Spotlight Hawaii

Department of Labor and Industrial Relations Director Anne Perreira-Eustaquio said her office has paid out 97% of the claims they have received since March, but she understands many people in Hawaii are still waiting for benefits and feeling frustrated by the process.

“We are working more hours than you would believe,” she said, with notable emotion and empathy in her voice.

“We feel for every single claimant out there. We know this is a hard time of the year. You all are hurting, you all need your benefits and we’re trying to get to them as quickly as possible.”

Since March 1, DLIR has received over 292,000 Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits, another 82,000 claims for Extended Benefits (EB) or Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), as well as 146,000 Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) applications.

Hawaii has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, at 15.1% as of September. The need for for benefits has long exhausted the UI fund, which is now over $600 million in debt, and expected to be $1 billion behind by the end of the year.

Perreira-Eustaquio spoke in detail about each program, and when certain benefits expire. Because PEUC and PUA are funded through CARES Act money, those benefits will not be extended in 2021.

When CARES Act funding comes to an end at the end of next month, so too do many of the resources DLIR is relying on to process benefits, including 100 adjudicators who are combing through claims, additional staff processing claims at the Convention Center, along with much of the call center staff. Perreira-Eustaquio said right now, the call center is able to answer over 70% of the nearly 4,000 calls they receive daily.

There has been pressure for DLIR to open a physical office so that claimants can resolve their issues in person. Perreira-Eustaquio said it is something she and her staff discuss almost daily, and have also discussed creating an in-person appointment system, but at the moment there are no plans to do this.

“Right now opening our doors to everyone would be too much of an issue that I think we would not be able to handle. The flow of individuals, the crowd control, would be extremely difficult for local offices. I think we would get less work done than we do with the offices closed,” she explained.

“We would be helping the few and not the many. And my goals is to help the many. We need to help as many claimants as we possibly can.”

Honolulu mayor-elect Rick Blangiardi indicated today he is willing to be more aggressive in re-opening Oahu to allow for such things as bars, other small businesses and team sports to be open more quickly than under current Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s existing tiered system of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I would really be willing to … take a look at what we can do to open up certain things,” Blangiardi said during this morning’s segment of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser live stream program Spotlight Hawaii. “I think I take a very different approach to what’s being done right now on getting our kids back to playing sports …”

Generally, “I really want to take a look at that versus keeping everything shut down,” Blangiardi said. “At some point, we need to learn to live with this disease. And we’ve been living with this a long time.”

Blangiardi takes over the reins of city administration from Caldwell at noon on Jan. 2.

“It’s too soon to tell … I will tell you that the tiered system seems to have had some good effect,” he said, adding that he’s observed more people with face coverings and adhering to social distancing and other prescribed methods to deal with the pandemic.

“I think at some point, I don’t believe we can wait this out,” Blangiardi said. “I don’t want it necessarily going back to the tier system (and have it) be driven by the metrics. I want to look at the science and the data. And right now our containment of the disease here … these are low percentages in comparison and I really want to be able to weigh that.”

He stressed he’d first want to sit down with the medical community for their advice. “But I’m just telling you for me and my personal bias … I’m going to be a little more interested in being a little bit more aggressive, I believe, if we can.”

“I think at the end of the day, I think we’re all evolving. Feels like we’ve been in this thing much longer than we ever thought we’d be.”

With tourism now expected to return to Hawaii’s shores more slowly than originally anticipated, “I’m concerned about all of the businesses that got deemed non-essential and where they are right now at this moment in time, and whether or not we can at least get people back to work,” Blangiardi said. “I want to look at that. Really, especially because we have so many smaller businesses …. the ones that have been deemed essential that are doing well, but we’ve got a lot of small businesses that are on the brink of, if they aren’t already closded, perhaps closing … .because the impact on our economy is huge.”

Blangiardi noted that bars on Hawaii, Maui and Kauai have been opened. “My attitude to be candid with you is to open up the bars,” he said. “My atittude about this is rather than the blanket approach, is whether or not we could monitor places that might have deviant behavior … or weren’t prescribing to the protocols we have in place. I kind of want to get to a place now where people understand what it is that we have to do and we’re not going to have too many violators.”

Blangiardi said he’s had three meetings totaling eight hours with Caldwell and his staff in the past two weeks.

The mayor-elect said that like Caldwell, he backs Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard’s decision to suspend the use of patrol teams dedicated to pandemic rule violators amid an investigation into overtime abuse by officers.

He said he also endorses the belief that violators be given tickets rather than citations. “It might be a more enforceable thing,” Blangiardi said.

Lt. Gov. Josh Green joins us today for a livestream video

Bank of Hawaii’s Peter Ho and University of Hawaii Athletics Director David Matlin joined us today.

Gov. David Ige today said he plans to sign a new emergency proclamation that will clarify rules regarding the current statewide mask mandate to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Ige said he met with all four county mayors on Friday to create identical rules for mask requirements across all islands, he told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Spotlight Hawaii program today.

“It will be required for everyone in the state of Hawaii to wear a mask while they’re in public. Period,” Ige said.

His 15th COVID-19 proclamation will include the “exact same language” across all islands, Ige said. “It will be same all across the state.”

There will continue to be exemptions for not wearing masks, which Ige did not immediately detail. But all of the exemptions will now be identical in each county, he said.

“There are exemptions … and we will list the exemptions that will be allowed. It will be the same set of exemptions that will apply in all the counties so there will be (consistent) enforcement,” Ige said.

Ige’s announcement follows weeks of concerns of confusion among both residents and visitors, with the visitor industry asking for a legislative special session to make the rules clear.

Some have raised concerns about the misdemeanor penalty for violators, which can result in fines up to $5,000 and the possibility of a permanent criminal record.

Ige said today that it would be cumbersome to try to create a uniform mask mandate in a special session — and to reduce the penalties through legislation.

He said that Hawaii now has the lowest rate of COVID-19 infections across the country.

Jeff Wagoner, president and CEO of Outrigger Hotels and Resorts, and Peter Ingram, president and CEO of Hawaiian Airlines today joined Spotlight Hawaii

Emily Roberson, head of contact tracing at the Hawaii State Department of Health, joins us on Spotlight Hawaii

Hawaii Quarantine Kapu Breakers’ Angela Keen joined us today for a livestream to take your questions during Spotlight Hawaii.

Hawaii State Film Commissioner Donne Dawson and Omar Sultan of Sultan Ventures join us today

Hawaii County Mayor-Elect Mitch Roth joined Spotlight Hawaii