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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/07/hawaii-governor-keeps-his-official-visitor-list-under-wraps/" target="_self">Hawaii Governor Keeps His Official Visitor List Under Wraps</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">Thu, 18 Jul 2019 10:01:40 +0000</span><br />');
document.write('Hawaii Gov. David Ige is refusing to release information about who comes to see him at the governor’s office, including lobbyists and other people seeking to influence public policy. The governor’s office does not keep an official visitor log documenting the people and groups that meet with Ige. Ige’s public calendar only lists the governor’s public appearances. And recently the months of May and June were almost completely blank, with the resumption of more calendar entries coinciding with a follow-up Civil Beat inquiry in late June. Civil Beat asked for the records in an effort to figure out who might be seeking to sway the governor over the last few months as he made decisions about which pieces of legislation he would sign into law and which ones he would veto. Gov. David Ige’s staff refuses to release records detailing his visitors. He says says he doesn’t want to discourage them from coming to see him.Cory Lum/Civil Beat Cindy McMillan, communications director for the governor, said that while staffing problems may be responsible for the inconsistent public calendar information, there is no visitor log because Ige does not want to discourage visitors by revealing them publicly. “The governor has always said that he feels it’s important for people to be comfortable coming to see him,” McMillan said, “and that he believes that if he released all of his calendar appointments, that people would cease to feel comfortable coming to visit him.” “He prefers that people come visit with him, rather than stay away.” McMillan said that Ige’s office has no plans to create and release a visitor log. Lack Of Transparency Criticized Sandy Ma, executive director of Common Cause Hawaii — a nonprofit that advocates for good government practices and greater government accountability — said she was not aware that Ige did not keep a visitor log, but she thinks his failure to record and release this information raises serious transparency concerns. Ma said that Hawaii voters have a right to know how Ige and other elected officials are using their taxpayer money and time in office, particularly if special interest groups and lobbyists are meeting with the governor. As for McMillan’s and the governor’s reasoning, Ma said that she “did not know what to make of their explanation” and that this was the first time she had heard officials use this argument. It’s a safe bet that the governor is visited by many lobbyists and others trying to influence public policy.PF Bentley/Civil Beat “I think people will take the opportunity to speak with the governor if their issues are pressing enough,” Ma said. “And I think it’s very interesting that (McMillan) would think people would be afraid to speak with the governor.” “If I had the opportunity to speak with the governor, I would be happy to say I spoke with the governor and tell other people,” Ma said. “I wouldn’t be ashamed of it.” Colin Moore, an associate professor of political science and director of the Public Policy Center at the University of Hawaii, said he understood the governor’s reasoning and recognized the desire to keep some meetings out of the public eye. “Sometimes it can just be useful in trying to crack deals and trying to reach out to a variety of different groups and constituencies and people who might not otherwise want to meet with you,” Moore said, “because they don’t want the public to know that they’ve had these meetings with the governor.” However, Moore said that keeping and releasing a visitor log should be standard practice not only because government should strive to be as transparent as possible, but also because they would give the public a glimpse of which groups have the most influence over its elected officials. “You can’t say for certain that this interest group influenced somebody,” Moore said, “but at least you know they had a seat at the table so you can infer that maybe they did have some influence.” “Being transparent about what meetings you’re taking at least allows the public to know ‘Okay, so who does have influence?’ You don’t just have to guess.” What About Other Politicians? Ige is not the first Hawaii governor to not keep visitor records. Bruce Coppa, who served as chief of staff for former Gov. Neil Abercrombie, said that Abercrombie’s office did not keep an official visitor log either, although there was a voluntary guestbook in the waiting room. There is little to no data available on the proportion of governors in other states who release their visitor logs or calendar appointments. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s calendar is publicly available online and details her daily appointments to the minute, including public events and personal meetings. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s visitor records are less accessible — redacted versions of his daily calendar are available to reporters upon request. President Donald Trump made headlines in 2017 by refusing to continue President Barack Obama’s practice of releasing visitor logs. But while Trump cited privacy and national security concerns as reasons for withholding his visitor records, Ige’s reasoning focuses more on making visitors feel comfortable. In spite of that, Moore said both Ige and Trump are in the wrong for forsaking transparency within their administrations to address their separate concerns. “That’s why the visitor logs (should be) maintained, is that we think the public should know who the chief executive of the state or the president of the United States is meeting with because it’s good to know who’s having an influence on his positions,” Moore said. The post Hawaii Governor Keeps His Official Visitor List Under Wraps appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/07/tmt-means-progress-for-hawaiis-future/" target="_self">TMT Means Progress For Hawaii’s Future</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">Thu, 18 Jul 2019 10:01:35 +0000</span><br />');
