In the face of a threatened budget veto by Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi, the City Council on Wednesday approved a $4.96 billion budget package for fiscal year 2027, which begins
July 1.

On a 6-3 vote, the Council adopted a spending plan that reduces funding and staff for the city’s Office of Economic Revitalization, a move that prompted Blangiardi to warn he’d veto the budget if the agency were dissolved.

The Council approved
Bill 22, a $3.193 billion operating budget that funds city services, employee salaries, police and fire operations, parks, road maintenance and other day-to-day government functions.

In a separate vote, the Council unanimously
approved Bill 23, a $1.77 billion Capital Improvement Program budget that will fund infrastructure projects across Oahu, including investments in roads, public facilities, parks and wastewater systems.

The budget bills now head to the mayor, who has 10 days — excluding Saturdays, Sundays and holidays — to potentially issue a veto.

The Council’s decision, according to budget documents, will be funded at $991,000 from OER and restores funding for nine full-time positions. That office, currently funded at about $2.2 million and attached to the city Managing Director’s Office, has been staffed largely by more than 20 contract employees rather than permanent civil service workers.

Created in 2020, OER was tasked with promoting economic development and improving quality of life for residents and businesses across Oahu.

The Council’s approved cuts stem largely from an Office of the City Auditor’s scathing audit released in January, which found OER failed to implement several economic development initiatives and lacked transparency in its budgeting and performance reporting.

Prior to Wednesday’s vote on Bill 22, Blangiardi — who submitted his $5.08 billion budget proposal to the Council in March — appeared before the nine-member body and reiterated his opposition to eliminating OER.

“We all know why I’m here,” the mayor told the Council inside a chamber filled with city officials and members of the public before deliberations began. “And also, I’m befuddled by this, I’ll be really honest with you.”

Blangiardi said he’d reviewed the OER audit, but noted that “for me, as a management principle, audits have always been a guideline.

“There’s no question … in your oversight capacity … challenge us operationally … to do something about that,” the mayor said. “And we’re prepared to do that.”

Still, Blangiardi highlighted what he described as OER’s accomplishments, including distributing federal COVID-19 relief funding to small businesses and low-income residents affected by the pandemic.

“And to have no OER resource, it’s not just going to affect the 20 positions, it’s going to affect the thousands of people in their lives,” the mayor said. “So I don’t understand why.”

Blangiardi said that in less than six years, OER had distributed $405 million into the community.

OER’s funding was one aspect of a broader budget debate over how city resources should be allocated.

At the meeting, Andy Kawano, director of the city Department of Budget and Fiscal Services,
expressed concerns
about funding reductions impacting the Honolulu
Police Department, the Department of Planning and Permitting and many other city agencies.

Kawano noted the city’s proposed $5.08 billion budget submitted in March had “not changed materially” under the Council’s version.

“The numbers are really close,” he said. “What has happened, though, is there has been a shifting around of the mayor’s priorities versus yours, Council members, which is fine.”

However, Kawano said $1.8 million was removed from HPD salary funding while the Council added requirements that were not funded under the budget bill.

“I want to be clear about the practical impact of those changes,” HPD interim Police Chief Rade Vanic told the Council later.

“Reducing salary appropriations while adding new spending requirements creates a contradiction: it directs the department to accomplish more while providing fewer resources to do so.”

Likewise, DPP Director Dawn Takeuchi Apuna said Council-led cuts to her agency totaled about
$2.2 million, affecting development initiatives, including affordable rental housing projects, as well as the department’s core operations.

But Council members, including Chair Tommy Waters, offered a different perspective on the budget.

Regarding DPP specifically, Waters noted that more than $10 million in previously approved funding lapsed during the
2024-25 fiscal year.

“Couldn’t you use
some of that savings to supplement the $2.2 million that is currently being redirected to other priorities?” he asked.

Takeuchi Apuna replied that about half of the
$10 million consisted of affordable rental housing project grants under Bill 7 that had not yet been
distributed.

“And we will continue to use those funds,” she added.

During discussions though, Council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam objected to the operating budget’s elimination of
positions and funding.

“There has been a lot of drama on this, and I really do believe that a better pathway is possible,” he said. “But here we are today with a budget that’s balanced on the backs
of city employees whose positions will be cut in OER.

“And if we start cutting positions in OER, there’s nothing to stop us from cutting other live bodies in other departments as well,” Dos Santos-Tam added. “We have before us a budget that’s balanced on cuts to HPD, a critical public safety agency.”

Ultimately, Dos Santos-­Tam, Matt Weyer and
Augie Tulba voted against Bill 22.

