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Thursday, May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 6:55 PM :: 4011 Views

Energy: Banking on Wind and Solar Keeps Hawaii Dependent on Oil

Act 48: Enviro Disputes Go Directly to Supreme Court

Open letter to Greenpeace: Jones Act Behind Lower Environmental Standards in US

Lockheed under Navy scrutiny for troubled Littoral Combat Ship program

After 50 Years of Empty Promises, Democrats Finally Let a Few Filipino WW2 Vets Bring Family into USA

Marijuana Legalization and State Taxes

Police chief's newly-hired defense attorney Finally admits there is an investigation: 'We expect indictment'

HNN: Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his wife, deputy city Prosecutor Katherine Kealoha, have hired a prominent criminal defense attorney to represent them in the potential federal criminal case against them.

In an interview Wednesday with Hawaii News Now, attorney Myles Breiner said he and the Kealohas expect there will be a grand jury indictment in the case.

(B-b-b-but how can there be an indictment if there isn’t an investigation?)

Since the federal probe was launched more than a year ago, there have been growing calls for the police chief to step down or place himself on leave.

The Honolulu Police Commission has said, however, that it cannot act "on rumors." The commission has the power to hire and fire the chief of police.

On Wednesday, police Commission Chairman Ron Taketa expressed surprise at Breiner's statements.

"This is brand new information to the commission," he said, in an emailed statement to Hawaii News Now. "We will have to get together with the commissioners and meet with the chief before making any decision or comment. The commission has the ability to take necessary and appropriate action.”  (Ooooops!)

read … Indictment

Embattled local IBEW leader rescinds retirement

SA: Two days after announcing his retirement, Brian Ahakuelo, the embattled leader of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1260, said today that he has rescinded his 30-day notice of retirement.

Ahakuelo, who made his latest announcement during an impromptu morning news conference at a Kakaako park, said he also will run for vice president of the ninth district of the international union…. (blablabla)

In recent years Ahakuelo was criticized by subordinates for his spending of union dues, including the hiring of four immediate family members.

Ahakuelo earned $201,712 in 2015, while his wife, Marilyn, director of community services for Local 1260, was paid $105,119, according to the union’s most recent financial report filed with the U.S.Department of Labor. Their son, Brandon, the union’s chief of staff, received $143,274, while daughter-in-law Neiani, executive assistant, earned $77,656. Ahakuelo’s sister-in-law, JenniferEstencion, senior executive assistant, had a salary of $101,855, the filing shows.

The international union said it placed Local 1260 in trusteeship “in order to investigate and correct financial issues that have arisen in the local.”

SA: $600K/year -- It’s all in the family for IBEW local

read … Rescind?

Hawaii AG Investigated Auditor’s Office Before Recent Shakeup

CB: Hawaii Senate President Ron Kouchi has a confidential report in his possession that involves possible wrongdoing in the state Auditor’s Office.

The report is the result of a Hawaii Attorney General’s Office investigation. Details about the allegations and findings are scarce.

Kouchi has refused to discuss the report, and he also denied a Civil Beat request to review the documents.

“I have asked the attorney general for written instructions as to how it will be available and to whom,” Kouchi said. “There is some concern that it is a personnel matter and there are confidentiality issues regarding the individuals.”

Civil Beat filed a public records request with the Attorney General’s Office to obtain a copy of the report.

On Wednesday, officials from the AG’s Office denied the request, saying that the individuals involved with the investigation have a “significant privacy interest.” The documents, they said, must also remain confidential to “avoid the frustration of a legitimate government function.”

read … Investigated

Chun-Oakland Chased out of Senate by Lobbying Laws

SA: …Better known as “Susie,” Chun Oakland served for 26 years in the House and Senate…. (insert fatuous praise here) … deep affection for Chun Oakland (D, Downtown-Nuuanu-Liliha), among social services advocates never translated into vast political power. Chun Oakland remained for many years as chairwoman of the Human Services committee, a position regarded as one of the lower-level slots in House and Senate leadership. Decisions by Human Services committee chairpersons carry some weight, but are subject to regular second-guessing by more powerful members of the Legislature.

Chun Oakland, 54, said she is “proud and satisfied” ….

She said recent interpretations of state ethics law and legislative policies have now evolved to a point where laypersons who volunteer with organizations such as the Keiki Caucus or the Kupuna Caucus, which were established to promote issues important to children and the elderly, are now considered “lobbyists.”

