Here are some things currently happening around our state. However, first you might want to think about registering for the Grassroot Institute webinar to be held tomorrow, noon. See below: “Let’s talk ‘government mandated lockdowns’” … should be very interesting.
Meanwhile, we need to continue to keep an eye or two on our local government officials. Some can’t make a decision, others tend to backtrack poor decisions made … and other? well we don’t know what could be happening behind closed doors. Are there meeting going on that we are not aware of? Who knows?
In the last article, I think Danny de Garcia did a very good job … It’s Time To Envision Hawaii’s Future!
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A Conservative Republican and a Trump Supporter!
A FREE LIVE WEBINAR TOMORROW WILL EXPLORE THE LIMITS OF LOCKDOWNS
HONOLULU, April 13, 2020 In case you hadn’t already heard, you are invited to participate in a free, live webinar tomorrow,
Tuesday, April 14, starting at noon, about whether there are any limits on government-mandated “lockdowns” such as the ones we are experiencing in Hawaii.
Severe restrictions have been imposed on Hawaii residents in the name of protecting public health, which though well intended have resulted in massive economic and social dislocations.
More than 200,000 people have been thrown out of work, government accountability has been suspended and the fate of our civil liberties is unknown.
To participate in this free webinar, please register below, or contact us at 808-591-9193 or info@grassrootinstitute.org
After his initial presentation, Thomas will field questions from the audience via the wonders of the internet.
Keli‘i Akina, Grassroot Institute president and CEO, will moderate.
THE LAST THING WE NEED RIGHT NOW IS CONFLICT
By Trisha Kehaulani Watson | April 13, 2020
We need construction jobs but Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s decision to move forward with the Waimanalo ball field project as the virus spreads was irresponsible.
My company and all our staff are examples of jobs indirectly supported by construction. Our focus these days is on keeping all our staff safe, employed and with full benefits. We know from our clients and colleagues that many businesses are very worried about the current economic forecast and they are doing their best to take care of their employees.
While there is no doubt that the Legislature will have to make some very hard choices in the upcoming months to keep the budget balanced, we should also encourage lawmakers to keep affordable housing, infrastructure and agriculture initiatives on the table. We must continue to support projects and initiatives that are shovel-ready and supportive of a sustainable, green economy.
No Time To Play Politics
This is why Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s decision to move forward with his ball field project at Waimanalo Bay Beach Park.
→ A week ago was such a poor decision. ←
It’s not simply that moving the project forward when there is a stay-at-home order was dangerous, which it was. Spatial distancing guidelines have already required employers and project managers to figure out how to keep projects moving while ensuring worker safety. Worker safety, of course, being the highest priority.
Forcing community members to choose between their First Amendment right to peacefully protest or allow a project that is highly contentious to proceed without opposition was fundamentally irresponsible by the mayor. Community members should never be put in such a quandary. Such a potentially unsafe situation should never have been created.
Days later, Caldwell announced he was shelving the work for now because iwi — in this case, an upper arm bone fragment — was found at the site.
Still the mayor, in moving the project forward in this way, had risked generating community opposition against an economic sector that will be essential to Hawaii’s overall recovery.
→ This was no time to play politics, but Caldwell has eagerly seized upon every political opportunity this crisis has afforded him. ←
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” Rahm Emanuel
DECISIVE ACTION NEEDED ON STATUS OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
By Tom Yamachika | April 12, 2020
→ Why do we have to pay people not to work when other departments urgently need help? ←
Redeploy Workers
Also, on April 3, the governor’s chief of staff told the same committee that the attorney general is researching whether it’s possible to redeploy workers who have been told to stay home with pay.
Wait a minute … We have to pay people NOT to work when other departments urgently need help?
From the very first proclamation, the governor’s office and the attorney general contemplated this very issue, namely how to “provide for the interchange of personnel, by detail, transfer, or otherwise, between agencies or departments of the State.”
That proclamation suspended the collective bargaining laws to the extent they were in the way. So, we had some brain power focused on how to move people between departments ↔ an issue they were anticipating ↔ and now they aren’t doing it but instead are paying people to stay home?
If you were paid the same amount to 1) stay home and not work, or 2) stay home and work and/or come in to work, which would you do?
