{"id":15287,"date":"2023-07-31T15:26:08","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T01:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=15287"},"modified":"2023-07-31T15:26:10","modified_gmt":"2023-08-01T01:26:10","slug":"new-noteworthy-spj-awards-koloa-case-and-dailey-seawall-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=15287","title":{"rendered":"New & Noteworthy: SPJ Awards, Koloa Case, And Dailey Seawall Appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Awards: <\/strong>Environment Hawai\u02bbi<\/em> editor Patricia Tummons\u2019 pieces on affordable housing, published in 2022, won two awards in the All Media category of the Society of Professional Journalists, Hawai\u02bbi Chapter, annual contest. The winners were announced at an awards dinner on July 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her June 2022 editorial, \u201c”Big Island’s Housing Policy: Troubled, Confusing, Ineffective,\u201d won first place for editorial opinion. The supporting articles published that month won the third place prize for investigative reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contest was judged by the East Tennessee and Greater Cincinnati chapters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dEnvironment Hawai\u02bbi <\/em>takes on the structure that’s responsible for creating affordable housing in a big way: It doesn’t mince words about a complicated system that appears to be corrupt. As a contest judge living on the mainland, I’ve always heard that housing is expensive on the Big Island, or Hawai\u02bbi as a whole. The editorial confirms that notion \u2014 the lack of affordable housing will drive other rents higher as well \u2014 and points out that the system must be fixed. This is a good explainer piece for readers,\u201d the judges said of her editorial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And her investigative pieces on affordable housing were a \u201c[t]remendous deep dive into a topic affecting cities around the country. Having people in power allegedly scamming the system not only undermines confidence in government and the development industry, it hurts people who truly need affordable housing,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koloa Case Conclusion: <\/strong>5th<\/sup> Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe has denied with prejudice a motion filed by E Ola Kakou and Friends of Maha\u02bbulepu in May 2022 for a preliminary injunction to halt the ground-disturbing activities related to the construction of a luxury condominium development in Koloa, Kaua\u02bbi, and to prevent final subdivision approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On July 7, she approved findings of fact, conclusions of law, and an order that attorneys representing the developer defendants had drafted. (The County of Kaua\u02bbi was also named as a defendant.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watanabe found that the developers had complied with a state Land Use Commission condition of the redistricting of the property that required certification by an archaeologist and biologist that neither archaeological sites nor habitats of any blind, eyeless, big-eyed, hunting spiders and blind terrestrial sandhoppers deemed worthy of preservation were present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also found that the county had proven that it had adhered to state and federal statutes, rules, and\/or regulations regarding its actions, which included the issuance of a grading permit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The community groups presented evidence that suggested the project site contained conditions \u2014 moisture and voids in the rock \u2014 that would be suitable habitat for the endangered species, and also questioned the feasibility of the recommended biological monitoring that was to occur during the explosive rock blasting that was part of the grading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Watanabe agreed with the developers\u2019 position that the groups had not \u201cdemonstrated any<\/em><\/strong> threatened irreparable harm to the Kaua\u2018i cave wolf spider or cave amphipod at the subject property, and the public interest does not support the granting of an injunction based upon the circumstances presented.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Endless Appeals: <\/strong>For more than a decade, Elizabeth Dailey and her and son, Michael, have been fighting the state to keep the seawall fronting their Mokuleia, O\u02bbahu home. They argue that the seawall is merely a repaired, decades-old revetment that is a nonconforming use within the Conservation District and, therefore, should be allowed to remain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Multiple contested case hearings have been held before the Board of Land and Natural Resources, which has ordered that the Daileys pay fines and that the unauthorized seawall be removed. Court appeals have followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Daileys\u2019 appeal of the board\u2019s most recent contested case decision, to impose an $8,000 fine and, again, require removal of the unauthorized seawall from the Conservation District, was dismissed this past June. 1st<\/sup> Circuit Judge Jeffrey Crabtree ruled that under state laws governing the Conservation District, the appeal should have been filed directly with the state Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Daileys filed an appeal of Crabtree\u2019s decision with the Intermediate Court of Appeals on July 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Awards: Environment Hawaiʻi editor Patricia Tummons’ pieces on affordable housing, published in 2022, won two awards in the All Media category of the Society of Professional Journalists, Hawaiʻi Chapter, annual contest. The winners were announced at an awards dinner on … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[514,26,338,18],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-15287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-august-2023","category-endangered-species","category-land-use","category-new-noteworthy","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}