“I don’t think that was ever the intent of the Legislature in passage of ethics reforms back in the 1990s,” she said. “Why would we do that?

“I think that needs to be changed, and until that’s changed, I feel I can’t do what I’ve done all these years,” she said. “It’s interfering with the goal that I hope every elected official has, which is to make sure their constituents know it is their Legislature, it is their legislative process. They should be able to spend this kind of time with some of the mechanisms we’ve created to foster community involvement” without being penalized….

read … Chun Oakland will not return to Senate

Judge allows workplace case against Duckworth to go to trial

SA: An Illinois judge tentatively set a trial date well before the November general election in a 7-year-old workplace retaliation lawsuit accusing Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth of ethics violations while she led the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.

Union County Judge David Boie rejected an effort by government lawyers to dismiss the lawsuit today, allowing the case to go to trial in August and remain a campaign issue for Duckworth. The Illinois congresswoman is trying to oust Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk in November…..

read … Trial

Kauai GE Tax Hike opposition rises

KGI: After two hours of discussion during committee Wednesday, Kauai council members voted 4-3 to recommend killing a proposed bill that would increase the General Excise Tax.

Citing potential impact on low-income families, the administration’s ability to follow through with projects and other solutions, councilmen Gary Hooser, Ross Kagawa, Mel Rapozo, council chair, and KipuKai Kuali’i voted to kill the bill.

“The GET is an especially onerous tax, and I cannot and will not support it,” Hooser said.

The tax increase should only be used as a last resort, Kuali’i added.

“The GET is a regressive tax that will hit our struggling families the most,” he said.”It should never happen.” ….

read … GE Tax Hike

Greenmail: OHA Gaining More Control Over Geothermal Royalties

WHT: Native Hawaiian activists drew closer to their goal of barring further geothermal development on Hualalai, (unless they get paid off) following a hearing Wednesday in the Environmental Court.

The case went to court after the University of Hawaii initiated studies for a potential geothermal site. That plan fell through due to funding and staff shortages, and the university requested that the permits it was granted be rescinded.

The Board of Land and Natural Resources complied with the request, and the university then filed to have the case dismissed as it was no longer pursuing geothermal studies.

The lawsuit by Native Hawaiian groups and residents on the slopes of the mountain has been ongoing, with the opponents of the exploration claiming the state needed to conduct an environmental assessment before it approved the now rescinded permits….

(Or just pay us.)

read … Money Grab

Geothermal to Solar Scammers: You Cut us, we cut your Battery Subsidies

SA: Senate Bill 2738 proposed an tax-credit program to drive the development of the solar battery- storage industry….

The other sacrificed measure, House Bill 2291, sought to clarify that the aim of the state’s energy program — a goal that’s adopted as state law — is for 100 percent of Hawaii’s electric power from renewable sources by 2045. The current law still allows for some fossil fuel use by 2045….

…The problem arose over SB 2535, which would have removed any county constraints barring nighttime drilling of Hawaii island’s geothermal wells, by making all geothermal energy regulation a state concern.

Rep. Chris Lee, the House energy chairman, said he decided to keep the bill alive as a kind of threat — the Senate version could have prevailed, ending home rule — forcing both sides to come to terms. But, Lee added, he could not support stripping away home rule on the issue, so he removed all content from the House draft of the measure before sending it on.

That was an odd gambit, but the response by Sen. Lorraine Inouye — walking away from the three bills as deadline loomed — seemed even more pointless.

In an email response to questions this week, Inouye (D, Waikoloa-Waimea-North Hilo) said Lee should have moved a draft with House revisions instead of blanking it out, adding that there was support from the community as well as votes in the Capitol chambers to pass it….

read … Infighting

Hawaii Lawmakers To Obama: Don’t Grow Marine Monument for OHA

CB: Amid the flurry of final votes on hundreds of bills last week, Hawaii lawmakers privately weighed whether to sign a letter to President Obama that Rep. James Tokioka was circulating during the last few days of the legislative session.

The letter called on the president not to consider expanding the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, stating that “there is no scientific justification or conservation benefit in doing so.”

In all, 30 House lawmakers, including Speaker Joe Souki, signed the May 3 letter. Just days earlier, Hawaii Senate President Ron Kouchi sent Obama a nearly identical one….

