Promised FTA Funded Transit Project Has Become Big Land Development And Corruption
John Bond Kanehili Cultural Hui
The Project does not provide promised affordable rail transit services or go to the communities of Ewa or Kapolei where the populations are but instead creates, encourages and sponsors an entirely new major population center to be called “East Kapolei” and “Hoopili” (both fake names) which promotes major international real estate speculation and development.
Numerous news articles have pointed out that the entire “Second City” concept has never materialized in Kapolei which still has large numbers of empty city blocks while the best West Oahu farmland and open space is being converted into vast urban sprawl, which was not the intent of 1978 Hawaii Constitutional Convention or the enacted Article IX, Section 3 of the Hawaii State Constitution. Further Land Use Commission testimony by three former Hawaii governors stated it was never the intent of the “Second City” to cover all West Oahu, especially farmlands, in development. Further, nothing in the Oahu General Plan stated that diversified agriculture would be incompatible with an Urban Growth Boundary, which was further clarified by City Council Resolution 12-23.
The community is upset because as a noted Hawaiian cultural researcher said at another Kapolei public meeting- “Hundreds if not thousands of iwi kupuna burials are there” on the native Kalo’i Honouliuli farmlands that will be concreted and paved over. FTA money is being used to promote major new urban sprawl land development and “create ridership” rather than provide West Oahu commuter relief as originally promised. The average West Oahu commuter will see nothing but tens of thousands of new cars choking local roads and H-1 Freeway because of this land development scheme. HART and the City’s view is everyone will either ride rail or ride bicycles. No West Oahu resident who works for a living believes this rail-bicycle Utopia for West Oahu because they know the “Second City” has proven to be another failed City promise.
Many news stories are coming out about the failed Kapolei “Second City” promise, the City Council bribery, graft and corruption related to buying rail and West Oahu land development votes. Implicated are many key City Councilmembers who pushed rail and Hoopili land developments. These were clearly conflicts of interest under the ethics law. The Honolulu Ethics Commission has publically stated there could be far reaching effects.
How Much MORE Has FTA Funded HART Rail Corrupted Hawaii's Already Corrupt Government?
Honolulu Ethics Commission Fines Romy Cachola $50K
http://www.civilbeat.com/2014/09/honolulu-ethics-commission-fines-romy-cachola-50k/
State Rep. Romy Cachola has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle an ethics case stemming from his time on the Honolulu City Council.
“This case is a perfect storm of public corruption,” Totto said in the press release.
People in Kapolei are well aware of how the Kapolei Chamber of Commerce was a primary employer of Nester Garcia who always voted as he was paid to do...
Ribellia is a lobbyist for Hawaii Operating Engineers Industry Stabilization Fund.
She’s also a former staffer for Honolulu City Council Chairman Ernie Martin.
Retiring City Clerk Bernice Mau, however, was troubled by the inclusion of Ribellia in the resolution. She submitted written testimony questioning why the deputy clerk position was needed, especially since it had been left vacant for nearly three decades.
City Council Rail Pusher Nestor Garcia
Resigns From KHON2 News
Meanwhile, the case has also exposed — and raised concerns —
about another angle of ethics investigations: what happens to the
lobbyists and other special interests who knowingly contribute to
unethical behavior?
about another angle of ethics investigations: what happens to the
lobbyists and other special interests who knowingly contribute to
unethical behavior?
The commission won’t reveal the names of the lobbyists or the
companies they represent that are involved in cases, saying to do
so would have a chilling effect in that lobbyists would be reluctant
to provide evidence against elected officials if they were going
to get into trouble, too.
companies they represent that are involved in cases, saying to do
so would have a chilling effect in that lobbyists would be reluctant
to provide evidence against elected officials if they were going
to get into trouble, too.
People in Kapolei are well aware of all the payments made by Kapolei Development and Dr. Horton to get the City Council votes they wanted: "Cachola outed Mike Kido, David Rae, Steve Kelly and Cameron Nekota..."
HART Rail Auditor Arrested for Money Laundering
A local businessman with University of Hawaii athletics fundraising ties (and who provides auditing services to HART and OHA and has a contract to overhaul the state's accounting system) was arrested for theft and money laundering. Patrick Oki, age 45, was picked up by authorities just before 11 a.m. Sunday at the Honolulu International Airport. He’s the managing partner of PKF Pacific Hawaii. It is alleged that during the period from Jan. 27, 2011, through and including Jan. 27, 2014, he perpetrated four separate and distinct fraudulent reimbursement schemes against PKF Pacific Hawaii LLP, which sustained losses of more than $500,000.
Contractor Campaign Contributions Raise
Concerns of Corruption
June 10, 2015 By Nick Grube Civil Beat
http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/
A federal court upheld Hawaii’s ban on government contractors donating cash to politicians, but a workaround means millions of dollars still flow into campaign coffers.
