{"id":6565,"date":"2020-01-14T04:17:11","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T04:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/?p=6565"},"modified":"2020-01-14T19:30:03","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T19:30:03","slug":"free-parking-fail-underscores-hawaii-controllers-privatization-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/14\/free-parking-fail-underscores-hawaii-controllers-privatization-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"Stealing from the public  . . . and why Hawaii&#8217;s controllers keep trying"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pl-6565\"  class=\"panel-layout\" ><div id=\"pg-6565-0\"  class=\"panel-grid panel-has-style\" ><div style=\"padding: 0px 0; \" data-overlay=\"true\" data-overlay-color=\"#000000\" class=\"panel-row-style panel-row-style-for-6565-0\" ><div id=\"pgc-6565-0-0\"  class=\"panel-grid-cell\" ><div id=\"panel-6565-0-0-0\" class=\"so-panel widget widget_sow-headline panel-first-child\" data-index=\"0\" ><div style=\"text-align: left;\" data-title-color=\"#443f3f\" data-headings-color=\"#443f3f\" class=\"panel-widget-style panel-widget-style-for-6565-0-0-0\" ><div\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tclass=\"so-widget-sow-headline so-widget-sow-headline-default-0979f0d6c726-6565\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t><div class=\"sow-headline-container \">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h4 class=\"sow-headline\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAttempting to paywall the public's free parking for beach access is a symptom of a now common disease in Hawaii's government\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"decoration\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"decoration-inside\"><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><div id=\"panel-6565-0-0-1\" class=\"so-panel widget widget_sow-editor panel-last-child\" data-index=\"1\" ><div style=\"text-align: left;\" data-title-color=\"#443f3f\" data-headings-color=\"#443f3f\" class=\"panel-widget-style panel-widget-style-for-6565-0-0-1\" ><div\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tclass=\"so-widget-sow-editor so-widget-sow-editor-base\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t>\n<div class=\"siteorigin-widget-tinymce textwidget\">\n\t<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HGQCZCGSkyE\" width=\"800\" height=\"449\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 24px;\"><em><strong><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva;\">Paywalling public parking for beach goers<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\">The most recent attempt by Ed Underwood's DoBOR to usurp still more public access to public lands came under close scrutiny, this time by the Board of Land and Natural Resources.\u00a0 On January 10, 2020, the Board voted to nix the idea to charge for the now free parking area at the Diamond Head end of the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor (AWSBH).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 16px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\">Monetizing public beach-goer parking is nothing more than a symptom of the same disease that seems to have gripped our State's controllers (lawmakers, agency heads, and the wealthy who motivate their decisions).\u00a0 Not coincidentally, the latter public property in question has, of late, been up on the bidder's block, slated for handover to wealthy private self-interests. Howard Hughs Corporation and the Hilton Hawaiian people were enthusiastic bidders.\u00a0 The first bid attempt failed, but Underwood has made no secret of the fact that he intends to try to give it away again in the very near future. \u00a0 Underwood, and his boss, DLNR Chair, Suzanne Case, have been working tirelessly in the background to instigate the privatization of Hawaii\u2019s entire fourteen-site public harbor system Statewide \u2013 submerged, fast, and adjoining dry land (<em><strong>adjoining dry land such as the free parking beach area mentioned above<\/strong><\/em>).\u00a0 More distressing is that legislators, like Senators Sharon Moriwaki and Laura Thielen, have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to give away public lands to private corporate interests and have been a keen audience for privatization proposals such as the ones suggested in HB1032 and SB1257. Incredibly, they will once again try their slight-of-hand during 2020 legislative session to create laws that will result in the privatization of public lands.\u00a0 See more on this below.<\/span><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 24px;\">Monetizing public assets, or raising public user fees to unreasonable levels is turning out to be a predictor of intent to privatize public lands and assets\u00a0 . . .<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\">\u00a0Hawaii is a lucrative market, worth billions of dollars to the mega tourist industry players.\u00a0 The State of Hawaii collects $2.1 billion dollars a year in tourist tax revenue.\u00a0 But this privatization of public lands mentality goes far beyond the tourist industry.\u00a0 Private interests who would deprive the public of their rights of access to public lands also include wealthy land owners who simply want to close off access to the beach via long established public right-of-ways that happened to be alongside their property, or, as mentioned, multinational corporations who want to control access to, and participation in, public assets like our publicly owned harbors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\"><b><i>Simply put, it's all about greed, elitist exclusionism and weak\/incompetent leadership.<\/i><\/b>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\">Not surprisingly, and right on cue, the legislature, right now, is seriously entertaining a new bill (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.capitol.hawaii.gov\/session2019\/bills\/HB1031_.htm\">HB1031<\/a>) that would base some critical public harbor fees on a long-ago discredited appraisal that mostly has nothing to do with public, mixed-use, marinas.\u00a0\u00a0 CBRE, the appraiser du jour, has somehow convinced some among our controllers that they have expertise in the later area, yet we've been unable to find any evidence of their prior experience in comparing and collating the apples-and-oranges of regional condo rates and land values with fees charged by nearby mixed-use public marinas.