(In addition to growing the monument’s area, OHA would gain partial control.)

read …. Save our Local Food Fisheries

Kauai Activists Discuss Illegal Action Against Dairy Farm

KE: …Portland activist Paul Cienfuegos is on Kauai, touting an admittedly illegal ordinance that would allow the county to “expel any corporation that threatens the health and safety of the community.”

By which is meant any industry they don't like — anti-ag activists Bridget Hammerquist and Gary Hooser joined Cienguegos — but not those providing conveniences they do like, such as gasoline, electricity and airport trips from Portland.

Cienguegos is a member of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which uses a strategy similar to the one employed by the anti-GMO movement: target small, easily manipulated, rural communities and dufus politicians and enlist them as pawns in a national political strategy:

We are not a typical environmental organization. We assist communities to develop first-in-the-nation, groundbreaking laws to protect rights – including worker, environmental, and democratic rights, and rights of nature. CELDF provides free and low cost legal services, grassroots organizing, and education, to communities, states, and countries facing injustice.

It's exactly what Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice did with the anti-GMO bills. While these strategies benefit the "nonprofit" groups that push them, both in legal fees and fundraising tools, they also cost taxpayers big money and create significant community polarization.

We see Hawaii Center for Food Safety director Ashley Lukens trot out that same “injustice” claim in an article on pesticides published in this month's Hawaii Business magazine.

The story ends with Ashley saying Malia Chun's undocumented claim that seed crop pesticides gave her asthma “illustrates the class issue raised by pesticide exposure in Hawaii. It's significant, Lukens notes, that it's been places like rural Kauai where the debate has been focused, and where pesticides continue to be prevalent even after apparent exposure at local schools.”

Uh, the debate has been focused on Kauai because that's where CFS and Earthjustice found a chump politicians (Hooser and Bynum) willing to carry their flag and an anti-GMO group willing to stir up fears in the populace and a bunch of newbies willing to jump on the bandwagon so they could feel like they belong on the island.

Meanwhile, state tests found the highest level of pesticides in streams on urban Oahu, in upscale Manoa, not rural farm communities.

But hey, since when have the facts, or logic, ever had anything to do with what is at heart a blatant attempt by non-Hawaii folks to wrest political control of the Islands — at any cost?

read … Musings: Here and There

TMT: Embracing A Future Not Defined By Our Past

CB: The Thirty Meter Telescope’s commitment to future generations in our islands includes STEM scholarships and other college grants for Hawaii students….

read … Future?

Worthless Hawaii Co Council considers extending term limits to 10 years so they can get lifetime Pensions

HTH: What started as a bill to increase County Council terms from two years to four has morphed through a series of compromises into a bill adding one more two-year term, so council members would be eligible to serve 10 consecutive years before being term-limited. 

(CLUE: After 10 years, elected officials get lifetime pension.)

The compromise measure, Bill 154, faces its second of three required hearings on Tuesday when the council meets at 9 a.m. in Hilo. The public can testify there, or by videoconference from the West Hawaii Civic Center, Waimea council office, Kamehameha Park conference room, Naalehu state office building or the Pahoa neighborhood facility.

Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille, the sponsor of the measure, had advocated four-year terms so council members would have more time to work on long-term projects, knowing they would be there to see the project to completion. Her original bill asked for three consecutive four-year terms….

If the bill passes, it would place the question on the ballot, allowing voters to decide in the Nov. 8 general election. If successful there, the county charter would be changed, taking effect with the council members elected in the 2016 election….

read … Lifetime Pension After 10 years for Elected Officials

Report: Honolulu's middle class has grown since 2000, bucking national trend

HNN: The share of Urban Honolulu adults who live in middle- and upper-income households increased from 2000 to 2014, according to a new Pew Research Center report.

Some 63 percent of Urban Honolulu residents were considered middle class in 2014, one of the highest percentages among 229 metropolitan areas nationwide.

The report said that 15 percent of Urban Honolulu residents were upper income.

Those figures are up from 59 percent of middle-income earners and 13 percent of upper-income residents in 2000.

Meanwhile, the share of lower-income earners declined over the period, from 28 percent in 2000 to 22 percent 14 years later.

The trends in Urban Honolulu go against what’s being seen nationally, according to the Pew Research Center report.

But the results of the report aren't likely to bring comfort to Hawaii residents, about half of whom live paycheck to paycheck….

PEW: America’s Shrinking Middle Class

read … Middle

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