Economy, OHA

Help, I’m Stuck in a Nutshell!

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When you’re a blogger, you dream about finding something as neatly symbolic as today’s OHA filing against the state for past due land revenues.  How lucky is it to find a perfect storm of problems and issues to define everything about Hawaii that makes you want to pull your hair out?  Race problems?  Economic issues?  A government that puts problems off for later so that they can get worse and more divisive?  It’s all there.

As you may have heard, OHA has filed a writ of mandamus against the State seeking to compel the legislature to act regarding the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in past due ceded land revenues.  (OHA has submitted proposals for payment to the Legislature for the past three years, but the proposals have all been rejected.)  You gotta love the timing here, considering that the country (and state) are still reeling from the economic downturn.  Especially in light of the recent legislative session, teacher negotiations, and so on.  The State isn’t exactly swimming in funds, and OHA seems to be determined to make itself more unpopular in its ham-fisted approach to the issue.  I’m sure the average Hawaii taxpayer will be thrilled by this turn of events.

Though one wonders whether the average Hawaii taxpayer has given up and is busy drinking mojitos on the beach rather than deal with an elected leadership that has created a tradition of avoiding hard decisions.  Sure, there are those who buck the trend, but I don’t see OHA deciding that they’ll just write off $200 million any time soon.  So this isn’t a problem that is going away.  Instead, it promises to add to the already growing divisiveness about race, the ceded lands, sovereignty, and the Islands. Honestly, it’s a little depressing sometimes to watch the slow erosion of the island spirit thanks to these issues.

But hey, at least the weather is awesome and the beaches are great.  People from crummier locales probably have nothing better to do than engage in responsible governance.

Akaka Bill

You Don’t Have to be Psychic

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Though that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t help.

Guessing about the future is the essence of politics.  You guess that your policies will help, others prognosticate their miserable failure, and you both stake your political fortunes on the outcome.  It may seem like a game, but the stakes are higher than anyone realizes.  This is, after all, a version of roulette that stakes our economic, social, and cultural health on who’s right and who’s wrong.

With all that said, as any poker player could tell you–well, any successful poker player that is–there are ways to limit how much of a risk you’re actually taking.  You can look at history, trends, and so on and make an educated guess about the potential pitfalls ahead.  And that’s why we in Hawaii should be interested in the situation of other federally recognized tribes.   After all, if the Akaka Bill is passed, we will have a new Native Hawaiian government and a lot of changes.  So a look at American Indian Tribes, the government, and the law is probably a good idea.

And that’s what you’ll find with the first two installments of our new series on possible unintended consequences of Akaka.  The first looks at the possible impact of the bill on children and families in light of the Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law meant to give recognized tribes a say in the custody of children that could have profound consequences if applied in Hawaii.  And the second considers the problem of casino gaming–while Akaka’s supporters claim that this issue has been put to rest, there are plenty of reasons to feel less than sanguine about it.

Of course, these are just questions and possibilities . . . factors to consider, not ironclad prognostication.  But shouldn’t someone be raising these questions before we find ourselves trying to wade through the unintended consequences of another political gamble?

Economy, Hawaii Legislature, Taxes

This Grade Is All Business

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For the longest time, the small businesspeople of Hawaii have comforted each other with rueful laughs and their club’s secret motto: “Hawaii: Live in paradise, work in hell.”  To put it mildly, Hawaii has not traditionally had the most business-friendly reputation.  At least not for the non-Doles and non-Hiltons among us.  And while some progress is being made (including a slight awareness that it isn’t necessary to completely handcuff small businesses from their inception and the election of more business-friendly politicians), there’s still a general lack on knowledge about how the Hawaii Legislature helps and hurts small business in Hawaii.  (And don’t disregard the importance of small business on the economy.  There are more than 100,000 small businesses in Hawaii bringing in over $2-3 billion in income annually (according to the Small Business Administration).

Enter PAYCHECKS Hawaii, a non-profit and non-partisan initiative of Smart Business Hawaii, whose unenviable job it is to rate all of Hawaii’s legislators on their business savvy.  The Paychecks ratings are based upon a combination of key votes (especially tax and fee increases); efforts to decrease or increase spending and the size of government; actions regarding employer mandates and labor bills (from worker’s comp to union issues and so on); conduct in hearings, responsiveness, and accessibility; and sponsorship/advocacy for initiatives to help the business climate.  Paychecks has just released its ratings for the most recent legislative session, and it looks like quite a few of Hawaii’s legislators need a remedial education in business and helping the economy.  Every legislator was given a grade from 1(the best) to 5(the worst).  So first the good news:

In the Hawaii Senate, two Senators got the highest score–Fred Hemmings and Sam Slom.  (Both Republicans.  Two Democrats, however, got the next highest score of “2”–Robert Bunda and Josh Green.)

