Monthly Archives: February 2021

Sand Island business group seeks to force sale of public land

5 Replies

The motto of the Sand Island Business Association (SIBA) should be something like “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

In the early 1990s, the group used its political connections to win both a very favorable lease for about 70 acres of state land on Sand Island for an industrial park, and then to obtain a very unusual grant of administrative control over the subleases to individual businesses. For most of the years since, SIBA has been pushing for the transfer of these public lands to SIBA in fee.

Over the past year, SIBA has been advocating on behalf of a special interest bill at the Honolulu City Council that would reduce real property tax payments by businesses with SIBA subleases, while simultaneously challenging its tax bills in state tax court.

This time around they’re at the legislature pushing SB176, which would authorize the Board of Land and Natural Resources to sell parcels of the state-owned land within the Sand Island Industrial Park to lessees. The bill does not provide any public purpose for allowing the sell-off of these publicly-owned industrial lands beyond the general decline in state revenue caused by the current pandemic.

The bill has been scheduled for a public hearing in the senate next Thursday, March 4, before the Senate Ways and Means Committee chaired by Sen. Donovan Del Cruz. The hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Due to Covid, the capitol is closed to the public, and all hearings are being conducted by Zoom, and written testimony, as well as remote testimony via Zoom, are being accepted.

SIBA has tried this gambit several times over the years. Back in 2009, for example, a similar bill requiring the state to offer the Sand Island parcels to the lessees passed the Senate and one house committee before bogging down in House Finance.

Testimony presented on behalf of then-Attorney General Mark Bennett said the measure would be unconstitutional.

This bill requires the Department of Land and Natural Resources to offer for sale or exchange parcels of Sand Island. Article XI, Section 5 of the Hawaii Constitution states that “The legislative power over the lands owned by or under the control of the State…and its political subdivisions shall be exercised only by general laws….” Given this directive, this bills requirement to sell the parcels at Sland Island would be unconstitutional.

The latest bill appears to also be an unconstitutional special interest bill singling out one organization. I understand why they took this risk. It’s just that there’s no way SIBA could sell the idea that all public land should be offered for sale to lessees.

DLNR’s 2009 testimony said the original lease agreements do not contain any provisions entitling lessees any right to purchase the fee simple interest in the land. Further, the approximately 70 acres of the Sand Island Industrial Park now generate significant revenue that supports DNLR other programs.

“Such sale would not be in the best interest of the beneficiaries of the public land trust, the State, or the Department,” then Land Board Chair, Laura Thielen, testified.

The current measure, SB176, originally had a double referral in the Senate to both the Committee on Water and Land, and Ways and Means. However, on February 4, it was re-referred to WAM, cutting the Water and Land committee, which would generally have jurisdiction over bills regarding land issues, out of the process.

See:

“Monday…Bill sliding through legislature to sell 73 acres of state-owned land on Sand Island,” iLind.net, March 20, 2009.

“Second look: Sand Island Business Association–Money & Politics,” iLind.net, March 18, 2013.

“Hawaii Monitor: Business Group Presses For Sand Island Land Swap/25 years of money, politics, and special interest,” Civil Beat, March 13, 2013.

“Tuesday, Part 2: Sand Island Business Association seeks special interest deal,” iLind.net, March 31, 2009.

“SIBA: Singing the same tune for nearly 30 years,” iLind.net, February 8, 2021.

Pedaling beyond the familiar

5 Replies

We drove back from King Windward Nissan yesterday in our electric car, a Nissan Leaf, and I was experimenting with the new (to us) features.

The Leaf has a button labeled “ECO.” I pressed it, and it made the car a little less zippy in order to coax additional range out of each charge. Less acceleration, more miles. Makes sense.

Then I tried the switch that said “ePedal.”

I had no real idea what ePedal would do. And I discovered that to use it, you quickly have to jettison all the habits created by the basic physics of being in a regular car.

Remember that little bit of basic Newtonian physics, “A body in motion stays in motion.” Well, of course, the “stays in motion” part is in a perfect world, and otherwise is subject to the fine print of the real world, including all the forces that will slow down a body in motion. If that “body in motion” is a car, and you take your foot off the accelerator, the car will keep moving, but will slow down due wind resistance, friction of the tires on the road, the natural drag of gravity, and the “decelerative forces in the engine.”

So as a driver, I learned long ago to take my foot off the gas pedal, and coast to a gradual stop, or slow down and coast around a corner before accelerating again.

Well, ePedal contradicts your ingrained sense of the world in order to produce single-pedal driving. With ePedal on, the car goes when you step on the accelerator. But when you stop stepping on it, the car doesn’t continue coasting. It stops. Take your foot off slowly, and the car slows down. Remove your foot from the accelerator quickly, and it stops. Abruptly.

Behind the scenes, it is using “regenerative braking” to produce energy that is stored in the car’s battery, adding to the range of the electric car.

You don’t realize how habituated you are to the “normal” physics of driving until you suddenly find yourself in control of a 3,500 pound machine that is acting contrary to all of your previous driving experience.

Imagine that you throw something across the room, but as soon as the object leaves your hand, it stops, and remains in that spot until you take it in hand again and continue moving it across the room.

Surprisingly, I found that my brain didn’t take long to adjust to this new world. I did have a bit of trouble getting the hang of smoothly decelerating at intersections or in stop and go traffic, so I’m not quite ready for prime time driving with ePedal. Luckily, with the flip of a switch, you can return to the world of Newton.

But so far, our impression of the Leaf is very positive.

Dogs on Alert

1 Reply

The cats have their Feline Friday.

So for the dog people in the audience, I think you might appreciate this photo taken yesterday morning.

It shows Mochi and Hao eagerly awaiting their morning treats yesterday morning, while bathed in the special colors of dawn.

Mochi is a little Pomeranian, a senior dog who was rescued several months ago now by a friend. At the Humane Society, he got a radical haircut, and his fur is taking forever to grow back. But it’s growing, and he’s at least now looking fuzzy. Hao is also a senior citizen, but you wouldn’t know it.

You can click on the photo to see a larger version.

Take a seat–It’s Feline Friday

3 Replies

Get comfy and take a few minutes to visit with Romeo and Kali. Romeo is the official Old Boy, a gray tiger who adopted us on New Years Day in 2005. We adopted him some days later, after we had him checked, snipped, and only belatedly figured out he had no intention of continuing as a stray cat. And Kali was rescued from a cat colony at the top of Aiea Heights last year by one of the colony’s human caretakers, who then offered her for adoption. We couldn’t resist. That was September 2020, and here we are, just a few days past the 5 month anniversary of her adoption, and she’s now a central player in our drama.

In any case, here come the cats!

Feline Friday: February 26, 2021