Two from the “you can’t make this up” category:
First, 12 nearly completed DHHL homes have been razed. According to today’s Hawaii Tribune Herald , the “Kaumana home was one of 12 along Uhaloa Road that the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands had razed before they were ever inhabited.” The Trib prints DHHL’s explanation uncritically, “the demolition was prompted by widespread mold, which was discovered after the unfinished dwellings sat vacant following the builder’s bankruptcy last December.” I wonder if it ever occurs to anyone that lack of property rights might matter, or, to paraphrase the late Milton Friedman: nobody spends money less wisely than when it is somebody like DHHL spending somebody else’s money on yet somebody else.
Second, (also from today’s Trib) here is what the money wasters at OHA are doing:
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has awarded Bay Clinic’s Keaau Youth Business Center (KYBC) Program $25,100 to train Native Hawaiian youths in state-of-the-art digital media, culinary arts and sound recording. The mission is to provide “healthy, exciting, and enriching opportunities for high school teens aged 14-18.”
The grant is from the Community Based Economic Development (CBED) branch of OHA. The OHA CBED program’s primary goal is to provide beneficiaries with opportunities to plan, develop, and implement sustainable economic projects that will serve the needs of the Native Hawaiian community.
I don’t think this second one needs any comment.
Posted by: Harry Messenheimer