This helps encourage the idea that businesses must donate to politicians to get government work. It’s called pay-to-play, and it has a long history in Hawaii and throughout the U.S.
But it also breeds mistrust in government, especially as more money is dumped into political campaigns.
Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission Executive Director Kristin Izumi-Nitao says the ban on government contractor contributions can help to quell concerns that handsome political donations lead to lucrative contracts and favorable decision-making.
But she’s also keenly aware of the workaround that still allows contractors to donate money from their own personal bank accounts. She said the donation is lawful as long as it’s within legal limits and the money doesn’t come directly from the company’s treasury, such as through a reimbursement or end-of-year bonus.
Billions of dollars are at stake, and hundreds of local contractors are vying for their share.
For example, employees for the prime contractors working on the city’s rail project donated almost $1.5 million to local politicians between June 2007 and December 2014, according to Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission data.
The top beneficiaries were Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, former Gov. Neil Abercrombie and former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, each of whom bolstered their campaign coffers by more than $250,000 as a result. Gov. David Ige and Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui were the next top recipients of rail contractor cash, although each received less than $80,000.
“There’s no law that exists in regard to campaign spending that people don’t have a work around for,” Milner said. “Everything is just such an open question now.”
Hawaii’s history doesn’t elicit much reason to trust the system. The state has a long history of corruption when it comes to contractors donating money to politicians, leading many to believe that a pay-to-play culture does in fact exist on the islands.
In the early 2000s, the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission issued more than $1.8 million in fines to contractors who were caught giving illegally to local politicians by skirting campaign contribution limits.
“Corruption is the cruelest tax,” then-Republican Sen. Gordon Trimble said during a 2005 floor session. “It warps the decision-making process. It demoralizes the public sector, and it reflects poorly on us as a society.”
Farming The Future... OR Just An Endless Sea Of Houses, Traffic Jams And No Food Life Line?
| Jul 21, 2010 Honolulu Weekly
http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/2010/07/farming-the-future/
Hawaii ‘78
The 1978 Constitutional Convention was the most significant moment in Hawaii politics since statehood. Among other sweeping reforms–the creation of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the balanced-budget requirement, the establishment of term limits and the adoption of ‘Olelo Hawaii as one of two official state languages–delegates proposed an amendment designed to protect agriculture in perpetuity.
A generation ago, sugar was everywhere in the Islands, but the industry was well into its decline. Con-Con delegates, led by young Kauai biology professor–and future Honolulu mayor–Jeremy Harris, worried along with the rest of the Islands that out-of-control housing development would overwhelm Hawaii agriculture.
The result of the convention’s discussions was this passage:
“The State shall conserve and protect agricultural lands, promote diversified agriculture, increase agricultural self-sufficiency and assure the availability of agriculturally suitable lands…Lands identified by the State as important agricultural lands needed to fulfill the purposes above shall not be reclassified by the State or rezoned by its political subdivisions without meeting the standards and criteria established by the legislature and approved by a two-thirds vote of the body responsible for the reclassification or rezoning action.”
Sustainability, it turns out, was on the agenda in 1978–and not only on the minds of idealistic young convention delegates. The Important Agricultural Lands amendment went onto the ballot that fall, where it was approved by voters as Article XI ,Section 3.
Had the state government acted then–that is, had it fulfilled a constitutionally mandated duty to keep agricultural land in the hands of farmers–Hawaii would almost certainly be a very different place in 2010. In the years following the Con-Con, the collapse of Hawaii’s sugar and pineapple industries left thousands of acres of prime farmland open to new uses, and developers were ready to satisfy skyrocketing demand for housing. The housing industry thrived, the farming industry–from monoculture to family farms–nose-dived, and Hawaii woke from three decades of breathless growth–dreamy or nightmarish, depending on where you stand–into a strange new century of tourism and, well, nothing else. In the face of these forces, the state did nothing on Important Agricultural Lands for almost 30 years.
• Capable of producing sustained high agricultural yields when treated and managed according to accepted farming methods and technology
• Economic value, whether for export or consumption
• Viability for future use, even among lands not currently in production
• High soil quality.
• Value for traditional Hawaiian agricultural uses, such as taro cultivation
• Viability for coffee, vineyards, aquaculture
• Potential for biofuels
• Access to water
• Access to infrastructure needed to make agriculture viable, particularly roads
Left unanswered in 2005, however, were the twin questions of how to compensate landowners for taking their lands out of possible rezoning and redevelopment essentially forever, and how to ensure that the state actually accomplished the purpose of the IAL amendment, which was not about zoning, after all, but about ensuring a viable agricultural future for Hawaii.