In the House, the highest ratings went to Lynn Berbano Finnegan (R), Barbara Marumoto (R), and Kymberly Marcos Pyne (R).  Scoring the second best rating were Tom Brower (D), Corinne Ching (R), Cynthia Thielen (R), and Gene Ward (R)

And now the bad news.  There were so many second-worst “4” scores that listing them here would make this more like a roll call of the Legislature than a blog entry.  So let’s go with a simple Hall of Shame.

Scoring a worst score of “5” in the Senate were Gary Hooser (D) and Dwight Takamine (D).

And the dreaded “5”s in the House went to Michael Magaoay (D), Hermina Morita (D), Blake Oshiro (D), Marcus Oshiro (D), Calvin Say (D), and Roy Takumi (D).

Not good.  Maybe it’s time we had a few of them stay after school and write, “I will not handicap Hawaii’s economic future,” on the blackboard until it sinks in.

Grants, OHA

A Real Help in Education

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Don’t think that I haven’t noticed a certain . . . cynicism coming from many of our analyses of the grants on our site.  I swear that it’s not because I’m a curmudgeon with a skeptical nature.  Well, let’s say that it’s not entirely because of the skeptic/curmudgeon thing.  To be clear: I think that there are great things that can be done to help Native Hawaiians.  I want to see the ones that work get the kudos they deserve.  But this is an area that needs the bright light of transparency like Lady Gaga needs a new stylist.  (Translation for the pop culturally-impaired: It needs it a lot.)

Anyway, lest it be said that we never have anything nice to say about OHA or their grants, let me take the opportunity to bring attention to their K-12 Family Education Assistance Program, which is now accepting applications from Native Hawaiian Families with significant education costs.  In short, these are grants of up to $5000 to Native Hawaiians families who are spending a large proportion of their income in order to send their children to private school.  The point is (obviously) to help give disadvantaged families better access to private education.  (And by extension, better academic and career chances, etc., etc.  Not to disparage public schooling in Hawaii, but . . . um . . . you know, my mom always told me that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, it’s better to keep my mouth shut.)

Who couldn’t get behind individual scholarships help for disadvantaged Hawaiian families?  This is the kind of thing that the trust monies were made for.  Moreover, it’s good to see the effort to help Hawaiians get a better education at the lower grade levels, thereby setting the students up for more success as they get older.  It’s nice that there are college scholarships to help Hawaiians as well, but how many promising kids slip through the cracks and never even get the opportunity to apply to college.  Quite a few education experts feel that we should be focusing our efforts at improving opportunities in primary and secondary education rather than placing so much emphasis on college entrance rates.

Anyway, the deadline for applications to these grants is June 30th, so if you know someone who might be interested, send them to to this page on the OHA website to learn more about requirements, applications, and so on.

Akaka Bill, OHA

Akaka by OHA

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So, if you’ve been living in a cave on Mars, with your fingers in your ears, going, “La, la, la, la, la” over and over again, you’ll probably be glad to hear that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs has launched an “informational” page to help people truly understand the implications of the Akaka Bill.  Of course, if you’re even slightly conscious and an inhabitant of Hawaii, you probably already have  grasp of the basics.  But I’m sure OHA’s effort will be deeply appreciated by those who just woke from a coma or those who don’t care to have their news tainted by elements of impartiality.

Of course, there’s not much new to find there–they’ve basically taken the “There, there . . . no need to worry, it won’t change anything except the very foundations of the state,” approach.  It was interesting to see that they skipped right past the fact that a roll of names of eligible Hawaiians to participate in the formation of the of the new Native Hawaiian government would be determined and published . . . without really questioning how that determination would be reached.  This was especially fascinating in light of OHA’s assurance that the Akaka Bill is not race-based.  Technically speaking, that would be proper, as the Kingdom of Hawaii was not a racial entity, but a regular old sovereign government with borders, citizens of many races, and so on.  But that’s not exactly the history of Native Hawaiian programs in the last several decades, which (understandably) tend to focus on actual Native Hawaiian lineage.

The claim that the Akaka Bill is not race-based does bring up an interesting paradox, however. Pretend for a moment that it really was going to reflect the history of the Hawaiian nation and include anyone who can trace their heritage to citizens of the Kingdom–including Native Hawaiians, Chinese, whites, and so on.  It certainly would be a most accurate representations of Hawaiian citizens at the time of annexation.  But would there be much support for an Akaka Bill that wasn’t at it’s heart, race-based?  Somehow, I doubt it.

