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Wednesday, May 29, 2013
May 29, 2013 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 6:32 PM :: 5061 Views

Hawaii TEA Party Groups Sue IRS

Group Organizes to Save Jefferson School

Governor Sees Council on Revenues Forecast as Sign of Strong Economy

UH president sheds light on governor's interference

Shapiro: Greenwood told Joaquin that Abercrombie pressed her in several communications to reinstate Dono­van, despite the loss of $200,000 in the botched concert and other serious problems in the athletic department.

"I told him that was going to be difficult to do because we were beginning to feel we needed to do a far more thorough investigation of the whole athletics department," Greenwood said.

She said Abercrombie made clear that Dono­van had "friends in high places," especially in the Legislature, and that failure to comply would come "at some considerable risks to the university."

Greenwood provided a voice mail in which Abercrombie said, "M.R.C., it's the governor calling. I realize that the suggestions I made before were not carried through on, and that of course is your business and Tom Apple's business. I can assure you if this is not resolved on Wednesday, by Thursday, you're going to be in the thick of a Senate investigation and all that it entails."

A Kim-led Senate investigation did ensue, subjecting Greenwood and UH regents to unusual hostility while Dono­van and arena manager Rich Sheriff — the employees most directly responsible for the concert mess — got kid gloves....

Whatever the problems at UH during Greenwood's tenure, she deserves credit for having the guts to stand up to political bullying that threatened UH's integrity.

Her principled stand will likely go for naught; one of the first things regents did in searching for her successor was to meet secretly with Abercrombie, tainting the process with political interference from the start.

read ... UH president sheds light on governor's interference

Hee's Sandwich Isles Scam: $25M/Year from Taxpayers

CB: The FCC’s new regulations cap the subsidy for companies like Sandwich Isles at $250 per line per month. But Sandwich Isles has been receiving more than $800 per line per month, according to FCC documents. In rural Hawaii, the cost of phone service has been about 100 times higher than the average for rural telephone service on the mainland.

Sandwich Isles has received about $25 million a year from the ratepayer fund for the past three years, according to FCC filings. Mark Wigfield, a FCC spokesman, said he didn't immediately know the full amount paid to Sandwich Isles over the years.

read ... Hee's Scam

Star-Adv: Senate must oversee DHHL Since DoI won't

SA: In the absence of action by the U.S. Interior Department, a state Senate committee has assumed oversight of the highly criticized Department of Hawaii Home Lands, a challenging task that should not be taken lightly.

(The DoI hasn't had any responsibility for DHHL in decades, these Star-Adv geniuses are still caught up in Robin Danner's little world.)

Abercrombie has notified the Hawaiian Homes Commission that his task force includes the attorney general, state finance director and Department of Land and Natural Resources chairman. But it excludes any beneficiaries, those who are at least 50 percent Native Hawaiian, an unacceptable rejection. The DHHL commissioners went into a closed session for more than two hours in a meeting last week to discuss the governor's task force.

(All Danner talking points.)

In a private meeting at the White House early this month, Robin Danner, president of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, said she asked President Barack Obama to authorize the Interior Department to start a process of governing over the roughly 200,000-acre trust to provide homestead lots to eligible Native Hawaiians. If nothing else, federal pressure could be helpful to push improvements along.  (Finally they mention Danner.)

In practicality, however, oversight of DHHL must come, at least, from the state Senate committee. It should include on-site observations by committee staffers of DHHL's activities toward addressing the problems that have persisted for far too long.

read ... Senate must oversee DHHL

Game-Changer on State Health Benefits Could Spur Higher Taxes

CB: After racking up a $16-billion tab and alarming creditors, Hawaii is finally getting serious about fundamentally transforming the way it finances the post-employment benefits of thousands of public workers.

But county leaders argue that the new legislation will tie their hands in budget decisions and will likely lead to higher property taxes.

Rep. Marcus Oshiro, one of the bill’s sponsors, told Civil Beat that the Legislature’s approval of House Bill 546 in early May is a complete “game-changer.”

It forces the state and all four counties — which owe roughly $3 billion of the total unfunded liability — to pay their full contributions to the Employer-Union Trust Fund....

Related: Creative Insolvency: EUTF to Enter ‘Shadow Insurance Industry’?

read ... Game-Changer on State Health Benefits Could Spur Higher Taxes

UH spends $1 million a year renting space that's 30% empty

HNN: The University of Hawaii is continuing to pay $1 million a year in rent for office space that's nearly one third empty just two blocks away from its new Cancer Center, which is about 25 percent unfilled.

For the last several years, UH has paid about $1 million annually renting offices at 677 Ala Moana Boulevard, known as the Gold Bond building, where the Cancer Center has occupied most of that rental space.

But when the new $104 million UH Cancer Center was completed two blocks away late last year, center staffers began moving out of the Gold Bond building. So now about 30 percent of UH's rented space in the Gold Bond building is empty, UH officials said.

read ... UH 30% empty

Slom Defends Mercado Kim vs Greenwood, House GOP

HR: State Senate Minority Leader Sam Slom is the only Republican member of the 25-member Senate and his own party never consulted him or did any due diligence before sending out the release on Greenwood.

