Rulings and laws empowered by Hawaii’s city and state lawmakers appear to be systematically purging the middle class from the state in deference to a new dominant wave of wealthy class out-of-state part timers and financial investors . . . and you’re about to vote for the very same politicians who will double down on this atrocity
In this upcoming election, we are not voting for the most qualified candidate but rather we are voting for the least bad choice. This is fake democracy, where we're constantly presented with a slate of terrible choices from which we'll attempt to choose the least terrible.
As a result, Hawaii is facing an affordable housing crisis, an ever-scarier homelessness problem, an over-development issue that benefits no one except wealthy, out-of-state private and corporate financial interests, and a frightening decrease in realistic opportunities for upward mobility in our community. Our keikis will not be able to afford to live in the place where they were born and raised.
Our city and state lawmakers regularly sign on to genocidal-like plans to scrub away certain demographics to make room for the plans of the wealthy resulting in a kind of home-grown humanitarian crisis in the name of "progress" that benefits no one but the rich. These same lawmakers routinely approve legislation that the Supreme Court has ruled illegal while knowingly passing legislation that creates still more homelessness and dodging lawmaking that prevents them from blocking common-man access to the rulemaking process.
There is NO Division of Power in Hawaii's government: it's all one big club. The so-called Ethics Commission has been a long-running joke in the islands (we filed an ethics complaint two years ago, they said they were working on it never to be heard from again), and the legislature, governor, attorney general, Lt. governor (part-time, in the case of Josh Green), mayor, city councilors and state court system are nothing more than a wink-nod hui that have each other's backs. Hawaii's horrible oversight and enforcement is the laughing stock of the nation.
"It's a big club, and you ain't in it." Go ahead, file a UIPA request for sensitive, potentially incriminating government-held info and see what happens. "Stonewall" takes on a whole new meaning.
Try to participate in the rulemaking process at the city and state levels and be prepared to spend huge amounts of personal time . . . and if you succeed in being heard, you can be sure that you won't be taken seriously. All by design.
And you're about to vote for the same politicians who will double down on all of the above. Don't wonder about your keiki's future in Hawaii . . . their future will be on the mainland. In fact, Hawaii's future won't need or want you or your family in Hawaii.
URGENT REFORMS:
(1) No private funding of any candidacy (all candidates equally funded by the public with equal air time);
(2) Firm term limits;
(3) Lawmakers held personally responsible for health-safety-welfare harm done to the community through their legislation;
(4) Stiffer penalties for lawmaker corruption;
(5) No immunity for lawmakers who breech ethical, moral, and/or legal rules;
(6) Stiff penalties -- including jail time -- for lawmaker collusion with private interests.
(7) Make public participation in the rule making processes more accessible and more meaningful
Welcome to Hawaii's democracy illusion . . .
Chronic State Sponsored Fraud and Fiscal Malfeasance are Killing our Community
In this article we witness a stunning example of collusion-for-profit between a state senator, Sharon Moriwaki and a minor division potentate, Ed Underwood, in a scheme to privatize public lands, including public-access submerged lands. In Hawaii, this is business as usual. This same theme plays out over and over again right into the present. Senator Moriwaki was caught red handed in the collusion with Underwood when she accidentally sent an email to HON editor, Katherine Lindell that was intended for DoBOR Administrator, Underwood. Since then, the Ethics Commission, Attorney General's office, the Lt. Governor's office and the Office of the Ombudsman have all wink-nodded and looked the other way, in a scary what-me-worry? response.
In the above video, DoBOR's Ed Underwood appears to feel empowered to lie, on the record, to a legislative committee
Conversations with Hawaii’s rule makers: disconnected, arrogant, and unresponsive
After six years of communicating with, or attempting to communicate with key figures in the Governor’s office, attorney general’s office, legislature, DLNR, and DoBOR bureaucracies, we’ve reached the inescapable conclusion that Hawaii’s government has succeeded in fully distancing and isolating itself from the people it’s supposed to be serving. Read more here.
This legislative committee completely ignored public testimony and went on to pass a piece of legislation that was illegal and violated Hawaii's state constitution. This is SYLVIA LUKE's committee. Her sidekick, Rep. Cullen was later arrested on bribery charges.
Ige demands that landlords freeze rents and stop evictions in pandemic proclamation and then, directly after, okays the doubling of rents for State of Hawaii principal habitation permitted families . . .
Just as we've seen in 2019, this doubling of monthly rents of the State's own tenants, its principal habitation permitees, will drive some of these families from their homes and into the street. There is no safety net in Hawaii for these people and they will end up among Hawaii's homeless. Hawaii already has, per-capita, the second largest homeless population in the United States at an estimated cost to Hawaii taxpayers of approximately $3,000 per homeless per month.
See also:
Read more here.
Much of our homelessness crisis is being manufactured and/or perpetuated in our legislature and city council chambers
Senate President, Ronald D. Kouchi and House Speaker, Scott Saiki laugh off Supreme Court ruling that requires legislators to comply with the state's constitution
For the past at least ten years, our legislature has been introducing and passing laws that have been in violation of the state's constitution, according to a recent Supreme Court ruling.
If our system of lawmaking is to retain any semblance of credibility, all of the laws that were legislated through this reoccurring illegal process need to be culled out and repealed as expeditiously as possible. Read more here.