Certainly, there are some with a compassionate heart and an altruistic spirit that would choose No. 2. However, I suspect that they would be in the minority.
We need to lay down the law.
State workers whose talents are needed in another department need to go there and not make a fuss. Those who think they are being treated unfairly can sort this out when we aren’t in a state of emergency.
If the perceived problem is a state law that requires us taxpayers to pay for no work, let’s suspend that law, because it is impeding efforts to deal with the emergency. State workers who don’t want to work and don’t qualify for special paid sick leave under the new federal laws can use their vacation time — most have plenty of it — for that purpose.
→ In other words, those who want a vacation use vacation time.←
Those who want to help our state get through this emergency should do so and be paid for it. They will be much better off than thousands of us in the private sector who either can’t work (a server in a restaurant, for example) or can’t get paid (such as the owner of a small business that has been ordered closed).
But we just can’t afford to pay people for nothing, especially now.
MAYOR CONSIDERING MAKING FABRIC STORES ‘ESSENTIAL’ AS SALES MOVE ONLINE
By Ben Gutierrez | April 12, 2020
← I feel this is an overkill, these people are not stupid!←
HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) – Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the city is looking at options to allow people to continue making cloth masks. And that could lead to fabric merchants being classified as “essential” under the city’s stay-at-home order.
People who wanted to make masks formed long lines outside stores like Fabric Mart after the mayor strongly recommended that masks should be worn in public to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.
“There was a line that went from zero to a thousand,” said Peter Kim at the Aiea Fabric Mart store. “It went from a 20-minute wait to a three-hour wait. It went as far as a seven-hour wait.”
→ Those long lines prompted the city to rule that fabric stores were not essential, and ordered Fabric Mart to close its doors. ←
FABRIC MART ORDERED TO CLOSE 3 OAHU STORES AS RESIDENTS SEARCH FOR MATERIAL FOR HOMEMADE FACE MASKS
By Nina Wu April 10, 2020
Fabric Mart is temporarily closing its Oahu retail stores at the end of the business day today to comply with Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s emergency “stay-at-home” orders.
Demand for fabric has been high, with long lines outside the door, as the public looks for material to make fabric cloth masks in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Angie Kim, owner of the family business, confirmed that the three retail stores in Kaneohe, Honolulu and Aiea would close at the end of the business day today.
IT’S TIME TO ENVISION HAWAII’S FUTURE
By Danny de Gracia | April 6, 2020
When the all-clear comes, we need to work to diversify Hawaii’s economy and create a new independence.
The appearance of the coronavirus pandemic and the mandatory closure of nonessential businesses has left many Hawaii residents in limbo.
On Friday, the state reported that 170,985 unemployment claims were filed last month, which is equal to almost a third of all private jobs in Hawaii, and a quarter of all jobs in the state, when government workers are counted. By contrast, during the height of the 2007-2009 Great Recession, some 7.3% of locals were unemployed.
It goes without saying that Hawaii’s economy is disproportionately dependent on the service industry and tourism, and times like these have been especially difficult for persons who work in those sectors.
We have serious structural issues in the way Hawaii works and who it works for, and the coronavirus has only served to amplify the disparities among us. The very reason why it is important to have a balanced economy, a good government and a prospering citizenry is because of times like these when having a buffer to live on means everything.
For years, →Hawaii has run a thin red line, →shunning opportunities for economic growth, →holding back progress, and →failing to provide a way for residents to keep more of their hard-earned money. Today, in this time of plague and famine, our weakest and most vulnerable are paying the price for squandering our opportunities and bad governance during times of plenty.
I’ve often been asked by people in emails and private messages on social media why I complain so much about government and local conditions. → I do it for the invisible residents of Hawaii who are suffering and have no voice of their own. It’s time for all of us to start thinking about one another, and our future.
When the all-clear at last comes, when the last sick person is healed, when our streets are full again, we need to work to diversify Hawaii’s economy, to create independence in our production and supply, and to make sure that our government is held accountable for its failures.
We are going to need to create a new economy on whatever remains of the old one. ↔ We can’t rely on the old model which depends solely on √tourism, √consumerism and √a palace economy run by state and local government.
We need to lower the cost of living, ↔ break the influence of monopolies on our political system and make Hawaii once more a place where people don’t have to be forced off an island to survive. ←