“I am troubled and saddened that the Hawaii Republican Party, without reasonable discussion before hand, would take such a position, siding with UH President MRC Greenwood's unfounded allegations against Senate President Donna Mercado Kim. The Party apparently acted in a narrow vacuum without any observable research. Kim rebutted the Greenwood allegations, and the facts do speak for themselves,” Slom said.

“Since I am the only Republican in the Senate, and a veteran of several Senate Investigations, including the Greenwood-Stevie Wonder Blunder Concert in 2012, it is odd that the Party, which was ‘deeply concerned,’ never thought of contacting me or others for the facts behind these allegations or additional information."

“Further, the Party, blithely skipped over the genuine ethical challenges that Greenwood has faced, including being fired from the University of California system for special treatment for her son there, which was well documented before arriving at the University of Hawaii."

“The 2012 hearings subsequently uncovered serious Greenwood alleged ethical lapses involving fiscal decisions, procurement and personnel at Manoa,” Slom maintained.

He said a “cynical person” might suggest the current action could be viewed as pay back for Kim's previous investigation of the Hydrogen Fund, headed by then Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism Department Director, now GOP National Committeeman, Ted Liu, or Kim's several past skirmishes with Republican Governor Linda Lingle.

Background: Mercado Kim Threatens Investigation Because Son not Admitted to Richardson Law School

Statement:  GOP: Investigate Donna Mercado Kim

read ...  Party Unity

Ritte Gloms on to Campaign Against Phased Archaeological Studies

KITV:  “We're going to try and get a repeal,” Ritte told reporters, after stepping outside the governor’s office. “It might be legal actions (or) whatever it's going to take to protect our historic sites, to protect our cultural heritage and to protect our iwi kupuna and the dignity that they deserve.”

Ritte and his entourage delivered a petition to the governor’s office Tuesday morning, demanding lawmakers take another look at SB 1171, which Gov. Neil Abercrombie quietly signed into law last Tuesday. The bill allows private and public developers to map out native Hawaiian burials in phases, even as a construction project breaks ground. However, developers must receive prior “phasing” approval from the State Historic Preservation Division under the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

read ... There must be money in this somewhere

Anti-Superferry Protester Gets $250 fines, May Get Fake Badge Back

KGI: Private attorney Daniel Hempey represented Gonsalves in the first case, where he was arrested for using his truck to block a road in the area of the Superferry protest in July 2007. He pleaded not guilty and was arrested again in October 2007 after presenting his federal marshal badge for the Kingdom of Atooi at a county meeting related to a proposed development on burial grounds.  (Yes, when the enlightened, conscious and progressive elite go to court, they are entitled to string it out for 6 years with spurious arguments.)

Court-appointed attorney Scott Kessinger represented Gonsalves in the second case involving an amended charge of unauthorized removal, displacement or disposal of up to 10 yards of rocks from Hawaiian Homelands.

Gonsalves was arrested July 1, 2011, on a complaint dating back to 2008 when he allegedly removed rocks that were the property of the Department of Hawaiian Homelands. He argued that the rocks are “poison aina,” or toxic waste that presents a danger to the area...his to steal at will....

Gonsalves resolved the cases with a no-contest plea....

The Kauai Garden Isle article actually contains the following idiotic and false sentence: "The United Nations now recognizes Atooi as an indigenous, sovereign nation with its own currency as part of the T-MAK Polynesian nations." 

There is no T-MAK.  Oh, and the thief may get his fake federal marshall's badge back ....

read ... Anti-Superferry Protester

Gay Thief Appoints Caldwell Grand Marshall

PR: “Our grand marshals have been an integral part of our success, they provide guidance and give us strength in our struggle to full equality,” Convicted thief, Michael 'Bitchbear' Golojuch. Jr., chairman of Honolulu Pride, said in a statement. “To say that we are grateful for everything that each of the Grand Marshals have done and continues to do, would be an understatement.”

All of the grand marshals are:

>> Odyssey Magazine (Business Grand Marshal)
>> Freddie Jordan (Individual Grand Marshal)
>> Sandy Farmer-Wiley (Individual Grand Marshal)
>> Trans-Spectrum (Organization Grand Marshal)
>> Mayor Kirk Caldwell (Ally Grand Marshal)

read ... Trans Spectrum

Teacher Rejected by Neighborhood Board

CB: The next morning, I thought that maybe I had made some misstep of which I was not aware in my approach. I wrote an email politely extending an olive branch and asking his advice on how I should go about things in the future in order to assuage whatever sensibilities I might have offended.

He wrote me back chastising me for showing up on the wrong night, stating that he was blocking my email, and telling me not to contact him again. He reiterated that he was the chairman, and he sets the agenda.

read ... Neighborhood Board

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