document.write('Growing up in Hilo I attended Ellison Onizuka Science Day practically every year, collecting “space swag” from the exhibits and classroom discussions. With my eye on the sky, I vowed to pursue a career involved in contributing to humanity’s collective knowledge of the universe. Eventually, I graduated from the University of Hawaii Manoa’s engineering program, ready to pursue my dreams and conquer my final obstacle: finding a job. Looking to stay in Hawaii, my options came down to construction or military-related work. However my space-oriented career goals led me to applying for jobs on the mainland, and accepting that my dreams might never come true in Hawaii … until I got a call. In college, through the Akamai  program, I interned at the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope being built at the summit of Haleakala. In the summer after graduation I was contacted by a woman who saw me present my internship project and asked if I was interested in working for DKIST. I accepted her offer, excited that I could contribute to building the most powerful solar telescope in the world, in Hawaii! However, with this career came a new set of challenges. Following the 2015 protest against the Thirty Meter Telescope, the word “telescope” had practically become a nasty swear word to be avoided in casual conversation. Fortunately my family supported my career, especially my Hawaiian grandmother and mother, but I found that I mostly avoided talking about work, especially when I could be targeted, challenged, or threatened. I can’t describe how it feels to be working for a telescope, when I see commentary surface online from people, my people, who associate it with the desecration and rape of our beloved mauna. How these telescope eyesores are another corporate entity taking advantage of the Hawaiian people, yet here I am, a Native Hawaiian, working at a telescope. I’ve felt ashamed, not for following my passion and pursuing my dreams, but that some Hawaiian people criticized telescopes and TMT for absurd reasons. Many discussed unrelated topics, such as the sovereign status of the Hawaiian kingdom, or chose to ignore facts and pursue a false narrative of  genocide, commercialized profit, militant weaponry, pollution and desecration. The evening sky as seen from Haleakala.Kauionalani Onodera Mauna Kea is our piko, that which connects our land and sky, and TMT opponents claim that telescope construction is desecration. But I think telescopes maintain the sanctity of the mauna, worshipping the sky through observation and servicing a goal of bringing humankind closer to understanding creation of life in the universe. It isn’t traditional but neither were the ahu erected on the mauna, which didn’t diminish their sanctity to those who built it. For my opinions I may be criticized and attacked, but I cannot stay silent and must also fight for what I believe in. I don’t want to be afraid to say “Imua TMT” and want everyone to proceed with respect, on the common ground that we want what is best for Hawaii’s future. It isn’t Hawaiians versus desecration. It isn’t a war on culture and science. It isn’t an issue where only Native Hawaiians get to have a say because we are no longer the only ones who live here. The author on the mauna. TMT was legally approved as determined by the current governing body of Hawaii, and saying that we were overthrown in an unsavory manner by a foreign party, much like how Kamehameha conquered and united the islands, is irrelevant. If Hawaii continues to be haunted by the past and we can’t progress into the future, we will continue this trend of commercial exploitation of natural resources for tourism. TMT can blaze a path both for science and Hawaii with money allocated to education and lease on Mauna Kea and the removal and decommissioning of existing telescopes. These conditions show that TMT listened to legitimate concerns of the people and have earned the right to stay in Hawaii by proving that its presence benefits astronomy, education, and our economy. It isn’t Hawaiians versus desecration. It isn’t a war on culture and science. Some people will never sway from their beliefs, and will maintain their constitutional right to protest, or challenge the law by literally creating roadblocks to the project. I won’t scream and shout at those who disagree with me, or threaten them into silence. I value sincere discussion on opposing viewpoints, even if I haven’t changed someone’s mind at the end of the day, I know they tried understanding my views, and vice versa. I hope I’ve offered a local girl’s perspective on the issue to those on the fence about the project. Finally I want to recognize the silent supporters and want to acknowledge my appreciation for your continued support. I am looking forward to the completion of this project, and will continue to look skyward toward a bright future with the prospect that one day I might contribute to TMT myself. The post TMT Means Progress For Hawaii’s Future appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/07/how-these-top-travel-spots-are-making-tourism-pay-its-own-way/" target="_self">How These Travel Hotspots Are Trying To Make Tourism Pay Its Own Way</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">Thu, 18 Jul 2019 10:01:31 +0000</span><br />');
