Tourism executive and former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann resigned as chair of the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority Thursday after questions were raised over possible inappropriate use of HTA resources by two nonprofits he leads.

Hannemann told the board shortly before noon that “the best thing for me to do is to step down as chair, and then I will have to think whether I want to stay on the board, because the reputations of those incredible, important organizations have been put into question.”

The HTA board then elected boad member Todd Apo as its new chair.

HTA board members on Tuesday questioned Hannemann at length about the Hawaiʻi Lodging and Tourism Association’s public safety conference at the Hawaiʻi Convention Center on Dec. 6, 2023, and a meeting of the Pacific Century Fellows at the convention center on May 15 of last year.

Hannemann is president and CEO of the Hawaiʻi Lodging and Tourism Association, which advocates for the hotel and tourism industries. He is also founder of the Pacific Century Fellows program, a nonprofit leadership training organization.

Jimmy Tokioka, director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, has said the ethics commission has begun interviewing people as part of an inquiry into more than $14,000 in food and beverages provided for the two events. Tokioka is also an HTA board member.

Tokioka said in an interview that HTA documents show HLTA and Pacific Century were supposed to pay for breakfasts served at those events that cost more than $14,000, but there was no record of payment.

Hannemann announced his resignation after the board discussed those gatherings for the second time this week. He suggested the HTA board should instead be focusing on Hawaiʻi’s visitor industry.

“People watching from everywhere will say, ‘Can’t those guys get on with the business of tourism?’” Hannemann said. “‘Can’t they get on with the business of making sure there’s funding? Can’t they get on with the business of making sure that the staff that works there is appreciated?’”

It’s the second major shakeup in HTA leadership in a week.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported March 20 that HTA had appointed Caroline Anderson its new interim president and CEO following the resignation of interim top leader Daniel Naho’opi’i, who had been in the role for a year and a half.

“Naho’opi’i, who ends his tenure Friday at HTA, had been the agency’s 11th top leader since the state Legislature created the HTA in 1998,” according to the article.

We have no idea what Martin Scorsese’s next film will be, but at least there’s some movement with one of his percolating projects in development.

Disney/20th Century has acquired the rights to Scorese’s upcoming Hawaii-set crime epic starring Dwayne Johnson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Emily Blunt. Still no word on when this one will start production.

The thumbnail description (via Deadline):

Imagine Robert De Niro’s Goodfellas’ Jimmy the Gent character, but as a ruthless Hawaiian crime boss, also based on a real figure, who battled encroaching rivals for control of organized crime in Hawaii.

For a moment there, it did look as though Scorsese’s ‘Irishman’ backer Netflix had the edge in acquiring the Hawaii-set project, some of the other higher bidders included Amazon and Apple, with Warner Bros. With $200M above-the-line expenses on this movie, it does look like 20th Century is ready to take the hit.

Set in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Scorsese’s film is said to follow an aspiring mob boss (Johnson) who fights rival crime factions for control of the underworld of the Hawaiian islands. Scorsese has hired Vanity Fair journalist, and doc filmmaker, Nick Bilton to write the screenplay.

Last we checked, the script hadn’t been completed yet, and DiCaprio is going to be busy this summer shooting Damien Chazelle’s next film. He then has promo to do on Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” in September. Scorsese can still, technically, shoot one of his other percolating projects this year, but definitely not “Devil in the White City” or “Sinatra” which are both supposed to star DiCaprio.

So, with the knowledge of DiCaprio’s busy schedule, which will include Chazelle’s film and promotion of Paul Thomas Anderson’s fall-tipped “One Battle After Another,” what’s Scorsese’s next film going to be? I’m still banking on the smaller-scaled Marillyne Robinson adaptation “Home” to shoot sometime this year.

Despite progress over the decades, data shows that women in the Hawaii still earn less than men, particularly in higher-paying occupations and among certain ethnic groups.

Experts point to systemic issues, including child care costs, outdated gender norms and workplace discrimination as key factors contributing to the wage disparity.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2023, full-time female wage and salary workers in Hawaii had median usual weekly earnings of $902, amounting to 82.4% of the $1,095 earned by their male counterparts. The data aligns with national trends, where women earned approximately 84 cents for every dollar earned by men.

Rachel Inafuku, a lead researcher on equal pay at the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, analyzed data from the American Community Survey between 2015 and 2022, and found that full-time working women in Hawaii earned 86 cents for every dollar men earned.