\u00a0 Apparently, CBRE has even convinced the more gullible in our government that they can even assess how much to charge someone for electricity in a public harbor system, completely ignoring the fact that electricity is a consumable commodity whose rates defy appraisal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva;\">If the legislature were even the least bit sincere about making sure that Hawaii's public lands and assets remain open to the public while maintaining responsible fiscal stewardship, they would base user fees on facility cost-of-use.\u00a0 The Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor, for example, not only generates the income to meet operational expenses, it generates a profit of from one to two million dollars every year.\u00a0 Why then, suddenly, the bogus appraisal metric?\u00a0 Because this information will be necessary during the bidding process when the State will be looking to hand over wholly publicly owned harbors to private, for-profit interests.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 24px;\">The good news<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\">The good news is that the free parking at Waikiki side of the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor will remain free and open to the public, at least for the near term. Public means <em><span style=\"font-size: 24px;\">public<\/span><\/em>. Public means that all residents who live, work and pay taxes in Hawaii should have not only the right to freely and easily access public lands and assets, but should have a direct say in how these lands are managed and administered.\u00a0 No one has the right to give away public lands.\u00a0 No one.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\">(See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaiinewsnow.com\/2020\/01\/11\/facing-backlash-land-board-scuttles-parking-plan-ala-wai-boat-harbor\/\">this article<\/a> by <b><i>Hawaii News Now<\/i><\/b> about the free parking issue mentioned above)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 24px;\">Could we ask a favor of Hilton Hawaiian and other area employees . . .<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\">Could we ask a favor of Hilton Hawaiian, and other employees working in the vicinity to please not park in the free stalls at Diamond Head end of the AWSBH. These parking stalls are reserved for beach goers and the general public who use nearby public facilities. If your employer is too cheap to give you free parking on their property, maybe you should speak up and ask that existing policies be changed? There are not that many of these parking spaces available, so parking is at a premium.\u00a0 Surfers using that beach report that they get there at 5am only to find most of the spots already filled by vehicles that could only belong to employees working in the area. Com\u2019on folks, show a little aloha.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 24px;\"><em><strong><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva;\">Stealing from the public is a bad idea<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\">The privatization of wholly public lands without the explicit consent of the public, by way of referendum or other legal instrument, will be blunt evidence to the public that legislators and rule makers are squarely in the pocket of the wealthy elite who want things their way.\u00a0\u00a0 At very least, privatization will most certainly end in eroding public trust to lows not seen since the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. Public means <em><span style=\"font-size: 24px;\">public<\/span><\/em>; no legislator or agency head has the right to act as an agent on behalf of wealthy private interests wanting to take control of public lands. This includes not only the privatization of submerged, fast, and dry lands, but beach access right-of-ways between homes, and any access or parking set aside for public use. No exceptions. Rich folks own what they own, but they don\u2019t own public lands. Is it too much to ask that our lawmakers protect the public in this regard and respect public right-of-access to public lands?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 24px;\"><em><strong><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva;\">An important message to Hawaii\u2019s ocean recreation community and all residents of the State of Hawaii<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\">The legislature will very soon (as early as this week) take up the issue of legalizing the privatization of public lands, including lands underwater and their adjacent shorelines, in the upcoming legislative session. These are the bills that will be debated:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.capitol.hawaii.gov\/session2019\/bills\/sb1258_.htm\">SB1258<\/a>: will once again attempt to bless the privatization of public lands (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.capitol.hawaii.gov\/session2019\/bills\/sb1258_.htm\">SB1258<\/a> is the identical counterpart to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.capitol.hawaii.gov\/session2019\/bills\/hb1032_.htm\">HB1032<\/a>, which was vetoed last year by Governor Ige, on a technicality)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.capitol.hawaii.gov\/session2019\/bills\/HB1031_.htm\">HB1031<\/a>: this bill, also on the table this 2020 session, attempts to raise certain critical public harbor fees by huge increments, based on a bogus appraisal, every single year on into the foreseeable future, and is nothing more than legislation designed to prepare Hawaii\u2019s largest public harbor for privatization by corporate interests waiting in the wings.\u00a0 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.capitol.hawaii.gov\/session2019\/bills\/HB1031_.htm\">HB1031<\/a> is the identical counterpart to last year\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.capitol.hawaii.gov\/session2019\/bills\/sb1257_.htm\">SB1257<\/a>, which was shelved due to non-consensus)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS, Geneva; font-size: 20px;\">It is a matter of urgency that the public educate Hawaii's controllers and voice their concerns to their representatives in government.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paywalling public parking for beach goers The most recent attempt by Ed Underwood&#8217;s DoBOR to usurp still more public access to public [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privatizing-public-assets"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hawaiioceannews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Parking-lot-BOWLS-BEACH-black-text-MOD--e1579030182832.png?fit=1000%2C630&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6565"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6612,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6565\/revisions\/6612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hawaiioceannews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}