Grants, HHS

Hey Buddy, Can You Spare a Sustainable Plant?

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Sometimes, I really have to wonder about the thinking behind some of these grant programs.  Take, for example, the $444,500 granted in 2009 to the Ali’i Pauahi Hawaiian Civic Club from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  (Yep, federal funds.)  The grant is being given for Ka Mahi’ ai ‘Ihi o Wailea (The Sacred Farm of Wailea).  Again, I have to stress here that this is the actual language from the grant.  I am not making  up the sacredness of the farm in question.  So what is it that the Sacred Farm is going to do with hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds?  Why, the money is for, “Establishing a community and culturally-based sustainable farm to raise sacred and important native plants for domestic use and export.”  Sacred and important Hawaiian plants.  As opposed to non-sacred or unimportant plants.  Not to get too hung up on the plant judgment thing, but I couldn’t resist doing a Google search to try to find out what counts as a sacred Hawaiian plant.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a sacredandimportanthawaiianplants.com.  As far as I can tell, a sacred native plant is a plant with some degree of use in Hawaiian culture + the word “sacred”.  So we’ve got taro, ‘ohelo, and so on.

Ok, I’m getting a little obsessed here.  I just can’t stop envisioning some pencil-pusher in Washington nodding and saying something like, “Of course we do have to protect the sacred native plants.”

What I don’t get is how this is really an effort to help Native Hawaiians.  I’m sure the argument is about creating a viable business for the community, but if that were really the goal, then there wouldn’t be so many limitations on the products of the farm.  Assuming that there is a viable trade in export and sale of Hawaiian plants (which there clearly is), then why not make the focus on creating a sustainable source of income for the community?  Obviously, there are competitors in the native plant business.  And at least some of those aren’t going to be adding cost to their production by requiring the farming to be “culturally-based” and “sustainable.”  Not that these aren’t selling points in themselves–as the organic trend has taught us, there are people willing to pay the upcharge for philosophy-based farming–but who is this really helping?  If you lived in a struggling community, how happy would you be to hear that your newest economic opportunity was in the form of a Sacred Farm?  I just can’t shake the feeling that this is more about helping Sacred Farm then aiding the community at large.

Uncategorized

Really, More of a Shelbeyville Idea

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How about a little round-up of Hawaii-type news?  No?  Too bad, here we go . . .

Sadly, the bid to save the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (and the integrity of journalism in Hawaii) has failed.  Though the proposal put forth by Sam Slom and Malia Zimmerman was the “last bid standing,” it didn’t meet the undisclosed (and presumably ridiculously high) asking price demanded of the owner, Black Press of Canada.  (Is it me or is that a strangely ominous name for a news organization?  I thought Canadians were supposed to be nice, not gloomy and forbidding.)  This means a few things: 1.) A bunch of people in Hawaii just lost their jobs; 2.) Honolulu just became a one-newspaper town; and 3.) We’ll be depending more than ever on the good folks at Hawaii Reporter for an alternative source of news.

Stressed out budgets in Hawaii are about to see one more hit to their pocketbooks, as the “barrel tax”–possibly the worst outcome of an already abysmal legislative session–raised from $.05 to $1.05 a barrel of imported petroleum.  As is always the way, these legislative efforts to rake in revenue will hit the little guy the most.  Especially on an island where nearly ever single thing that we consume has to take a long trip just to get here.  The new tax means that we should be seeing a rise in gasoline, electricity, food, and delivery prices shortly.  In other words, nearly everything.  The Governor had vetoed this tax, but was overridden by the legislature.  Perhaps we should just be grateful that they haven’t figured out how to tax Aloha spirit.  Yet.

Things are still pressing forward on the $4billion Honolulu Rail project–one suspects the fell hand of Lyle Lanley.  (“What about us brain dead slobs?/You’ll be given cushy jobs/Monorail, Monorail, Monorail!”)  Of course, one hates to drag things like logic and feasibility studies into an ambitious government project, but there’s a first for everything, so why not give it a shot.  The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii sponsored an economic study of the plan, which demonstrated a drop in tax revenues.  It would be good to see the legislature push for a legitimate economic impact study.  It would be even better to see a study that took into account any pending legislation that would radically alter Hawaii’s social and economic structure–like, say . . . oh, I don’t know . . . the Akaka Bill.

Hey, as Hawaii marches on towards economic implosion, someone ought to be standing athwart history, yelling, “Ahem!  You guys! Are you really sure this is a good idea?  Guys?”

And as a closing note, for those who need a little remediation on today’s pop culture reference–and for those who are just annoyed that the Monorail Song is now stuck in their heads, here you go:

Akaka Bill

A Feeling of Recognition

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Interesting things are happening in Hawaii politics when it comes to support for the Akaka Bill.

