Editorial: Gov eyes STRs for more local housing

• Jan. 23, 2024
• 12

Gov. Josh Green incorporated a phrase in his State of the State address on Monday, one that is fairly standard in speeches of this kind: “I’m here to report that the state of Hawaii is strong.” Read more

Editorial: Facilities disrepair tempers UH value

• Jan. 22, 2024
• 3

If students can keep the financial burden of college within reason, and if the University of Hawaii can ensure its facilities can serve them properly — two big “if’s” — a degree from the UH system is a worthy investment. Read more

Editorial: So much riding on new public housing

• Jan. 21, 2024
• 4

State-facilitated financing or consideration for financing has been approved for three major — and long-anticipated — Hawaii public housing redevelopment projects on Oahu, which are projected to produce an impressive 1,800 housing units over the next four years. Read more

Editorial: HPD chase, lawsuit raise troubling questions

• Jan. 19, 2024
• 10

In what the clients’ lawyer frames as “an abomination,” a father and son of Tongan descent who live in Honolulu’s University neighborhood were allegedly stopped at gunpoint on New Year’s Day while running toward the scene of a police shootout, after hearing a commotion. Read more

Editorial: Care options can ease strained ERs

• Jan. 18, 2024
• 3

It’s an emergency … or perhaps it isn’t. In either case, Oahu emergency rooms are having to cope with a jump in the number of patients who head for hospital ER departments. Read more

Editorial: Don’t raise bar for housing affordability

• Jan. 17, 2024
• 3

Honolulu’s Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP) is considering adjustments to its affordable housing requirement rules — but what these adjustments actually do is change the definition of “affordable,” and not necessarily in a good way. Read more

Editorial: Help businesses survive rail-construction phase

• Jan. 16, 2024
• 14

The city administration is confronting an enormous challenge in distribution of a $2.75 million mitigation fund envisioned to help small businesses affected by the disruptive rail construction along the congested Dillingham Boulevard corridor. Read more

Editorial: Minimize outages, stay course on ‘green’ energy

• Jan. 15, 2024
• 26

People on Oahu were annoyed by the disruptions in power supply during last week’s storms. Read more

Editorial: Fires, tourism, homes top issues

• Jan. 14, 2024
• 2

The Hawaii Legislature’s session begins Wednesday, with an agenda packed full of pressing issues, led by recovery from the Maui fires and devastation of Lahaina. Read more

Editorial: Airline scare must boost safety steps

• Jan. 12, 2024
• 3

Last Friday, an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., to Ontario, Calif., experienced a harrowing failure when a body panel called a “door plug,” attached in place of an unneeded exit door, blew out and off the plane. Read more

Editorial: Revisit policy for school impact fee

• Jan. 11, 2024

The Green administration’s campaign to develop more affordable housing with less government delay has taken a modest but important step forward. Read more

Editorial: City must make most of rail TOD

• Jan. 10, 2024
• 10

The city is buying two properties where it will add affordable housing, both near a planned rail station on Dillingham Boulevard: one a $51.5 million, 3.8-acre warehouse complex on Iwilei Street, Diamond Head-side of the Dole Cannery complex; the other an $8.4 million former First Hawaiian branch building on North King Street, just south of Liliha. Read more

Editorial: Make progress on convention center

• Jan. 9, 2024
• 5

The Hawai‘i Convention Center may have turned a corner on a difficult course, a sign of progress. It has been a long time coming, and the state can ill afford to lose momentum. Read more

Editorial: Welcome H.E.L.P. for health workers

• Jan. 8, 2024
• 1

Loan forgiveness is being welcomed like a gift by the hundreds of health care workers who have benefited so far from the state program called H.E.L.P. Read more

Editorial: Oahu must move on illegal short-term rentals

• Jan. 7, 2024
• 21

Up until now, the city hasn’t enforced any restrictions against 30- to 89-day rentals, because the court had issued a broader preliminary injunction. Read more

Editorial: Keep gun safety squarely in sights

• Jan. 5, 2024
• 16

The new state and county gun laws that took effect on Monday have the potential of keeping some needed controls on the proliferation of firearms, including “ghost guns” that are hard to rein in. Read more

Editorial: Hawaii’s new minimum wage still lagging

• Jan. 4, 2024
• 14

Hawaii’s minimum wage is woefully low in comparison with the state’s cost of living. Read more

Editorial: HPD must divulge perils to the public

• Jan. 3, 2024
• 83

Most of Oahu’s residents had no idea there was an armed and dangerous man racing across the island, pursued by police in a wild car chase, for most of New Year’s Day until it was all over, when he was killed as the result of a shootout. Read more