There are lots of happy people out on the windward side and north shore following yesterday’s vote by the City Council Zoning Committee to strip all references to the proposed development of Malaekahana from Bill 47, the update of the Koolauloa Sustainable Communities plan.
It’s not a total win for those wanting to “keep the country country.”
The bill, as amended by yesterday’s changes, will still allow further development in Laie and expansion of the Turtle Bay Resort. But keeping the Gunstock Ranch from turning into a new suburban development complete with new commercial areas as well as residences is definitely a win for those who have worked for years to slow or block further development on our coast.
And this doesn’t end the issue. The bill is being put on hold pending approval of the latest version of Honolulu’s General Plan. You can be sure there will be lots of lobbying going on behind the scenes to reverse yesterday’s vote.
And here’s another bit of under-appreciated news flagged by Andrew Walden’s Hawaii Free Press, “Will Legislators Co-Sign $660M Loan for Evicted Racetrack Owner?”
He’s flagged bills to authorize $360 in revenue bonds to a series of newly registered nonprofit organizations affiliated with the “Paradise Ohana LLC“.
You wouldn’t know it from the name, but this is the latest round of the very longstanding set of issues surrounding attempts to resurrect a racetrack on Oahu.
This started back in the late 1980s with controversy surrounding a racetrack then located in Campbell Industrial Park.
I started writing about the racetrack issue in 1993, soon after joining the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (“Raceway Park got nonacid contract to use state land“), and continued for several years. There was lots of politics involved from Day 1.
The latest round has some potentially unsavory aspects, and Walden does a good job of outlining them.
You may notice that I’m often skeptical of Walden’s conspiracy theory view of the world, but he’s don’t a good job on this one.
HB 1329 is the racetrack related bill that’s moving through the House.
Just why the legislature would allocate a limited resource–there are limits in the total amount of these revenue bonds that can be authorized–to a group of newly created companies build around a central character with a checkered past is one of those questions that is looking for an answer.
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Is it really about the imminent ubiquitous danger of dangerous developers in Hawaii? Is it really about loss of land?
Future generations are going to have a different childhood than we had and they will enjoy it just as much as we did. People are different. Some people just want their childhood back because they know they cannot go back in time. We’re all going to die someday. Your great-great-grandparents might have hated cars and phones. But once you’re gone, you’re gone. Happy Aloha Friday.
Several of these organizations just incorporated on Feb. 15. They have no track record and have not even received exempt status from the IRS.
At a minimum, their Forms 1023 should be available online for legislators and the public to review.
I wonder if ORI started out this way, with a complex weave of entities, both nonprofit and for profit, with hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing from taxpayers to ORI to “consultants” who happened to be from a related for-profit company. Oh, and from executive directors/founders to politician’s campaigns.
Four questions: (1) Are any of the proposed facilities to be located on state-owned or DHHL land? (2) Would the bonds be a liability of the state if Paradise Ohana or any of its subsidiaries go bust? (3) Would failure of Paradise Ohana or its subsidiaries leave any residual encumbrance of any state land? (4) If the answers to (1), (2) or (3) are “no,” what security would be available to purchasers of the bonds to give them confidence that their investments would be repaid? Let’s not forget that Linda Lingle left the taxpayers on the hook for an expensive but useless barge because she wanted to ease the way for the Superferry. I hope we’ve learned our lesson on that sort of thing, but I’m unpersuaded that we have.
Shades of the $100,000 legislative grant that was awarded to then-State Rep. Rida Cabanilla’s non-profit group to supposedly maintain and landscape the old Ewa Cemetery, even though that work was already being done by the city. Moreover, Cabanilla’s non-profit group (where she, her son, and two of her aides were on the board of directors) had lost its federal tax exempt status and was not in good standing with the IRS. Apparently, none of that made her legislative peers bat an eyelash and she would have gotten that grant had watchdogs not sounded the alarm and the governor subsequently nixed the grant.
Let’s just say that when it comes to grants and loans given to non-profits, you can’t count on legislators to do their due diligence in looking after the best interests of taxpayers.
Allen, legislators shouldn’t even be allowed to select awardees. Their role should be authorizing funding and questioning when things don’t go as expected.
The checks/balances of the system are lost when legislative representatives make the selections. This is also why the way council set up the GIA fund is bad. It should be changed at both the state and county level.