipiʻo Gentry, Crestview, Waikele, a portion of Waipahu, Village Park and Royal Kunia) have until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday to apply for the job. A selection committee will Zoom on Thursday (July 9, 2026) to hear each candidate speak for up to three minutes. Three names will then be sent to Gov. Josh Green, who has until Aug. 29 to choose the next senator.

But it’s only a temp gig. A special election will be held at the same time as the Nov. 3 general election. The Democratic Party along with Republicans, Green and Libertarians then have until 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 4 to submit their respective nominee for the ballot.

For nonpartisan applicants, they can submit their names, too. If there is more than one, the Hawaiʻi State Elections Office will hold a drawing at 5 p.m. that same day to determine which NP will be on the ballot.

…There will be no contested primary, for example. That’s frustrating to supporters of area representatives like Democrat Trish La Chica and Republican Lauren Matsumoto, who are already on the primary ballot.

But there has been a new development. On Wednesday, the Attorney General’s Office advised Green on the party nominee eligibility for Kidani’s seat. While it is too late for a candidate to withdraw from the Aug. 8 primary, state law appears to allow a candidate who wins their primary to then resign, thus making them eligible to be selected by their party to be the sole candidate in the special election….

Read … The Sunshine Blog: You'll Never Believe Who's (Finally) Riding The Rail - Honolulu Civil Beat

Grassroot Institute Aims To Keep Growing Its Political Influence

CB: … What started a quarter century ago as one man’s mission to promote individual liberty and economic freedom in Hawaiʻi has become a substantial force in effecting public policy statewide.

Today the Grassroot Institute of Hawaiʻi takes credit for helping persuade the Legislature to preserve a historic tax cut, to expedite the county process for obtaining building permits and to allow for worker housing on farms. The legislation, all approved this year, aligns with Grassroot Institute policy to ease the tax burden on local residents and to increase the affordable housing supply….

Read … Grassroot Institute Aims To Keep Growing Its Political Influence - Honolulu Civil Beat

Hawaii employers develop housing to fill workforce gaps

PBN: … In the next five years, Hawaii’s largest health system will build 150 below-market-rate residential units on the campus of its new, planned hospital in Kailua-Kona. The units will be rented and sold to a specific group: hospital employees.

This will be the first employer housing The Queen’s Health Systems has ever provided and is one of the most permanent examples of employers in Hawaii addressing the state’s housing shortage and high cost of living….

SFA is currently developing housing for teachers and other public-school staff on the Mililani High School campus and working to expand housing opportunities for teachers across Hawaii….

Ohana Control Systems, a local general contractor, is planning a $100 million factory on Oahu that will include on-site housing for an estimated 50 factory workers on land owned by the Department of Hawaiian Homelands in Kapolei.

The factory will be dedicated to off-site construction for housing projects across the state, but plans call for it to include a trade school and the employee housing structure, all on the same property. The project will use Ohana’s pre-constructed models to build a two- to five-story structure made up of pre-built units….

By the end of July, the last three homes in phase one of a $20 million development in Wailuku to provide housing for medical professionals on Maui will be ready for move-in. The first phase consists of 16 four-bedroom, three-bathroom single-family homes, 13 of which are already occupied.

The development, which at completion will total 31 homes, is part of Maui Health Foundation’s Healthcare for Housing initiative. It was established to address the urgent need for affordable housing to recruit and retain healthcare workers on Maui….

The Queen’s Health Systems is designing an 80‑bed replacement hospital for Kona Community Hospital, to serve West and North Hawaii Island. The planned Queen’s Medical Center West Hawaii will sit on a 32‑acre campus in West Hawaii Business Park and include 150 on-site housing units for hospital employees in three low‑rise condominium and apartment buildings.

Five years is the expected timeline to open the doors to the new hospital, Jason Chang, president and CEO of The Queen’s Health System, told PBN. …

Adventist doesn’t own large employee‑housing complexes; instead, it has long maintained a small group of single‑family homes within walking distance of the hospital. Since the hospital opened in 1963, it has gradually acquired these properties through purchases and occasional donations.

For about 30 to 40 years, the homes housed leaders, but during the pandemic — when many of those leaders had retired, and relocating to Hawaii was becoming difficult — the use of the properties shifted to house in-demand workers and specialists….

