Honolulu Muslim Leader Accuses Radical Muslim of Two Local Attacks
Hawaii ranks 40th for Economic Outlook
UHERO County Forecast: Growth Accelerates Statewide
Report: Espero Expects to Announce Congressional Candidacy
House GOP Cites ‘Significant Progress for Hawaii’s People’
Shawn Tsuha Nominated Deputy Director, Department of Public Safety
UHERO: Does Abortion Pill Reduce Surgical Abortion?
Hawaii Family Advocates Reviews 2013 Legislative Action
Calvin Say to Run for Governor?
Borreca: During the 2013 session, Souki solidified his control of the House Democrats. In an interview this week, Souki said he now has the support of 30 out of the 44 House Democrats. At the same time, he plans to keep together the coalition with the seven House Republicans that initially gave him the majority vote over Say.
"I think the big battle is over," said Souki.
And the Republicans are also in the mix for next year, at least.
"We made it very clear we will not change, even though we have more Democrats," Souki promised....
The fourth floor of the state Capitol holds the offices of Souki, Say, GOP leader Aaron Ling Johanson and Democrat leader Scott Saiki. Toss in the third-floor office of Finance Committee chairwoman, Rep. Sylvia Luke, and you basically have a map of the entire state House power structure....
...Say disclosed that he was approached about running for governor against incumbent Democrat Neil Abercrombie.
"About three or four weeks ago, people were asking me to run for governor. I said ‘I respect the governor,'" Say said.
But, he added, he is mulling over an exploratory committee to run for lieutenant governor.
The idea, Say said, would be that he would then run for governor at the end of Abercrombie's term.
"I think I have good support with many of the old-time neighbor island legislators," Say said, adding that he thought his old political alliances would be helpful.
read ... Calvin Say for Governor?
Developers Meet to Cut Up Kakaako
PBN: Brewbaker, led off the event with the provocative question: Will Oahu have enough condos/housing for its future projected population?
This question is usually on the opposite end of the spectrum, with most asking if there will actually be enough people to absorb all of these units, especially in Kakaako with more than 4,000 planned units. He says that one of the main reasons that there will be enough housing is the fact that inventory levels, which are currently at two months in some areas, are as low as they’ve ever been.
“Developers are going to want to drop their projects now,” Brewbaker said.
He pointed out that it’s sort of like a race out there and developers shouldn’t wait or they’ll be last to the table.
Carr also says that government can help by facilitating the certainty of entitlements.
“That uncertainty causes risk management,” he said.
Ching, who sits in the regulatory chair for the HCDA, says that from his perspective, the state agency is trying as hard as it can in this critical area...
“Urban-core living leads to a reduction in traffic, which leads to better overall quality of life for everyone on Oahu,” Kay said....
Finally, White pointed out that stakeholders have to tell the story of how housing improves the quality of lives.
“Two-thirds of Oahu residents support some type of growth,” he said. “[But] too many do not feel like they will benefit from the housing and growth [and] too many won’t be able to afford [it].”
White noted that there are about 340,000 homes on the ground today and that Oahu needs to add 33 percent more homes to meet future demands.
SA: Our View: Go carefully on Blaisdell redo
DN: Glut of condo units will impact traffic in Honolulu unless stopped
PBN: Connect the dots to see what Oahu’s future could look like
CB: Caldwell and Grabauskas Talk Honolulu Rail on HPR
read ... What's Coming
Council Agenda: Restore Bus Service or Fund Profitable Nonprofits?
CB: One of the biggest gripes the Honolulu City Council has about MayorKirk Caldwell’s operating budget was that it didn’t do enough to restore bus service.
While he included an extra $3.5 million in his budget for this endeavor, some council members thought that was short of the full restoration he promised during his 2012 campaign.
Now Honolulu City Councilman Breene Harimoto is picking up where Caldwell left off with a new proposal that he says will virtually eliminate the bus service cuts that were made in the twilight of the Carlisle administration.
But as with any budgetary maneuver there’s a tradeoff.
Harimoto’s proposal snips most of the $10 million in earmarks his colleagues have inserted into the budget for nonprofits and other groups...
HNN: Residents question wheelchair ramp work without a sidewalk
read ... Slush Fund
Matayoshi Claims 'Transformation of Education' Taking Place
PBN: From implementing the latest technologies and embedding sustainability lessons into today’s classrooms, Hawaii schools are evolving as part of the “transformation of education.”...
“We were the only state that showed an increase in both math and English/Language Arts. It’s not where we want to be, so we’re not done, but it is showing system movement,” she said. “It’s not easy to get every grade in both tested subjects to move up; the needle is moving.”...
