The Honolulu Neighborhood Commission Office has mailed passcodes to approximately 260,000 voters who are eligible to cast ballots online for contested seats in the 2017 election for O‘ahu’s neighborhood boards.Neighborhood board online passcodes sent to eligible voters
Voters may use their unique passcodes to cast ballots online at www2.honolulu.gov/nbe via their computers or mobile devices from today, Friday, April 28, through Friday, May 19.
During this voting period, the city will also make computers available to the public at these locations:
Kapolei Hale conference room C, 1000 Ulu‘ohi‘a Street (Friday, April 28, through Friday, May 19, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.)
Kapālama Hale, Suite 160, 925 Dillingham Boulevard (Friday, April 28, through Friday, May 19, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.)
The KEY project in Kahalu‘u at 47-200 Waihe‘e Road (Friday, April 28, through Friday, May 19, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.)
Any public library on O‘ahu within the Hawai‘i State Public Library System (Friday, April 28, through Friday, May 19, during regular hours)
The NCO strongly encourages voting online as it saves paper and keeps costs down. However, you can request a paper ballot if you are unable to vote online. To request a ballot by mail, voters may call the Ballot Request Hotline at 768-3763 no later than Monday, May 15, 2017, by 4:30 p.m. with your full name, residential address, and last four digits of your Social Security Number. Returned ballots must be postmarked by Friday, May 19, 2017 and received by the NCO no later than Friday, May 26, 2017.
Online voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, May 19, 2017. Election results will be announced after voting concludes and is certified by the NCO by Thursday, June 1, 2017. Newly elected board members will assume office on July 1, 2017.
Candidate profiles and photos are posted online at:
Professor Michael Haas traces how the Aloha State dismantled the racism of Territorial era in a panel discussion today (May 6) at the Honolulu Book and Music Fare on the grounds of City Hall. Retired UH political scientist, Haas will explain how racism was established during the Territory of Hawaiʻi and then reversed after statehood.
Based on fifty years of research while living in the Islands, Haas identifies how racism was established in the economy, the environment, and the government when presidents appointed governors from 1900 to 1959. His history also explains how Native Hawaiians were denied their rights during the Territorial era.
Statehood in 1959 shifted power from Caucasians to Japanese, he says in his recent book, “How to Demolish Racism.” He shows how Japanese political leaders, particularly Governor George Ariyoshi, make crucial decisions during the 1970s to eliminate racist institutions of government and pass laws liberating the economy and the environment from over-exploitation.
Haas will appear on a panel chaired by Amy Agbayani, longtime UH administrator who worked to eliminate racism. Panelists are Hayden Burgess, who favors restoration of Hawaiʻi as an independent country, and William Hoshijo, Executive Director of the Hawaiʻi Civil Rights Commission.
The key decision to diversify the politics was when Ariyoshi ran with a Native Hawaiian Lieutenant Governor, John Waihee. After Waiheʻe was elected governor, he was followed by a Filipino, Ben Cayetano. Alternation of governors by ethnicity has continued ever since.
Meanwhile, Island culture broadened beyond the Aloha Spirit to include Buddhist principles in everyday life. With so many Japanese schoolteachers at the time of statehood, younger generations learned how to be friendly and respectful to others while speaking pidgin outside school.
The most dramatic change in the economy was the shutdown of Big Five pineapple and sugarcane companies. No big businesses have dominated Hawaiʻi ever since, benefiting consumers.
Environmental progress occurred after the state supported long-time residents who were being evicted from land to make way for suburb developments. After the Kalama Valley evictions of 1971, public support surged for both restoring the environment and providing delayed justice to Native Hawaiians. Constitutional amendments in 1978 not only made Hawaiian as the state’s official language in addition to English but also established the principle that everyone is entitled to a healthy environment.
Affirmative action in 1977 enabled unrepresented racial groups to gain respect in government employment. Statistics also show an end to discrimination throughout in the criminal justice system.
Having achieved an end to racism, the Akaka brothers Abraham and Daniel have long hoped that Hawaiʻi’s people will spread Aloha to the world. Barack Obama tried to take Aloha to Washington. Haas has done so by publishing books, which argue that the world must pay attention.
By Tom Yamachika – When we speak of and follow government in this space, we usually concentrate on state government and the state legislature. But we mustn’t forget that there are county governments as well. They supply important services such as police, fire, park and road maintenance, trash and sewer disposal, and water supply.
How does a county raise money to pay for these services?
Under the Hawaii Constitution, the counties have exclusive authority over only the real property tax. By exclusive authority we mean that the counties can determine the different classifications of property to tax, and the rates to be applied to each. In 2002, in a case called Anzai v. Honolulu, our supreme court said that the State has no right to force the counties to exempt anything, and generally can’t tell the counties what to do with real property tax money.
In contrast, the State has general taxing power and can (and does) impose taxes on many different things. The State may also delegate its taxing power to the counties, and if it does so, it does have some say over how the revenue is going to be spent. This is how the Honolulu rail surcharge came about. The State set up the mechanics of the surcharge, and then said that each county could participate if it wished. Any county wishing to participate, however, needed to enact a taxing ordinance, and it needed to use the funds on transportation projects. The City & County of Honolulu was the only county that bought in.