Waters, along with the rest of the Council, supported the revised budget.

“You know, the Council budget is forward-looking, it’s fiscally responsible, it’s transparent and intentional,” Waters said. “It reduces spending below the mayor’s proposal without reducing city services.

“We respect the administration’s work in preparing its initial budget proposal and commend the mayor for presenting a budget that slows the growth of government,” he said. “But the Council has a responsibility to review, question, adjust and improve what was initially presented. Our job is not to simply act as a rubber stamp for the mayor.

Waters also said that for years, “hundreds of millions of dollars that the Council appropriated simply went unspent and lapsed quietly with little public discussion.” He added the Council’s “tightened budget” would reduce “paper vacancies” within city departments
including the more than 460 sworn-officer vacancies at HPD.

In a written statement
issued after the meeting, Waters said “this budget restores and expands support for public safety and justice, including additional prosecutorial capacity and victim and witness services” that includes
10 funded prosecutor
positions.

“It also strengthens emergency preparedness through investments in emergency management staffing, disaster resilience, flood mitigation, stream maintenance and drainage infrastructure,” he said.

The U.S. District Court for Idaho last week denied an injunction sought by climate activist groups, ruling that construction may proceed on the Stibnite Gold Project in central Idaho. This decision, secured with the active involvement of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, represents a significant win not just for the project’s developer, Perpetua Resources, but for the Pentagon, which covets the large volumes of antimony the Stibnite mine can produce.

The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act discourages forum shopping in child custody disputes by assigning subject-matter jurisdiction to the court located in the “home state” of the child. In Allen v. Allen, decided on April 21, 2026, the Montana Supreme Court had to determine whether the child’s “home state” was Montana or the Netherlands. This case shines an important spotlight on the importance of timing in international child custody disputes. The left-behind parent’s likelihood of success is strongly correlated with how quickly he or she acts to vindicate their legal rights.

Facts

Jonathan Edward Allen (Father) and Petronella Gerline (Van Oosterom) Allen (Mother) were married in Colorado in 2009. Father is a United States citizen. Mother is a dual citizen of the United States and the Netherlands. Their child (R.A.A.) was born in 2015. In 2020, the family moved from Colorado to Montana.

In August 2023, after Father and Mother began having marital difficulties, Mother and R.A.A. relocated to the Netherlands. In February 2024, Mother filed a petition for divorce and custody with the District Court of Central Netherlands (Netherlands District Court).

In January 2025, Father filed a petition with the District Court of The Hague seeking the return of R.A.A. pursuant to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. This petition was denied. Although the court held that R.A.A. had been wrongfully removed from the United States, the court reasoned that the one-year automatic return period had passed and that R.A.A. had become settled in her new environment in the Netherlands. This decision was affirmed on appeal.

In September 2025, Father filed an Emergency Motion for Temporary Custody and Petition for Permanent Parenting Plan in Montana state court. That court dismissed the petition on the grounds that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. Specifically, it held that it lacked the power to adjudicate the dispute because Montana was no longer the “home state” of R.A.A. Father, acting pro se, appealed to the Montana Supreme Court.

Analysis

The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) assigns exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction to courts located in the child’s “home state” when it comes to matters relating to child custody. The “home state” is “the state in which a child lived with a parent or a person acting as parent for at least 6 consecutive months immediately before the commencement of a child custody proceeding.” The UCCJEA specifically provides that courts “shall treat a foreign country as if it were a state of the United States” for purposes of resolving these disputes.

On the facts presented in Allen v. Allen, the Montana Supreme Court correctly held that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to consider Father’s emergency motion. Mother and R.A.A. relocated to the Netherlands in August 2023. Six months later—in February 2024—R.A.A.’s home state shifted to the Netherlands. The Dutch courts—rather than the Montana courts—now had exclusive subject-matter jurisdiction to resolve custody disputes involving R.A.A. Father did not file his motion in Montana until September 2025, which was nineteen months too late.

Conclusion

If Father had filed his suit in Montana before February 2024, he could have shown that Montana was R.A.A.’s “home state” because the child had not yet resided in the Netherlands for six months. The suit was, however, not filed until September 2025.

If Father had filed suit in the Netherlands before August 2024, he could have argued that R.A.A. should be returned to the United States pursuant to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction because the child had not yet resided in the Netherlands for a year. The suit was, however, not filed until January 2025.

The key takeaway of Allen v. Allen is the need for speed in international child custody cases. The timelines baked into the relevant laws and treaties mandate that the left-behind parent move quickly to assert their rights. If they are slow off the mark, they be forced to litigate in foreign courts under less favorable legal rules.