And, this April, the ACT College and Career Readiness test was administered to about 50,000 students spanning 8th through 11th grade. That means the state Department of Education will be able to start collecting and examining college prep data in reading, mathematics, science and English.
“It’ll be our first statewide assessment of using the ACT,” she said.
(Translation: This is all about swapping tests until something looks a little better.)
read ... ‘Transformation of education’
100% On-Line Election Generates Lowest Turnout of All
PR: The city has released the results of Oahu's neighborhood board elections.
The voting took place over the telephone and Internet from April 26 to May 17. The city put voter turnout at 8.61 percent, or 15,318 ballots cast.
read ... 100% on-line Election
House Candidate Admits to Running Ponzi Scheme
SA: Pascua admitted that he persuaded friends and family members to invest $1.4 million in the phony company by promising his victims returns of 25 to 50 percent.
The government said Pascua collected $1,430,100 from 2009 to October 2012. Instead of investing the money in his company, J2 Marketing Solutions, Pascua used the cash from new "investors" to pay earlier investors to create the illusion of investment returns. He also used some of it to pay his expenses.
Pascua unsuccessfully challenged state Rep. Ken Ito for the 48th District seat (Heeia-Kaneohe) in the 2010 Democratic primary. He is also an Army reservist and a former president and director of the Filipino Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii....
Two other people have lawsuits pending against Pascua and J2 Marketing Solutions in state courts....
read ... Qualified to Serve in Legislature
Housing First to Shelter 800
Q: In what other places has this worked?
A: When we looked through — I have a bunch of studies and plans — across the nation, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Merced County, King County in Washington state, New York, Vermont is doing it, Massachusetts, we looked a bunch of different ways. Part of some of their plans was to do it in kind of a dispersed setting, not in just one project. ...
Actually, our homeless service providers are doing it here right now; they started doing it even before the city started talking about it.
Q: The Institute for Human Services does something like this, right?
A: And U.S. VETS. When I asked (its executive director) Darryl Vincent about it, he said, "What we do is we use Craigslist sometimes, and just kind of call the landlord and say, 'Hey, this is who we are, and we've been working with the homeless for a long time, and we have a couple of people who are ready to move in. We've worked with them, and they're ready now.' And some people are going to say no, but then some people are going to say, 'Hey, I need the extra income, so let me see that person."
What Darryl does is work with the person, cleans them up and brings them over, and they interview, and they'll get the lease. Now when they get the lease, this is an understanding between the organization and the landlord that if anything really bad happens —
Q: The organization will back the landlord up?
A: Absolutely. Now, they're still working on it, and they have good relationships with the community in Waianae, where they're doing it, and it's working out....
The way that it's written out is eight years out. Within those eight years we're going to be able to house 500 to almost 600 chronically homeless people from the street.... It's ramping up, so the first two years it's going to be up to 100 people. And the years following we're adding about 100 a year....
We have people on the street. People weren't on the street in the '70s. Well, this is a different type of homeless people from in the '60s and '70s — people who just decided that they just wanted to be a little bit different.
And then toward the early '80s, government decided to change the way it dealt with mental health. And that's where most of our homeless first began — and the homeless crisis first began.
read ... Jun Yang
5 more come forward alleging abuse by Homosexual priests
KHON: Five more people have joined in a lawsuit saying they were sexually abused by priests in the local Catholic church.
The suit now includes 11 alleged victims claiming sex abuse as far back as the 1940s.
One of the most recent plaintiffs is a Hawaii Island man who says he was abused by three priests nearly 50 years ago.
DN: Sexual abuse victims to receive $16.5 million settlement from Irish Christian Brothers
read ... Under a Law Specifically Protecting the State from Similar Suits
State Senate Airs Frustration Over Home Lands Audit
CB: Committee Chairman Brickwood Galuteria said the Legislature wants to be convinced that DHHL has begun to correct problems found in the audit — that “today we start recalibrating DHHL’s loan program.”
Sen. Clayton Hee took issue with what he described as the audit’s underlying determination that beneficiaries with delinquent leases be evicted — “taking a Hawaiian away from the land.” Noting the Legislature’s recent efforts to push loan mitigation, Hee argued that homesteaders deserve similar help.
DHHL Director Jobie Masagatani said she agreed loan mitigation is “the way to go” and said that the department is implementing steps to address the audit’s findings.
Galuteria said he looked forward to DHHL’s report back on progress later this year.
SA: Critics doubtful of DHHL promises
read … No Discussion of Federalization?