document.write('Editor’s Note: “Tourism’s Tipping Point,” is an ongoing series that looks at the future of the vacation industry in Hawaii.  A record-setting 10.2 million tourists are expected to visit Hawaii this year. What’s the full cost of welcoming them? According to a new academic study, “Destinations at Risk: The Invisible Burden of Tourism,” even the best attempts at answering this question are informed by inaccurate, incomplete and otherwise misleading data. The impact of global tourism on local economies remains largely unknown, and this knowledge gap has allowed poor management to fester, according to the study authored by EplerWood International, Cornell University and the Travel Foundation. Overtourism is identified in the March 2019 study as a symptom of this underlying problem. To fix it requires a paradigm shift. By 2030, there are expected to be 1.8 billion global tourist arrivals. Pictured clockwise  are destinations that have made changes toward better management: the Galapagos Islands, Palau, Easter Island, San Francisco, New Zealand, Amsterdam and Barcelona.April Estrellon “The famous case is Mallorca, where they were down to $30 per night for a hotel in the ‘70s because it was a very overcrowded tourist destination,” said Megan Epler Wood, director of the International Sustainable Tourism Initiative at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the lead author of the study. “And I attended a meeting in the Canary Islands where the mayor of Mallorca announced that they were going to tear down hotels and the whole audience stood up and cheered. And, in fact, they did it.”  Related Cory Lum/Civil Beat How Kailua Became A Tourist Town July 11, 2019 Cory Lum/Civil Beat 9 Charts That Show How Hawaii Tourism Is Changing July 10, 2019 10 Million Visitors: Can Hawaii Survive Its Own Popularity? July 10, 2019 Mallorca has since recouped high-value tourism on the island in part by shuttering hotels, and also by establishing a new eco-tax on tourists in 2016 that is funneled into a fund to pay the hidden costs of tourism. Those include managing and upgrading systems for water use, waste disposal, land use, air and carbon emissions, transportation, community values and cultural heritage.  The tax has raised more than $100 million in three years.  “You can drive a destination over a cliff,” Epler Wood said. “But the way to reinsert value is to properly account for tourism’s costs and then strategically look at reinvestment.” Can Tourism Pay Its Own Way? While figures proclaiming the number of visitor arrivals or tourism jobs have become common yardsticks for assessing the health of a local tourism industry, the study finds that destination managers often ignore other vital metrics. Those include each individual traveler’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, wear and tear on local infrastructure, threats to biodiversity and demand for land and housing. Failure to confront these hidden costs is starting to degrade the customs, culture, monuments, natural resources and other assets that make these destinations so appealing to visit in the first place. In Barcelona, visitors swarm beaches and other beloved attractions, transforming places long loved by residents into virtual no-go zones for locals. Residents are being driven out of Venice as 30 million annual tourists bombard the Italian city, stampeding streets, sidewalks and canals and skyrocketing the price of rent. Poorly behaving tourists on Easter Island have made a mockery of the island’s indigenous culture, climbing on giant moai statues and posing with them for nose-picking photos.  To turn this scenario on its head, governments and the travel industry must reinvest a higher percentage of tourism revenues into the destination, the study concludes. The first step toward achieving this requires destination managers to uncover the full cost of hosting each individual visitor. Only then can stakeholders figure out how to pay for those costs. When such costs go ignored, the study finds that residents are forced to foot the bill. Or worse, the bill doesn’t get paid at all. The idea is to make tourism pay its own way to the benefit of everyone. To achieve this, the “Invisible Burden” study suggests local governments create a global trust or revolving fund account with apolitical leaders to finance the preservation of destination assets. Many tourism hubs are stuck in crisis management, experimenting with steepened entry fees, daily visitor caps and new marketing philosophies. Governments can fill the account with revenues from new fees, such as eco-taxes, which can be used to ensure that tourism generates green infrastructure or other necessary investments to perpetuate the health and longevity of the destination and its residents. Iceland and New Zealand have already taken steps toward funding infrastructure improvements to the benefit of locals, visitors and the future of the tourism industry by approving new taxes that finance wilderness conservation and improve infrastructure. In many cases, officials don’t need to