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<title>Daily Smile: Wednesday, February 25, 2026</title>

I got you, bro...

Daily Smile: Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

A state proposal to limit the governor’s emergency powers has been lambasted as government overreach.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, then-Gov. David Ige made more than 20 consecutive emergency proclamations that suspended various state statutes without oversight from other branches of government.

 is a measure drafted partially in response to those proclamations, attempting to define what the governor or any county mayor can and cannot do through an emergency declaration.

But the bill has drawn controversy from individuals who believe the bill signifies an attempt to codify extrajudicial authorities for the executive branch.

 submitted in advance of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday excoriated the bill, with dozens calling it governmental overreach empowering the governor to activate sweeping powers on a whim.

“[SB 2151 hands] one person — the governor — near-unchecked power to declare emergencies, suspend our rights, enter our property without permission, lock us down, seize assets, or disarm us, all with too-little real accountability from the Legislature or courts,” read one letter by resident Dawn O’Brien, which echoed sentiments repeated through much of the testimony at Tuesday’s hearing.

However, this is not what the bill does. Karl Rhoads, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the bill’s primary introducer, told the committee 

 that he intended the measure to restrict the governor’s powers, and that much of the opposition facing the bill appears to be misdirected.

“There’s been a lot of testimony opposed to it seemingly thinking that this bill was expanding the governor’s power and it is certainly not,” Rhoads said.

As currently written, the bill prohibits any emergency declaration from overriding the state’s requirement to respond to public records requests in a timely manner.

Ige’s early Covid proclamations suspended the Uniform Information Practices Act, which requires public agencies’ records to be open to public inspection and review. They also included a partial suspension of the Sunshine Law — which requires state and county boards to hold meetings open to the public — to allow for meetings to be held entirely remotely.

, in Feb. 2021, the UIPA was only suspended insofar as agencies did not have to adhere to deadlines. However, the partial Sunshine Law suspension continued.

SB 2151 specifically prohibits a governor or mayor from suspending deadlines to respond to UIPA requests, or deadlines for the Department of Health to provide various patient vital records. However, the bill allows for a “reasonable delay” for the DOH to provide the latter during extenuating circumstances.

For those laws that can still be suspended through an emergency proclamation, another section of the bill specifically details how those suspensions can be carried out. As stated in the bill, any suspension of law cannot last any longer “than the governor deems necessary for the execution of emergency management functions.”

The same applies for county laws and emergency proclamations issued by mayors.

For every law suspended, the bill specifies that any emergency proclamation must identify the specific statutes affected and explain why the suspension is necessary for emergency management.

Furthermore, the bill introduced by Rhoads would amend the emergency powers law to allow the state Legislature to terminate a gubernatorial state of emergency by a two-thirds majority vote. The same goes for county councils, which could vote to end a county state of emergency by a two-thirds majority.

The latest version of the bill also amends the statutory definition of “emergency” to specify that it must be an imminent threat of a disaster that could cause “catastrophic harm and immediate danger” and that could be averted or minimized through timely action. Rhoads said Tuesday that this precludes the possibility of the governor issuing emergency proclamations regarding homelessness, which Rhoads noted “has been with us for many years.”

This isn’t the first time Rhoads has attempted to pass a similar bill. Last year, 

 — which proposed much the same changes as SB 2151, with much less public opposition — came very close to passing, but failed in April over disagreements between the House and Senate regarding various amendments made to the measure.

But while the bill may not be an expansion of the governor’s powers, it has attracted criticism from other directions. Several testifiers argued that the bill still allows the governor or mayor to be the sole judge of whether something is an emergency, and to continually re-issue consecutive proclamations despite an existing statute that automatically terminates a state of emergency after 60 days.

Nor does the bill remove existing statutes allowing the governor to enforce quarantines against people believed to be infected with a deadly contagion, or to seize and destroy property, or to authorize unpermitted entry onto private property, or seize firearms, all of which dozens of testifiers have demanded to be changed.

