Gut-n-Replace 2019
Tulsi Gabbard Campaign Funded by Putin Apologists
Bill to cut pensions for convicted government employees stalled for years
WHT: … Lawmakers failed this session to pass legislation that would strip state or county employees of retirement benefits if convicted of a felony.
Sen. Breene Harimoto, D-Pearl City, Aiea, Lower Halawa, Pearl Harbor, presented Senate Bill 496, which he said didn’t even get a hearing. The senator has presented the same legislation for at least three years without success.
Two retired Hawaii County police officers are indicted on criminal charges, one facing felony offenses, but they aren’t in jeopardy of losing their pensions because laws in place allow officers convicted of a crime to retain their nest eggs.
“If you commit a felony related to your job, why would you be able to collect your pension?” Harimoto asked….
Hawaii County Police Chief Paul Ferreira said he wouldn’t oppose a measure that seeks to have retirement benefits forfeited if the crime committed is directly related to the individual’s official position and/or duties, so long as it applies to all employees and not just law enforcement.
“Laws are enacted to deter criminal behavior and therefore, a law such as the ones being proposed would accomplish the same purpose,” Ferreira said.
Sen. Les Ihara Jr., D-Kaimuki, Kapahulu, Palolo, St. Louis Heights, Maunalani Heights, Moiliili, Ala Wai, has been introducing measures related to forfeiture or reduction in benefits since 2006. Since 2007, he’s introduced 12 bills, none of which got a hearing.
“The premise is those who breach the public trust should be punished,” Ihara said of the bills….
SB496: Text, Status
read … Bill to cut pensions for convicted government employees stalled for years
Competitor Exploits ‘Public Trust Doctrine’ to Destroy Kauai Small Business
KGI: …Jim and Denise Satterfield can only watch as hundreds-of-thousands of gallons of drinking water flow down the hillside past their once-thriving water bottling business.
Kauai Springs, after a lengthy legal battle, recently shut down operations….
The Satterfields have been involved in a dispute with the Kauai County Planning Department over land-use permits to bottle water on a plot of land they have leased in Koloa for over a decade. Their battle with the planning commission began two years after the business was founded in 2004 and rose from county government offices to the highest court in the state.
Kauai Springs bottled its water by tapping an otherwise defunct gravity-fed private water system that once supplied the Koloa Sugar Plantation with 300,000 gallons of potable water a day….
“Our competition filed a complaint cause we had a better product, and we were out selling ‘em,” Jim Satterfield said….
the Satterfields took the fight to the Hawaii State Supreme Court. The dispute had become so convoluted and legally complex by that point that Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald, who authored the Supreme Court opinion, wrote that the case “requires us to further define the contours of the public trust doctrine with respect to water resources.”
The broadening statutory implications of the case did little to comfort the Satterfields. The Supreme Court sided with the appellate court, and the case was once again placed in the hands of the planning commission.
Meanwhile, operations at Kauai Springs had gone on largely uninterrupted. Business was good, all things considered. Jim Satterfield said at one point he had around a thousand regular customers, with hotels among his list of clientele.
For nearly five years following the state supreme court’s decision, the Satterfields battled the planning commission. Finally, a planning department hearing officer was assigned to the case, and following an investigation, recommended the commission grant the Satterfields their permits and allow Kauai Springs to operate.
Shortly thereafter, June 26, the commission overruled the hearing officer’s recommendation, in a unanimous 6-0 vote. The permits were denied.
“One of our major concerns here is public trust and how this has a potential impact upon present and future generations in the utilization of water and conservation of water, and how this has an impact upon the public trust responsibilities that we, here, have,” said Commission Vice Chair Glenda Nogami Streufert, as recorded in the meeting minutes. “So that was the primary thrust of our deliberations.”
Commissioner Kanoe Ahuna added that, “it was not only just the volume of water, like whether large or small, but the overall public trust of water rights and the public trust doctrine.”
Commissioner Kimo Keawe, later in that meeting, said, “The resources that we have — the land and the water — we need to make sure that the decisions that we make are not for a few; the decisions we make are for the public in general and to protect that trust that has been entrusted to us for future generations.”…
“We don’t have anything,” Denise Satterfield said earlier this month, while taking smoke break from cleaning out the building that had served as the Kauai Springs office and warehouse until a week before. “We lost our house.”
The Satterfields said they borrowed against their home mortgage to pay attorneys fees. The lawyers lost the case and the Satterfields lost their home. They now live in a studio apartment in Koloa and have no idea how to go about scraping together $10,000 to pay the planning commission’s fine….
Background:
read … Left high and dry in Koloa
Puana Says she wants to Testify
SA: … Puana told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Wednesday that she wants to testify in front of the jury.
“I want to stop all the lying that’s going on,” Puana said.
But her health could prevent her from taking the witness stand.