institute new fees — they simply must re-evaluate how they’re spending dollars from existing tourism taxes. Often this means shifting dollars away from marketing a destination in favor of funding the maintenance of its natural resources, social and cultural capital, energy systems, wastewater management and transportation networks. Overcrowded attractions can benefit from these revenues by implementing new systems that encourage travelers to visit during non-peak hours, make a donation toward conservation of the site, pledge to stay in eco-friendly lodging or agree to tour the property with a licensed guide. “The same standardized piece of software that all airlines and hotels use to manage demand and pricing needs to be used by the world that manages the Parthenon and the Uffizi and the Versailles and parks in Hawaii,” Epler Wood said. “These sites will never be able to handle unlimited growth, so these reservation systems will have to be set up in a way that benefits the monument or site and allows for a range of visitors to come. But not all at once.” And the risk of doing nothing? “It will devalue Hawaii,” said Epler Wood, who credits her family’s Hawaii roots, dating to an era when Waikiki boasted just two hotels, with inspiring her career in sustainable tourism development. “If sites become overcrowded, we know by way of 30 or 40 years of tourism demand research that the value of those sites will go down.” Charged with marketing Hawaii to the world, the Hawaii Tourism Authority is already starting to make this paradigm shift. In fiscal year 2020, HTA plans to funnel about $20 million of its $86.7 million budget into programs that promote safety, protect natural resources and perpetuate Native Hawaiian culture. Stuck In Crisis Management The “Invisible Burden” study maps out an aspirational plan for destinations grappling with a bloated tourism market. But most destinations have a long way to go to achieve such sophisticated management.  In reality, many tourism hubs are stuck in crisis management, experimenting with steepened entry fees, daily visitor caps and new marketing philosophies — and hoping something sticks, experts say.  “How do we create a situation where tourism isn’t happening to us?” asks Jonathon Day, an associate professor of hospitality and tourism management at Purdue University. “I don’t think there are any simple answers, partly because in some ways no one entity is in charge of tourism. “Most of the issues require the whole of government and the whole of community to come together, from town planners to the people who design the roads — and that usually doesn’t happen.”  Protesters on Molokai stopped a 145-foot passenger yacht in 2011 from docking on Molokai over concerns that local community members had not been given a voice in the decision to allow regularly scheduled trips to the rural island.Catherine Cluett From Tolls To A ‘Loo With A View’ Vancouver, British Columbia, is attempting to relieve crowds by using price drops and clever marketing to encourage tourism during the shoulder seasons.  The Netherlands Tourism Board has completely stopped promoting the overcrowded city of Amsterdam as a tourist destination. Amsterdam also recently instituted a ban on new tourist shops in the city center. In California, lawmakers are testing a new toll and advanced reservation system for travelers who wish to drive down San Francisco’s famously crooked Lombard Street. Elsewhere in the state, Point Lobos is poised to become the first California state park to restrict visitor access during the high season. Easter Island now limits visitor travel to a maximum period of 30 days. In New Zealand, a four-day wilderness trek called the Milford Track recently became so popular that it’s lost the allure of solitude in nature. So the country’s Department of Conservation imposed a new 40-person maximum on the number of hikers permitted to start the trek each day. This measure has helped alleviate overcrowding and restored a sense of isolation and serene wildness to the trekking experience. Other locales are cracking down on the influx of travelers by limiting transportation options and beefing up enforcement. In the Galapagos Islands, there are strict ship capacity and landing limits. Passengers aboard those ships who wish to visit protected areas must travel with a naturalist guide. They’re not allowed to bring any food off the ship. Flash photography of wildlife is prohibited. Drones are forbidden. And while there are many Galapagos islands to visit, more than 100 islands and islets in the chain remain off-limits to tourists. But getting a handle on tourism is not just about imposing price hikes, limits and restrictions. Another method of addressing overtourism involves rethinking the kinds of things people might like to do when they arrive, according to Day. “People have this belief that they have the right to travel anywhere and do anything.” — Purdue University professor Jonathon Day Some tourist-packed cities are using creative marketing and travel packages to direct tourists to less-heralded — and less crowded — activities. Others are building new tourist attractions.  