Filthy Biofuels, biomass dominate Hawaii Clean Energy Leader list
PBN: Biofuels and biomass projects dominate the latest Hawaii Clean Energy Leader list, which ranks the top planned developments that are demonstrating progress in becoming commercial enterprises that have the potential in helping the state reach its goals.
The list, which is updated quarterly, is topped by the state Department of Transportation and Hawaiian Electric Co.’s 8-megawatt Honolulu Emergency Power Biofuels Facility.
Second on the list is Honua Technologies’ waste-to-energy 6.6-megawatt Honua Power Project on Oahu.
Green Energy Team LLC’s 6.7-megawatt Green Energy Agricultural Biomass-to-Energy Facility on Kauai, Hunt Development and Scatec’s 5-megawatt Kalaeloa Renewable Energy Park and Hu Honua Bioenergy LLC’s 21.5-megawatt Hu Honua Bioenergy Facility on the Big Island, round out the top five.
LINK: Hawaii's Clean Energy Leaders
read … Chop down trees and burn them, its green energy
38 Hawaii plants, snails gain federal protection
HNN: The Center for Biological Diversity says Friday's action by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the result of a 2011 settlement, which expedites protection decisions for hundreds of the most threatened species around the country.
For some of the plants, only a few remain. The three mollusks protected are two species of Lanai tree snail and Newcomb's tree snail.
The species are threatened by nonnative species such as feral pigs, goats, rats and axis deer.
read ... And how many are endangered by biomass harvesting?
How Board and Care Home Operators Killed Transparency
CB: Pressing yellow Post-it notes on their shirts, roughly a dozen middle-aged women found seats in a conference room at the state Capitol Building just a few days before the legislative session ended. (And they matter because they 'vote' their patients.)
Handwritten on the little pieces of paper was a simple, direct message to the lawmakers sitting at a table across from them: “Kill HB120!”
It was an 11th-hour rally among adult care home operators to defeat legislation that will require the Department of Health starting Jan. 1, 2015, to post online the annual inspection reports of the state-licensed facilities they run.
The powerful lobbying group failed that late-April afternoon to convince lawmakers to shelve House Bill 120, marking the end to a years-long battle to boost public access to inspection reports. Key compromises kept the legislation alive along with supporters going to great lengths to make their voices heard over the industry.
With the Legislature's passage of the bill last month, Hawaii is on track to join 27 other states that place annual inspections of all long-term care facilities on their respective websites, state long-term care ombudsman John McDermott said.
“The passage of HB 120 is very significant — maybe more so than most people are aware,” he said. “The result of this legislation will be that the public will find the good facilities and keep their beds full and the homes providing poor care will now have a choice to make — do a better job or go into another line of business.”
The reports contain the violation histories of almost 2,000 long-term care facilities in Hawaii. The records are already public, but to view them the department currently requires a formal request in writing.
The process can take up to 15 days and the department charges for the time it takes to gather the records, redact names and make copies.
read ... Board and Care Secrecy
Gays Still Frustrated by Inability to Penetrate Boy Scouts
SA: Convicted thief, Michael 'Bitchbear' Golojuch, Jr chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii's GLBT caucus and of the Honolulu Pride Parade, said he found the Scouts' action lacking because there is still a ban on adult Scout leaders who are openly gay.
"It's divisive, it's discrimination, it's cold-hearted," Golojuch said.
Golojuch said the initiative sends a conflicting message to gay Scouts once they become adults and lose the opportunity to work within the Boy Scouts community.
read ... Still Frustrated
QUICK HITS:
Alleged Fraudsters Were not Sovereignty Activists, So they Get Busted
Kym Pine Outlines Dist 1 Budget Benefits
Allegiant Air re-calibrates Hawaii as its expectations in trans-Pacific markets are tempered
Hawaii woman sues Salvation Army, claims 1950s sex abuse
Census Figures Show Hawaii Population Growth Holding Steady
Pacific Army head calls for Stryker Brigade review
State unveils plan for a healthier Hawaii
Parents of soldier gunned down speak out
Marijuana is drug most often linked to crime, study finds
Eminent Domain And Condemnation Law Conference (Honolulu, Aug. 21, 2013)
NDAA Packs $400M of Pork for Hawaii
Hawaii interisland cargo volume dips
Young Children Who Miss Well-Child Visits are More Likely to be Hospitalized
Ulupalakua’s fate tied to renewables
Is A&B interested in Kaneohe Ranch?
History of Hawaii State Library
Hanabusa Tells Health Industry Group She’ll Oppose Medicare Cuts
'Flying tree snake' found at Hickam