The State also gives the counties authority to impose a gallonage tax on fuel, a weight tax on motor vehicles, and an annual registration fee for motor vehicles. All counties presently impose these taxes at varying rates. So, for example, Maui adds 23 cents per gallon of gas as county tax, while the Big Island adds 8.8 cents.
Another statute gives the counties authority to impose user fees. All counties use this authority as well. A 1999 case called State v. Medeiros showed that this authority had limits. The Hawaii Supreme Court said that a legitimate user fee “(1) applies to the direct beneficiary of a particular service, (2) is allocated directly to defraying the costs of providing the service, and (3) is reasonably proportionate to the benefit received.” The City & County of Honolulu slapped a so-called user fee on each criminal convicted to cover costs of prosecution, but the fee was found to be a general revenue raising measure, and was invalidated as being actually a tax.
The State also has been sharing the transient accommodations tax, or TAT, with the counties since 1990. The amount shared has been a bone of contention in recent years. When the TAT was imposed at 7.25%, after satisfying specified earmarks, 44.8% was distributed to the counties. The TAT rate was increased (on a “temporary” basis) to 9.25% under a 2009 law, and in 2013 the 9.25% rate was made permanent while fixing $93 million as the amount to be shared among the counties. The counties complained about their allocations, thinking that they should get 45% of the current TAT take, which is more like $150 million. (Ironically, the counties argued that they needed stable and predictable funding. Isn’t a fixed amount stable and predictable?) The debate over this sharing has raged over the past four years and is still ongoing. Most counties now find that the TAT sharing is an indispensable item in their revenue budget, second only to the real property tax.
Given the limited amount of dollars that taxpayers are willing or able to share with any government, our lawmakers must keep in mind that the funding of services at all levels needs to be balanced and reflective of the priorities of the constituency. There will be and should be an ongoing healthy debate over these services, and the mechanisms for funding them.
Hunters beware! Your game may soon become tainted by a poison experiment up at Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA). The USFWS has released it’s long awaited Environmental Assessment (EA) outlining their poison experiment plans, and its clear that hunters, their families, and their dogs are at risk.
Hunters have long considered the Feds a threat. The EA gives good reason for this suspicion. It admits the risk to humans of using these poisons, especially to hunters. “Risk to human health and safety arising from this project would be to personnel involved in the study and to hunters from outside of PTA consuming poisoned game.” p. 17
While the 34-acre test area would be fenced in, that will not prevent birds from eating bait or eating poisoned rodents. These birds may travel away from the test site into areas used by hunters. Research shows that it can take days for birds to die from diphacinone and chlorophacinone poisoning, which are the poisons they want to test at PTA. Game birds may also consume sub-lethal doses that make them easier for hunters to catch. Pigs may get poisoned by eating the carcasses of poisoned rodents and birds.
The USFWS knows this is a problem for hunters, and they try to look accommodating by stating, “The study would be conducted outside the main game bird season, which normally begins on the first Saturday in November and extends through the last Sunday in January. Avoiding the hunting season would eliminate the possibility of hunters interacting with birds that may have ingested rodenticide. (The actual risk to human health from such interactions is very low; this mitigation measure may not be possible in future management actions, as such this should not be seen as precedent.)” p. 13 (Emphasis added)
Note that hunting does occur at other times of the year, so hunters, their families, and their dogs will be put at risk during other hunting seasons of the year.
What is shocking is that the Feds state that protecting hunters from poison should not be considered a precedent! This means that they may use these poisons in the future, even if they know that it will threaten the safety of hunters and their families by poisoning game. Poisoning mice is apparently more important to the Feds than protecting people from poison.
Smell a rat?
Clearly, hunters are being regarded in the same way as non-target species. The Feds will try to minimize risk, but accepts that some hunters and keiki may consume poisoned birds and mammals. The Feds assure the public that these risks to humans consuming poisoned game are “very low”, but they offer no data or safety studies supporting that claim. And nobody is offering up their child to be a guinea pig to see how much poison is needed to cause harm.
If you or your dogs consume bait or a poisoned animal, what can these poisons do? According to Cornell University, “Diphacinone is highly toxic to humans and other mammals by inhalation, dermal (skin) absorption, and ingestion. It causes internal hemorrhaging (bleeding) that can lead to death. It acts by inhibiting enzymes involved in blood clotting. Animals given lethal doses exhibited labored breathing, muscular weakness, excitability, fluid in the lungs, and irregular heartbeats. Other signs of poisoning include spitting of blood, bloody urine or stools, internal hemorrhaging, and widespread bruising or bleeding into the joints. When a lethal dose does not cause immediate death, then death tends to be delayed and due to massive hemorrhage.”
Chlorophacinone, the other poison they want to test at PTA, is even stronger and more toxic. And they want to use twice the approved amount of these, which is another part of this experiment. Both poisons take several feedings to kill, so animals can have sub-lethal doses of the stuff and still be toxic to eat. These animals are essentially injured and would also be easier to hunt, increasing the chances of catching poisoned game.
The Feds are not just targeting hunters. The Feds are also willing to poison endangered species and protected migratory birds unlucky enough be at PTA during the poisoning. Hunters, it seems, are just another endangered species they don’t mind harming as they poison the landscape to kill rodents.
Send comments to: PTA_EA_Comments@fws.gov or via mail to: Attn: PTA_EA_Comments, USFWS – Pacific Islands Fish & Wildlife Office, 300 Ala Moana Blvd, Ste. 3-122, Honolulu, HI, 96850