In an effort to recruit and retain educators in West Maui, the state Department of Education, through Maui-based developer Dowling Co., opened an educator workforce housing development in Lahaina on April 25; staff began moving into their new homes in March….

Pulama Lanai, the real estate company owned by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, has provided housing for both residents and workers. Since 2015, the company has renovated more than 200 apartments and rebuilt or renovated more than 150 plantation homes for local renters.

In 2025, Pulama Lanai completed Hokuao, the first new workforce housing development on Lanai in more than 30 years, adding 150 single-family rental homes and increasing the island’s housing supply by 10%, according to the company….

Read … Hawaii employers develop housing to fill workforce gaps - Pacific Business News

AI Robot clouds proposed healthcare alliance

SA: … HMSA’s relationship with Stellarus ties Hawaii’s dominant insurer to systems built around artificial intelligence, governance rights and health plan operations, which means any review has to look past local branding and ask who shapes the tools that affect payment, attribution, prior authorization, provider measurement and patient access.

Ascendiun, Stellarus and Altais may sound like 1990s science fiction, but they are poised to influence healthcare in Hawaii in very practical ways. Stellarus is the data and artificial intelligence layer, including an “experience cube” described as “an intelligent data hub that brings together disparate sources of information into a single source of truth.” Altais is the physician-services layer, and together they sit close to the machinery that determines how care is organized, measured, contracted and paid….

That risk is not abstract. The same systems can shape which patients are assigned to which clinics, whether claims are paid, how prior authorization rules are applied, and how providers are measured. In Hawaii, where small practices and neighbor island networks already operate with little margin for error, a mainland-designed system does not have to be malicious to be damaging. It just has to be built for someone else’s scale.

Altais is operating in Hawaii through Altais Medical Group/Big Island and Altais Care Network/Hawaii….

Our provider shortages, island geography, small practices and fragile neighbor island networks cannot become a minor exception inside systems built around mainland financial priorities and operating assumptions.

Any review of One Health Hawai‘i should require clear answers about HMSA’s commitment to Stellarus, its governance rights, and whether Stellarus will influence prior authorization, attribution, claims, provider profiling, payment, care management or network adequacy in Hawaii.

People who are concerned should contact the regulatory State Health Planning & Development Agency at shpda@doh.hawaii.gov or (808) 587-0788 before Hawaii is asked to accept fewer choices and more decisions made through systems that patients and healthcare providers cannot see….

2025: HMSA: AI Robot will be 'Single Source of Truth'

2026: HMSA-HPH 'Merger': AI Robot to be ‘Single Source of Oppressive and Unconscionable Truth’

Read … Column: Mainland ties cloud proposed healthcare alliance | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Open PUC Proceeding is 6,650 Days Old

IM: … On August 3, 2007, Hawaii Electric Light Company, Inc. filed an application seeking PUC approval for a Schedule Q as-available power purchase contract with the County of Hawaii Department of Water Supply for a 50-kW hydroelectric plant located at Kaloko Tank 2, Hina Lani Street, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

In 2008 the PUC approved the application and opened a new docket no. 2008-0069, “an investigation to consider the methodology for calculating Schedule Q payment rates.”

“Since all regulated electric utilities in the State will likely be impacted by the outcome of this investigation, the commission names as parties to this proceeding … HECO, MECO, HELCO, KIUC, and the Consumer Advocate.”

The last substantive PUC decision was the issuance of a procedural schedule in January 2012 whereby the final utility filing was to be made in Aril 2012. Thereafter, numerous extensions of time were filed and approved.

The last filing by the Consumer Advocate in 2015, taking no position on non-party Sunrun`s request to file comments. The last filing by KIUC was in 2018, answering PUC Information Requests.

On October 17, 2023, the PUC asked the HECO Companies whether the 2023 Maui windstorm and wildfires event has any impact on the proceeding. HECO responded on November 15, 2023.

“Subject to the foregoing, the Companies respectfully inform the Commission that the Event has not directly impacted this proceeding and the Companies do not foresee a future direct impact on this proceeding at this time.

In this regard, the Companies inform the Commission that all procedural steps are complete, and the proceeding is ready for decision making. However, due to the passage of time, the Companies suggest that the Commission either restart the proceeding or close the docket without a determination and start a new proceeding.” …

Read … Open PUC Proceeding on Schedule Q Is 6,650 Days Old | Ililani Media

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