On the other hand, several groups voiced support for the bill, including the Grassroot Institute of Hawai‘i, which lauded the measure’s ability to both preserve the intent of emergency statutes while also checking the executive branch’s power.

The state Office of Information Practices, which responds to UIPA requests, took no stance on the measure, stating that the matter “is a policy decision for the Legislature to determine.” However, OIP confirmed that the suspensions of the UIPA during the pandemic “had a significant effect on requesters, agencies and OIP’s own operations,” with people experiencing long delays before receiving official responses to record requests.

The Senate Judiciary Committee took no action on the measure on Tuesday, with Rhoads deferring any decision on the matter until March 5. A corresponding bill, House Bill 2236, passed second reading in the House on Feb. 18, but has not yet been scheduled in that chamber’s own judiciary committee.

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Capitol Jan 2026

<title>Emergency proclamation bill stirs controversy</title>

A measure intended to limit the governor's ability to declare a state of emergency has citizens warning that it does the opposite. But does it?

Emergency proclamation bill stirs controversy

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros Headshot

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros

Aloha Spirit

Arts & Entertainment

The County of Maui Department of ʻŌiwi Resources

 has named 11 local projects that will receive a total of $450,000 in funding through its grants program.

According to a Tuesday release from the county, the awards coincide with Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, or Hawaiian Language Month, which is celebrated each year in February and honors Hawaiian language and culture.

“Working alongside our local nonprofits honors the kuleana we have to ʻŌiwi Strongholds, ʻŌiwi Resources and ʻŌiwi Voices,” Director Kaponoʻai Molitau said. “Knowing that we only have one Maui Nui to care for, the Department of ʻŌiwi Resources reaffirms that, together, we can uplift the people and places that make our Islands nō ka ʻoi. These grant recipients are working tirelessly to strengthen our communities, and we look forward to their projects, as well as future opportunities that elevate Maui Nui.”

Grants were awarded across three divisions, which each play a different role in community: Kipuka Division (ʻŌiwi Strongholds), stewarding lands of cultural importance; Kumuwaiola Division (ʻŌiwi Resources), sustaining natural resources; and Pai Ka Leo Division (ʻŌiwi Voices), uplifting Native Hawaiian voices and use of Hawaiian language.

2026 grantees, with amounts awarded, include:

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"ʻŌiwi Strongholds"}]

, Maui County residents voted in In November 2022 "to amend the Maui County Charter and voted in favor of establishing the Department of ʻŌiwi Resources." As amended, the department was established in July of 2024. Read its 2025-2030 Strategic Plan. 

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Ma Ka Hana Ka Ike Pai Ka Leo

<title>Maui County provides funding to strengthen community</title>

On Tuesday, The County of Maui Department of ʻŌiwi Resources announced 11 local grantees, which are perpetuating Hawaiian language and culture, while restoring natural land and resources on the Valley Isle.

Maui County provides funding to strengthen community

AKINA portrait 2

Keliʻi Akina, Ph.D.

Viewpoints

People around the world view Hawaiʻi as a paradise. And in a lot of ways, it is. But for many of us who live here, our Islands have become a place where we simply cannot afford to get sick. 

 continues to worsen and is now estimated to be 833 full-time equivalent doctors. Our greatest need is in specialty care, especially on the Neighbor Islands — and particularly for children. In fact, virtually no pediatric specialists are reported to be employed outside of Honolulu.

 last year that allows doctors to more easily get licensed to practice here, but the results so far have been minimal. More needs to be done — and I hope we see that happen during this year’s legislative session.

There are several significant health care bills still making their way through the Legislature. Perhaps the most important are those that would reform the state’s medical “certificate of need” regulations.

These rules require that healthcare providers get the state’s permission to adjust existing services or offer new ones, and that process can be expensive and time-consuming with no guarantee of success.

I hardly think a provider would be interested in opening a burn care center in Hawaiʻi or offering substance abuse treatment if it didn’t think the community would benefit from those services, yet they still need government approval to do so. 