At Australia’s Mooloolaba Beach, the public restroom facility — Loo With A View — doubles as an attraction, with its outlook over an ocean esplanade. Other Australian beach towns are following suit, erecting public toilets that are architecturally interesting or offer stunning views, such as this one shaped like an indigenous wicker basket. No one is going to visit Australia to tour a public toilet. But even a minor diversion can help diffuse crowds that detract from the visitor experience at major attractions. A Pledge For Good Behavior Travelers must also contribute to the preservation of the world’s most sought-after places — and not only in the form of a tourism tax, according to several experts. In 2018, international tourism arrivals reached a record-setting 1.4 billion. By 2030, that number is expected to increase by nearly 29 percent, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Refined management can help destinations absorb the growing number of travelers, said Day, who is behind an online pledge to travel according to The Travel Care Code. But it will also require increased traveler awareness.  “People have this belief that they have the right to travel anywhere and do anything,” Day said. “We sort of tie it into our freedoms. But that’s a mindset that we might need to revisit because what people don’t think about is that what they’re really doing is going into someone’s house, going into someone’s community. “Just as I wouldn’t go to your house and mess the place up, we’ve got this trade-off between my freedom to do whatever I want and my responsibility to be a good guest — and I think that’s coming to a head at this moment.” In 2017, Palau became the first nation to issue visas exclusively to tourists who sign an eco-pledge, promising to act in an environmentally responsible fashion while visiting the fragile destination. The pledge came as a response to a huge surge in tourism prompted by new air travel routes that threatened to topple the tiny Micronesian island nation’s infrastructure, including its drinking water and sanitation systems. The Palau Pledge: Children of Palau, I take this Pledge, To preserve and protect your beautiful and unique island home. I vow to tread lightly, act kindly, and explore mindfully. I shall not take what is not given. I shall not harm what does not harm me. The only footprints I shall leave are those that will wash away The Big Island has the Pono Pledge, which asks visitors to promise that they will not trespass nor defy death for a breathtaking photo. In June, Kauai residents began circulating the Aloha Pledge, a similar effort to voluntarily compel visitors to tread lightly on the island’s natural resources and respect its host culture. A pledge in Big Sur, California, calls on tourists to refrain from the kind of bad behavior that damages the natural environment and disturbs residents. “These are not contracts,” Day said. “But they are a good way to remind people that, ‘Hey, you’re coming to my house.’” Combating overtourism also requires local governments to rethink how it measures success in tourism, Day said. “You have to change the metrics,” he said. “The politician who says tourism is good because it increased 5% needs to be thinking about the bigger picture. Because maybe you don’t want more visitors — you want higher yield visitors. You want visitors that are spending more money.” “That takes a pretty brave politician because it’s easy to see growth in numbers and take it as success,” Day added. “It’s harder to get the message across that it’s not about the number, it’s about the impact.” Can You Create Sustainable Hotels? Bjorn Hanson, a hotel industry consultant in New York, said many hotel owners and operators have crafted new policies and practices as direct responses to overtourism and the desire to contain tourism’s damage to the natural environment.  The lodging industry is often inclined to self-regulate this way, implementing policies to purchase more local goods or cut down on single-use plastics, Hanson said. The thinking, he said, is that by becoming part of the solution, the hospitality industry may avoid a situation where lawmakers begin to impose more restrictive limitations on the industry.  “People used to think tourism was a non-polluting segment of the economy and now it’s the opposite,” Hanson said. “Today there are more travelers and they are consuming more energy resources and therefore producing more pollution.” Decades of research on tourism demand show that tourism destinations become devalued as they grow overcrowded and can start losing high paying visitors.Cory Lum/Civil Beat In Waikiki, The Modern Honolulu uses LED light bulbs and eco-friendly cleaning products. The Surfjack Hotel & Swim Club has reef-friendly sunscreen dispensers, free bicycle rentals and a ban on plastic straws, while its restaurant Mahina & Sun’s serves local, sustainably caught and farmed fish and uses compostable take-away food containers.  Guests of Alohilani Resort can plant native trees as a means to encourage rare birds and other indigenous species to thrive. Equus Hotel offers in-room recycling.  Oahu resorts including Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa and The Kahala Hotel & Resort offer guests complimentary shuttle service to popular shopping destinations, beaches and attractions, a measure that helps alleviate traffic.  However sincere, Hanson said these strategies are limited by the way they are carefully implemented so as not to put guests at an inconvenience. “The fact remains that people don’t want to sleep on linens that haven’t been changed since the last guests checked out,” said Hanson, who previously worked part-time in Honolulu as the managing partner of hospitality consulting for the United States at Price Waterhouse Cooper. “People don’t want to use utensils that haven’t been washed to sanitation standards in a restaurant.” “If you’re the general manager of the hotel sitting in your office thinking, ‘What am I going to do today to address this?,’ the list is pretty short,” he added. “We’re not going to save the world by not having plastic straws.”  