Actively opposing it still takes a measure of political courage.  (Which, believe it or not, is not necessarily an oxymoron.)  But slowly, enough concerns have been raised about its effect on the Islands that some of those aspirants to office that aren’t completely beholden to the Akaka supporters are searching for some other language to express their reservations.  Consider it the political equivalent of backing quietly away from a terrible potluck dinner, saying, “No, I’m pretty full.  I think maybe I’ll just have this roll.”  (This might not be the best analogy, in that I’ve never been to a bad potluck dinner in Hawaii.  You all are luckier than you know.  Maybe everyone should have to do a year-long mission to the Mainland so that they can learn about the horrors of the mysterious gooey casserole and wet, salty, mushy rice.)

The result is a move towards ambiguity.  Look for statements that support, “some form of recognition for Native Hawaiians,” and yet stop short of endorsing Akaka.  Putting aside for the moment, all of the debate about how comparable the situation of Native Hawaiians is to that of Native Americans, there is (at heart) a genuine and admirable impulse here:  No one wants to underrate the contribution of Native Hawaiians or the importance of Hawaiian culture.  And when combined with the difficult socio-economic situation of many Native Hawaiians, there is a clear desire to assist that community–heck, this entire website calculates the millions and millions of dollars spent on all of these motivations.  But warm feelings do not make necessarily make good law.  In fact, all of this vague charity comes perilously close to that “soft bigotry of low expectations” thing.  I’m starting to wonder whether all of these well-intentioned feelings aren’t more destructive to the future of Native Hawaiians than anything else.  Stopping short of creating a separate governmental system, but still wanting to give “something” to Native Hawaiians . . . isn’t that pretty close to where we are now, only without making it official with Presidential signatures and much patting-ourselves-on-the-back?  (Then again, if I was Hawaiian, I’d be happy to just get a check for my share of the millions in federal, state, OHA, and Bishop Estate money spent to help me.  Because I’m starting think that I could do a lot more to help myself than any of those groups.)

Hawaii Legislature

The Hawaii Legislature–Working for you. Sort of.

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How often do you get to see an actual politician explain how counter-productive and useless this legislative session was?  Not very often, that’s for sure.  It requires a degree of honesty that (let’s face it) is not exactly plentiful among those with one finger in the prevailing political winds.  And that’s why, if you want a real rundown of the accomplishments (or lack thereof) of the Hawaii Legislature this year, you definitely want to watch Hawaii Senator Sam Slom’s legislative round-up.  It’s certainly worth viewing in its entirety, but I’ll hit the highlights for you:

Downsides to this Legislative Session: They balanced the budget only by raising taxes and fees, raided the hurricane relief safety net to try to prop up the teacher’s union and the state school system (which isn’t exactly reaching new heights in education . . . except to hit a national record for shortest school year), and generally handicapped business and enterprise in the Islands.

Accomplishments of this Legislative Session: Feel-good bills about sharks and monk seals.

You know, some people might question a legislative session that only lasts a few months, but I’m starting to be grateful that the window to really foul things up is so small.

Uncategorized

OHA–Peeling back More Layers

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Like many people in the islands, I have (for a long time) only had the vaguest notion of what OHA actually does.  Other than pour huge amounts of money into various projects and promote Native Hawaiian culture.  Those are all well and good as far as they go, but (especially where the huge amounts of money are concerned) one starts to wonder after awhile how they really help the average Native Hawaiian.  Your Kimo on the street, if you will.

No, I don’t have an answer to that.  I’ve looked at hundreds of OHA grants, many of which are in our database and wiki, and learned that (as with so many things in OHA) there are more questions than answers.  We’re working to try to fill in the gaps of knowledge about the OHA grants, but it’s slow work.  (Which is why we could use your help! Hint, hint!)  After all, OHA isn’t shy about deciding what is good for Native Hawaiians in Hawaii, but that’s not the same thing as finding out from the Hawaiians themselves.  Nor are Native Hawaiians some monolithic, homogeneous group that agrees on everything.

Consider the Akaka Bill.  Yes, again.  OHA and others would have you assume that all Native Hawaiians are uniformly in favor of it.  But why should that be?  The concerns about Akaka go beyond race to the future economic and cultural health of Hawaii.  Certainly, there are people of all ethnicities that harbor serious reservations about the push to pass Akaka.  And yet, OHA, speaking for Hawaiians, doesn’t seem aware of the possibility of dissent within that community.  Is this a responsible position for agency with OHA’s scope and influence?  More and more, I wonder how much Native Hawaiians are used as political tools by groups who have a lot more on their mind then just helping out.