The bills being considered this year unfortunately would not totally repeal Hawaiʻi’s CON laws. 

, however, would be a good start. It would at least allow exemptions for health care facilities and services that care for vulnerable populations or reduce patient costs. In particular, the bill lists neonatal intensive care centers, substance abuse treatment programs and licensed home care agencies.

, both propose exempting state Department of Health facilities from CON requirements and increasing the threshold for bed-change exemptions from 10% of existing licensed beds to 30%. Those changes alone would be less transformative, but still a step in the right direction.

Another way to improve health care access would be to pass 

, which would allow Hawaiʻi residents to use telehealth services to receive care from out-of-state physicians. This would especially benefit patients in rural areas where specialty care is scarce to nonexistent.

Last but not least, lawmakers are considering bills that would allow Hawaiʻi to join more interstate medical compacts to make it easier for providers to practice here. 

 would allow Hawaiʻi to join the Psychology Interjurisdictional Compact, which would help improve access to mental health care in Hawaiʻi. More than 40 states have already signed on.

 would allow Hawaiʻi to join the Physician Assistant Licensure Compact, which would certainly help alleviate the impact of our doctor shortage.

All of these reforms have been safely and successfully enacted in other states, so I see no reason we shouldn’t be adopting them here, too. 

Reprinted with permission from the Feb. 23, 2026, "Presidentʻs Corner" of 

2 15 24 dialysis cartoon

<title>Community Voices: Time to tackle Hawaiʻi’s health care crisis</title>

Community Voices: Time to tackle Hawaiʻi’s health care crisis

Yamachika Tom IMG 1913 Large

Tom Yamachika

We have been writing several pieces about money languishing in special funds. This week, we will concentrate on one of them. The University of Hawaiʻi has a special fund for tuition and fees. According to 

 submitted to this year’s Legislature, that fund built up, as of June 30, 2025, almost $429 million.

And, unlike some of the special funds we have been writing about, lawmakers are very aware of the big balance in this one. 

, which recently passed the Senate Education Committee, would lapse any carryover balance in the fund at the end of each year to the state’s general fund.

Not surprisingly, the University of Hawaiʻi and the U.H. Professional Assembly howled in opposition.

“Shifts in federal policy and the termination of grant funding have created significant uncertainty for the UH,” the university argued. “At the same time, major technological changes relating to AI and other needs will require ongoing substantial investment in infrastructure. The UH has outlined major initiatives to ensure it can more effectively and efficiently meet its mission despite these major challenges and to maintain accountability for executing on strategic goals.”

Those words might be more believable if the tuition and fees special fund was the only fund the university had. Actually, HRS chapter 304A has three different subparts, one describing 22 special funds, the next describing 14 revolving funds, and the next enumerating four different trust funds. Surely, between 40 different non-general funds, the university has the flexibility to take on its major challenges and meet its strategic goals.

And, let’s be real here, $400 million is a major amount of dough. Maybe the university can justify squirreling away a few million here, a few million there. But $400 million?

And when the university undertakes a major construction project, it doesn’t hesitate to visit lawmakers with hat in hand, as was done in 2019 when it asked for authorization to rebuild its venerable Sinclair Library into a brand-spankin’-new Student Success Center. Yes, it got $41 million in authorization then, and costs ballooned to $57 million by the time construction started in 2023. Did that extra $16 million come out of the tuition and fees special fund? According to the testimony before the Senate Education Committee, the excess funds were pulled from a pot of general fund money earmarked for repairs and maintenance. Meaning that the nine-figure sum in the special fund still sat there and there were fewer dollars to tackle the deferred maintenance backlog that the university is famous for.

At the Senate hearing, the university indicated that the fund buildup was due to an influx of pandemic relief funds. But, as 

we pointed out with the example of Department of Hawaiian Home Lands funding

 some weeks ago, if a recipient of federal money doesn’t use it, it greatly increases the chance that the federal government will take it away.