While the figure is slightly better than the national average, disparities remain across industries, occupations and ethnic groups.

Inafuku noted that wage gaps in Hawaii are more closely tied to occupation rather than industry.

In general, higher-paying jobs — such as surgeons, physicians and chief executive officers — exhibit a larger gender pay gap compared with lower-paying jobs. The pattern reflects broader national trends, where pay disparities tend to widen in positions with higher salaries and leadership roles.

When examining wage disparities among different ethnic groups in Hawaii, Inafuku found that Southeast Asian women experienced the smallest gender pay gap, earning 98% of what their male counterparts made. Native Hawaiian and other Polynesian women also had a relatively narrow gap, earning 94% of men’s earnings.

Despite having the highest median earnings among all ethnic groups, Japanese women still faced a significant wage disparity. In contrast, Micronesian women had the lowest median earnings overall and the largest pay gap, earning just 81% of what Micronesian men made.

The numbers suggest that while some progress has been made in narrowing pay disparities, certain ethnic groups — particularly Micro­nesian women — face systemic barriers to earning equal wages.

Research from Nobel Prize-winning economist Claudia Goldin suggests that motherhood is one of the biggest factors driving the gap, even in Hawaii. Women without children earn 99 cents for every dollar earned by childless men, but mothers earn just 74 cents for every dollar earned by fathers.

“When you look at trend lines for the wages for men and women over their lifetime, they earn very similar amounts of money before the average age at a woman’s first birth,” Inafuku said. “After their first birth, you see this growing divide in income where men’s wages increase at a much faster rate.”

A major reason for this disparity is Hawaii’s high cost of child care, which can make full-time work financially unfeasible for many mothers. In households earning between $50,000 to $70,000 per year, full-time child care costs can consume nearly an entire salary, forcing women to reduce work hours, seek more flexible jobs or leave the workforce entirely.

“The lack of affordable child care options makes it challenging for both parents to fully engage in their careers while caring for their children,” Inafuku said.

Beyond day-to-day wages, the gender pay gap has long-term financial consequences for women.

Younghee Overly, public policy chair at the American Association of University Women of Hawaii, highlighted the “lifetime wage gap,” which calculates the amount of income lost due to wage disparities over a career.

“Women entering the workforce in Hawaii now stand to lose $310,040 over the course of a 40-year career, $462,000 nationally,” Overly said.

These disparities extend into retirement, where women have only 70% of the retirement savings men have. Over 62% of kupuna living in poverty are women, making economic security for aging women a growing concern.

Experts like Overly agree that closing the gender pay gap requires policy changes, employer initiatives and cultural shifts.

Some proposed solutions include equal-pay laws and greater salary transparency to prevent wage discrimination; paid family and medical leave policies to support working parents; affordable and accessible child care options, such as Hawaii’s Ready Keiki initiative, which aims to address the fact that 8,000 preschool-age children in Hawaii do not attend preschool due to affordability issues; and workplace flexibility and parental leave policies that encourage shared caregiving responsibilities between men and women.

“We need to work on equal pay, paid family and medical leave, affordable and accessible child care, improved access to reproductive health, and higher education support,” Overly said. “This would require public policies, business policies, and continue to challenge the outdated norms about gender roles.”

According to the BLS, Hawaii continues to lead the nation in union membership, with approximately 26.5% of the state’s workforce unionized in 2024 — the rate being significantly higher than the national average of 9.9%.

Hawaii’s strong union presence is a result of its long history of labor movements, especially in sectors like public services, construction and health care. Despite a decline from its peak of 29.9% in 1989, Hawaii remains the most unionized state in the U.S.

Cade Watanabe, financial secretary and treasurer at the labor union UNITE HERE! Local 5, said the “vast majority of our over 10,000 members are women and immigrants working in hospitality and food service industries.”

Watanabe explained that union organizations offer a way to address wage disparities and inequality by ensuring that wages are based on the work performed and the classification of the job.

Hawaii’s new pay transparency law, which took effect Jan. 1, 2024, requires employers with 50 or more employees to disclose salary ranges or hourly rates in job postings. The law aims to promote wage equity and transparency. However, it applies only to larger businesses, leaving over 90% of private firms in the state exempt.

Smaller companies and public-sector jobs determined through collective bargaining are not covered. While the law helps improve pay transparency for many workers, it does not address wage disparities in smaller businesses, and enforcement mechanisms remain unclear.