Off the News: Artspace Lofts draws on financing help

Art is in the eye of the beholder, and so is a law that secured access to low-income financing for housing with a preference for artists as tenants.

That section of the tax code is what provided financing for Kakaako’s new Ola Ka ‘Ilima Artspace Lofts, and also enables such rental programs for veterans and other specified groups.

It’s been somewhat controversial. During the tax reform debates of 2017, there was a push to withdraw the provision for artists, but art — or lobbyists? — won out in the end.

Landmark Roe v. Wade makes 47 years

Forty-seven years after the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, on Jan. 22, 1973, the controversy over legalized abortion continues.

Three years before the ruling, in 1970, Hawaii’s Gov. John Burns stated that an abortion decision should be reserved for a woman and her doctor — reasoning that aligns with the high court’s “right to privacy” view of the Fourteenth Amendment. Burns’ levelheaded stance was particularly impressive due to his personal religious beliefs as a Catholic. (The Catholic Church had waged a battle to keep a Hawaii bill from passing; Burns let the measure become law without signing it.)