We realize that the university’s president and chief financial officer are both relatively new in their respective positions. They both pleaded with the committee that they have no intent whatsoever to leave large gobs of cash unused. Fine, then. Come up with an immediate and measurable plan to deploy what is needed. And by immediate I mean now. The state has a financial crisis now. If this cash cannot be deployed now, lawmakers will try to beat it out of us, the taxpayers, now.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Use that hoarded tuition and fees. Now."}]

Wendy Hensel KCC 003

<title>Community Voices: Use that hoarded tuition and fees now</title>

If this special fund – almost $429 million as of June 2025 – cannot be deployed now by The University of Hawaiʻi, lawmakers will try to beat it out of the taxpayers, now.

Community Voices: Use that hoarded tuition and fees now

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Commuters take note."}]

Around-the-clock traffic adjustments are coming to Kamehameha Highway and Dillingham Boulevard as construction of the Skyline rail progresses.

In the coming weeks, HART, or the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation — the public transit authority responsible for planning and building the rail system for the City and County of Honolulu — and Tutor Perini Corp., its contractor for the City Center Guideway and Stations, or CCGS, project, will implement a revised traffic plan for the roadways, beginning with a section of road between Middle Street and Pu‘uhale Road.

The traffic adjustments will be in place 24/7 from March 2026 through December 2030.

HART says that as work along Kamehameha Highway and Dillingham Boulevard moves from utility relocation to guideway and station construction, “traffic plans will be adjusted to accommodate the work.”

“For this first section, between Middle Street and Pu‘uhale Road, one travel lane in each direction will remain open on the mauka side of the street, with barriers installed to safely separate the construction zone from the travel lanes, and the current left turn restrictions will remain in place,” HART notes. “Driveway modifications may be needed, however access to all properties will be maintained.

 on the CCGS portion of the rail project.

 includes the construction of nearly three miles of elevated guideway and six rail stations, starting near Kahauiki, or the Middle Street Transit Center station, and ending at the Civic Center station, just east of the intersection of Halekauwila and South streets, ASD previously reported. Construction is expected to be finished by 2030.

 for the design and construction of the CCGS project to Tutor Perini Corp. in August 2024.

 and spans just under 11 miles from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium. Meanwhile, the second segment — 5.2 miles of guideway that runs from Aloha Stadium to the Middle Street Transit Center — 

Skyline ridership numbers have climbed since the second segment opened and in 

, there were a total of 299,961 rides compared to 92,310 rides in 

Projected ridership numbers have fluctuated over the years, but a 2022 recovery plan submitted by HART to the Federal Transit Administration — which 

shortened the scope of the project by postponing 1.25 miles of guideway, the last two stations at Kaka‘ako and Ala Moana, and a garage at Pearl Highlands — 

the authority estimated about 84,000 daily boardings for the truncated scope. Find more information about the plan 

Hart traffic control 022026

<title>Rail construction to cause extended traffic adjustments along Dillingham Boulevard,…</title>

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation and Tutor Perini Corp. will implement a revised traffic plan for the roadways, beginning with a section of road between Middle Street and Pu‘uhale Road.

Rail construction to cause extended traffic adjustments along Dillingham Boulevard, Kamehameha Highway

Business & Tourism

Several Hawai‘i businesses, eateries, museums, festivals — and even Honolulu itself — are among organizations vying to be among the best in a handful of USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards categories.

 The awards aim to rank the 10 best in several areas of travel and lifestyle.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Festivals"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Beer"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Art and museums"}]

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Hawaii rainbow unsplash 020626

<title>These Hawai‘i businesses and organizations have been nominated for best-of lists</title>

Several Hawai‘i businesses, eateries, museums, festivals — and even Honolulu itself — are among those vying to be among the best in a handful of USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards categories.

Daily Smile: Wednesday, February 25, 2026

ASD Staff

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