Where there has been some movement, Hanson said, is in the increasing eco-friendliness of the typical hotel bathroom.  At many resorts, the bathtub/shower combination has been replaced with a walk-in shower, which uses less water and less sanitizing cleaner. The little shampoo and conditioner bottles that travelers have been stowing away in their luggage for generations are increasingly being replaced by bulk dispensers. “Some people miss that they don’t get to take the shampoo and the body lotion home with them,” Hanson said. “But whereas a decade ago it would have been viewed as something being done by the hotel to save money, now there’s more awareness of the environmental implications and people are finding the dispenser on the wall to be acceptable.”  Much of this progress is inspired by changing consumer tastes, Hanson said. Yet some hotel groups appear more interested in marketing to appeal to the mores of the modern eco-conscious traveler than actually reducing its environmental impact. “One of the major international hotel companies engaged me for a project and the premise was, ‘Our environmental policies are awful. Can you help us market them better than we do?’” Hanson explained. “It wasn’t, ‘How do we make them good?’ It was, ‘How do we not look as bad as we do.’” “Tourism’s Tipping Point” is part of Civil Beat’s year-long series, “Hawaii’s Changing Economy.” That work is supported by a grant from the Hawaii Community Foundation as part of its CHANGE Framework project.   Loading… The post How These Travel Hotspots Are Trying To Make Tourism Pay Its Own Way appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/07/climate-change-proposals-headed-for-second-round-in-hawaii-legislature/" target="_self">Climate Change Proposals Headed For Second Round In Hawaii Legislature</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">Thu, 18 Jul 2019 10:01:02 +0000</span><br />');
document.write('The Hawaii Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission needs to step up its game in several areas when it comes to pitching ideas to the Legislature next session. That was the message Wednesday from a 10-member advisory group, co-led by Rep. Nicole Lowen and Sen. Mike Gabbard, that included state and county planners and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The group recommended the commission broaden its priorities, boost its coordination among government agencies, increase testimony on bills and support legal changes that empower the counties to protect Hawaii’s disappearing beaches. Anu Hittle, state Climate Commission coordinator, welcomed members to the meeting Wednesday.Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat The group, which the commission formed in April, discussed legislation that would require disclosure of sea level rise by sellers of real estate, amending the Coastal Zone Management Act to better protect beaches from sea level rise, accelerating the renewable energy targets to reduce carbon emissions, supporting incentives to reduce ground transportation emissions, improving grid resilience and establishing tax rebates for electric vehicles. Many of the proposals gained little or no traction last session, which ended in May. But the group hopes a more strategic approach next session, which opens in January, may prove more fruitful. Along with broadening its priority areas beyond sea level rise mitigation and reducing ground transportation emissions, the advisory group recommended the commission encourage its partners and related agencies to use its high-level statements in testimony on the bills in its climate package. A separate group, created by the commission to make recommendations on climate equity, is expected to share its findings at the commission’s next meeting Sept. 4. The commission acknowledged the importance of considering the impact of climate change mitigation and adaptation on vulnerable people, communities, industries, and ecosystems. The post Climate Change Proposals Headed For Second Round In Hawaii Legislature appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/07/defiant-ethics-commission-defends-decisions-on-kealohas/" target="_self">Defiant Ethics Commission Defends Decisions On Kealohas</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">Thu, 18 Jul 2019 05:24:08 +0000</span><br />');
document.write('Victoria Marks, a retired judge who now heads the Honolulu Ethics Commission, issued a challenge Wednesday to those seeking to undermine her agency. Bring it. “If anybody wants to investigate this commission in any way, shape or form I invite it,” Marks said. “I have absolutely nothing to hide.” Honolulu Ethics Commission Chairwoman Victoria Marks says she and her commissioners didn’t do anything wrong in its handling of an investigation into possible police corruption.Cory Lum/Civil Beat The ethics commission is under renewed scrutiny for how it handled a series of investigations into retired Honolulu police chief Louis Kealoha and his wife, Katherine, who is a former city prosecutor. The Kealohas were convicted last month along with two police officers of framing Katherine’s uncle, Gerard Puana, for the theft of their mailbox on June 21, 2013, and then trying to cover it up once they were found out. Two other Honolulu police officers pleaded guilty to other charges stemming from the federal probe. Related Coverage Cory Lum/Civil