Puana recently underwent heart surgery, and as a precaution, federal prosecutors arranged last month to have her answer questions under oath. The court will play her videotaped deposition for the jury in the event she is unable to testify in person.
Her doctor on Thursday did not clear Puana to testify and prosecutors filed documents on Friday asking the court to declare her unavailable.
Puana said the decision on whether she will testify in the trial is ultimately up to her. …
read … “I want to stop all the lying that’s going on,” Puana said.
Ala Moana Home Invasion Suspect Once Scored $462K State Settlement
SA: Keoki Cabebe, 32, and Stacey Costales, 34, were arrested Thursday and charged Friday with first-degree robbery, resisting arrest and weapons charges….The trio, brandishing firearms, entered an Ala Moana home when four people were inside. They include two men, ages 73 and 54, and two women, ages 46 and 31. Police said the suspects struck one person and took several belongings from multiple people….Costales was initially arrested for driving without a license, accidents involving serious injury and contempt warrants, but was arrested Friday while incarcerated on the first-degree robbery and weapons offenses…. Costales, also known as Stacey Maae, has felony convictions including first-degree burglary and car theft in 2004, along with misdemeanor and petty misdemeanor convictions.
HNN: Suspect in fatal kidnapping got big settlement over sex assault at youth facility
Background:
read … Crime Pays
Hundreds of Mentally Ill Homeless may be forced into treatment
SA: … “Chinatown Homeless,” a five-part series by Honolulu Star-Advertiser writer Dan Nakaso, offered a sharp close-up focused on how the homeless survive on the streets. It’s a brutal existence, bristling with the hazards of urban crime and disease compounding the already grim conditions….
the density of Oahu’s homeless population ranks among the nation’s worst, and the census is declining at a barely perceptible rate…
The state Legislature has passed a bill, with needed funding for staffing, that clarifies the process of compelling a mentally ill patient to receive outpatient treatment — what’s known as “assisted community treatment.” This, said Lt. Gov. Josh Green, may improve the lives of 40-50 homeless people in Chinatown, and hundreds others throughout the state….
If River of Life does seal a deal with the city, its officials say, its Chinatown mission could be converted to a retail operation that could provide job training (thus scaring the homeless out of Chinatown)…
It’s an agonizingly slow process…..
Big Q: Overall, what’s your take on homelessness in Chinatown?
read … Apply More Force
Latest Excuse: Tent City Problems Caused by Release of Criminals
SA: … The work (of building gigantic festering homeless tent cities) is not a panacea. In Waimanalo, one individual fights violently with his family. Park leaders have called police, but he’s been released from jail within a few days each time. (otherwise this tent city would be utopia)
The publicized dog attack in Kakaako was the fault of someone who did not want to be part of the community-building effort (whatever that means), and moved back near the Discovery Center (which we promised to keep clear).
Camp leaders (tweekers) struggle with such situations (in between hits on the pipe), and institutions are often unable to help (its always someone else’s fault). Still, there’s a better chance of tackling these challenges with partners in a camp (WRONG)….
(Solution: Arrest the criminals. Apply more force to make these bums accept shelter.)
read … A bunch of excuses
Hawaii Jails Rough on Transsexual Criminals
SA: … overcrowding at MCCC has persisted for years, and there seems to be little urgency among political leaders to deal with what some corrections officers have described to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser as a crisis situation.
The facility was built in 1978 to hold just 209 inmates. As the inmate population grew, it was reconfigured to make room for 301 beds. In recent months, the headcount has reached as high as 500 inmates, according to Department of Public Safety figures. When the riot broke out in March, there were 410 inmates at the jail.
Current plans to expand the facility are insufficient to accommodate recent population levels and the extra housing isn’t supposed to be completed for another two years. A decade-old plan to rebuild the jail in Puunene may have new life, but officials with the Department of Public Safety couldn’t give a target date of when that might happen, and Maui County officials say they haven’t been briefed on the plan.
Meanwhile, corrections officers say conditions at the jail aren’t safe, especially with fewer personnel showing up to work after the riot.
As the MCCC population has grown over the years, one guard told the Star-Advertiser it’s harder to identify inmates who have behavioral problems or may pose a threat to others.
“You can’t point them out like you used to when there used to be 60 people in the module,” said the corrections officer, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by management. “I would know everybody’s name and their family, what they are here for, how long they would be here. But now you have 100 people and they rotate in and out. We don’t know who they are. We don’t know what happened to them. We don’t know their personalities.
“These guards are working 16 hour days. They’re tired,” he said. “The inmates are frustrated and we can’t single out a person having an emotional crisis compared to those who are outwardly violent to other inmates and staff.”
He said conditions are particularly dangerous for transgender inmates who are at high risk for being physically or sexually assaulted.
“We have no special holding for them, so they will be put into general population,” he said. “So now they are going to be a target.”…
read … Hawaii leaders have done little to fix overcrowding issues at jails
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