Beat How Caldwell Has Undermined The Honolulu Ethics Commission June 13, 2016 Cory Lum/Civil Beat Ex-City Ethics Director: When We Got Close The Kealohas Fought Back June 6, 2019 Cory Lum/Civil Beat Totto Tells Ethics Commission To Scrap ‘Silly’ Time Sheet Rules May 19, 2016 The ethics commission had launched a series of investigations into the Kealohas in 2014. Those inquiries stalled in 2015, however, after the commission yanked its main investigators, Chuck Totto and Letha DeCaires, from the case and made a series of decisions that effectively ended their careers. The commission ultimately refused to renew DeCaires employment contract and Totto, the executive director, resigned after a highly public disagreement with the commission over what have been seen as unwarranted restrictions on his work. On Wednesday, Marks held a public meeting to address the commission’s chronology of actions in regards to the Kealohas. She also addressed Totto’s departure in 2016, which she described as voluntary. “The commission wants to set some things straight,” Marks said. “There’s been a good deal of misinformation and we’d like to present the facts as we know them.” Marks said Totto was pulled from the Kealoha investigation because the couple had filed several complaints against him and DeCaires as well as other legal challenges against the commission as a whole. To avoid the conflicts, she said, the commission hired Lincoln Ashida, an outside investigator, in December 2015 to pursue the ethics case. The commission also hired a second investigator, Barbara Petrus, in April 2016 to look into the complaints the Kealohas filed against Totto and DeCaires. All of those cases are still pending, Marks said. One point Marks repeatedly tried to make clear Wednesday was that Totto left the commission of his own accord and that it had “nothing to do with the Kealohas.” Totto, of course, disagreed with that assertion. The former ethics director attended Wednesday’s meeting and testified before the commission about how his investigation played out in real time and how he never received the support he needed to effectively take on the politically influential law enforcement couple. “People make mistakes and so do government agencies,” Totto said. “The ethics commission did not carry out its duty to the public to properly investigate the Kealohas. We’ve heard some reasons as to why that was, but I don’t buy those reasons.” Totto was the executive director of the Honolulu Ethics Commission for 16 years before he resigned in June 2016. His last few years were marked by conflicts with Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell and others in his administration, which was constantly meddling with the commission’s budget and blocking access to information needed to carry out ethics probes. Totto had the support of the commissioners early on, but then Caldwell appointed three former judges — Marks, Riki May Amano and Allene Suemori — to the commission. Almost immediately their impact was felt. They tried to block Totto from speaking to the press, they forced him to track his days in six-minute intervals and they slapped him with a 30-day suspension. According to Totto, the interference continued when he tried to take on the Kealohas. The ethics complaints that were filed against him and DeCaires were merely a ploy to get them off the case, he believes. Even if there were legitimate concerns, he said, the commission could have investigated them quickly rather than let them languish. Totto pointed out that it only took 30 days for an outside investigator to complete a review of his workplace conduct ordered by the commission — an investigation that resulted in Totto being suspended for 30 days. But it’s taken more than three years to clear him and DeCaires of what he described as bogus ethics violations. Totto told the commission that he would like them to do some “self reflection” to make sure that a similar scenario doesn’t play out again in the future. He noted that a City Council resolution asks the Honolulu Police Department, Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and Honolulu Police Commission to do the same. He said he hopes the commission at least considers taking part. Michael Lilly, who is the vice chairman of the ethics commission, participated in the meeting via phone. While he echoed much of what Marks had to say, he also told Totto that he deserves “a great deal of credit and appreciation” for investigating the Kealohas. Lilly, a former Hawaii attorney general, described the Kealoha case as one of the “vilest” he’s seen when it comes to corruption in law enforcement. Any assertion that the commission went out of its way to shut down the investigation is inaccurate, he said, in part because the commissioners often don’t hear about an ongoing investigation until later in the process. He said the Kealohas manipulated the system to their advantage to get Totto and DeCaires removed from the case, and that the commission can’t allow that to happen in the future. Lilly said any continued ethics investigation into the Kealohas, who both face criminal sentencing in October, is a waste of resources. He also pushed back on any assertion that Marks, Amano or Suemori used their positions at the behest of the mayor to force Totto to resign. “I’ve known these three judges for decades,” he said. “They’re honorable.” The post Defiant Ethics Commission Defends Decisions On Kealohas appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.');
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