Heritage: Tulsi Gabbard Most Conservative, Schatz, Hirono are Zeroes
Lawsuit: Act 163 Discriminates Against Disabled Students
Hawaii Home Health Medicare Margins on Steep Decline
Census: Asians Fastest Growing Group in US
Deadline to apply for City grants next week
State Set to Lose $55M as Act 221 Scam Companies Implode
Borreca: To prime the pump, the state offers to help local firms with special purpose revenue bonds (SPRB) that allow a company to get financing through the low-cost state bond sales.
The plan, which must be approved by the Legislature, allows the state to lend its tax-free bond issuing power to the private corporation or organization so that the interest on what would otherwise be a private bond issue becomes free of income tax. The SPRB is the responsibility of the company getting the money and is essentially not a risk for the state.
One of the first high-tech SPRBs was for $10 million, given back in 2005 to Hoku Scientific, Inc. It built a facility in Kapolei to develop fuel cells....
Sopogy, another local high-tech company, also based in the solar industry and also the recipient of a SPRB. It received $10 million in 2007 and another $35 million in 2008.
Background: Act221 Finale: $400M Solar factory built with Hawaii Tax Dollars produces nothing, may be dismantled for scrap
read ... On the Hook for $55M
Rail Math Challenge: Plan to Boost Seats by running Half as Often Twice as Long (2/2=4?)
SA: Rail officials are considering doubling the capacity of Oahu's future passenger trains to accommodate more people per stop — but the proposal would also halve the number of trains planned for the line.
Such a move would have 20 four-car trains running along the 20-mile route from East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center, instead of the planned 40 two-car trains. Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation officials say the switch would likely improve overall customer service — even with slightly longer wait times — and save millions of dollars in project costs.
Grabauskas said the European operators told him passengers there get more frustrated by the trains being too small, overcrowded and difficult to board than they do by longer waits.
With 40 trains, rail commuters can expect to wait about three minutes in between, Grabauskas said. With 20 trains, that would likely become a wait of more than five minutes, he said. (Some math is too advanced for HART: With 20 trains 5% capacity is lost every time one of the Ansaldo cars breaks down. With 40 trains, 'only' 2.5% capacity is lost per breakdown.)
Rail officials here will now have to weigh whether Oahu passengers would tolerate waiting several more minutes "if you knew that you could more likely get a seat, more likely to have space for your luggage or your wheelchair or your stroller," Grabauskas said after the meeting. "That's the question." (Geniuses: Get more seats by running half as often but twice as long. 2/2=4 Duh!)
The savings would come from half of the 80 rail cars no longer requiring guidance systems, because under the new configuration two middle cars would basically serve as "wagons,"...
AnsaldoBreda, one of two firms that form Ansaldo Honolulu JV, is examining the potential cost savings. "Even in our initial conversations they realize that this could be a potential multimillion-dollar reduction in our contract...
Reality: After Deadly Train Wreck, DC Metro Dumps Honolulu Rail Contractor Ansaldo
read ... Making the numbers work
How Kenoi Steers Contracts to Contributors
HTH: A county project estimated to cost $50,000 ballooned to $146,913, leaving one would-be bidder crying foul.
The project, new air-conditioning systems for Department of Environmental Management and Information Technology offices at the Puainako shopping center in Hilo, went to the sole bidder, Hawaii Sheetmetal & Mechanical Inc., whose owner, Brian Ninomoto, contributed $500 to Mayor Billy Kenoi’s campaign....
A potential bidder, Rick Fuller of Pacific Air Supply Inc., said he didn’t bid on the project because he knew his firm couldn’t do it anywhere near the $50,000 estimate provided by a consulting engineer. He said several off-island contractors who also usually bid on projects declined to bid on this one because of the low estimate.
“Being a supplier for over 25 years in the HVAC business here in Hilo, this one beats all I have ever seen,” Fuller said in an April 12 email to DPW and Kenoi’s office. “I would expect as a taxpayer the mayor, Building Department (DPW Director) Warren Lee, and whoever is driving the project could have realized this project could not be done for the $50,000 estimate. Anyone that is doing their job either does not know what they are doing, or as one contractor said … ‘Someone has a friend.’”
DPW staff said the project was put to bid twice, with no response the first time and only the one bidder the second round.
The estimate was off, according to DPW’s response to Fuller’s email, because the consulting engineer estimated the project for equipment and materials only, and inadvertently neglected to add labor costs. Consultant Engineering Projects Inc. submitted a revised cost estimate of $191,766.40 on April 19, almost a month after Hawaii Sheetmetal’s bid was accepted....
Faced with a “use it or lose it” date of June 30 to commit money in the department budget or return it to the general fund, DPW staff opted to accept the sole bid.
read ... Making the Numbers Work
Outrigger CEO: In Hawaii, ‘it’s just hard to make the numbers work’
PBN: Outrigger’s decision to look for growth opportunities outside of Hawaii started, Carey said, when the company began to think about what the brand represented.
“We looked around, and the opportunities weren’t so good here,” Carey said. “The opportunities for our core brand in Hawaii have been few and far between because a lot of the properties have been only on the market at fairly hefty prices.”...
Outrigger still has 32 hotel, condo and time-share properties totaling about 6,000 hotel rooms and condo units on Oahu, and another 1,900 condo units on the Neighbor Islands. Outrigger holds about 20 percent of the hotel market in Oahu, where there are a total of about 30,000 hotel rooms....
Despite their dominance in the Hawaii market, Outrigger executives say they are finding it difficult to compete for additional local properties in the midmarket price range.
The company actually lost management of a property on the Big Island last year, when Kamehameha Schools decided to close and demolish the Outrigger-managed Keauhou Beach Resort.
“We haven’t had much luck in Hawaii [recently]. We know the territory very well, but we haven’t seen projects that meet investment criteria in the near term,” Carey said....
“We’d love to dramatically increase our presence here,” Carey said. “We haven’t found the kinds of investments that meet our criteria in the current market environment.”
Carey said it comes down to a simple formula of finding the right balance of brand fit, location and opportunity for the best financial return....
Carey said the company has bid on a couple of projects, and come in around sixth place....
Currently, Outrigger has 13 properties in eight foreign countries either open or under development....
read ... Tourism
State failed Maui special-needs student, federal court says
SA: The Hawaii Department of Education failed to provide a Maui special-needs student with a free appropriate public education when it excluded the boy’s father from participating in a meeting that changed the student’s school placement for the first time in six years, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled today.
“The court generally said the Department of Education has a responsibility to ensure certain procedural rights and they can’t excuse not doing those things by saying it’s the parents’ fault,” said Honolulu attorney Keith Peck, who represented the student in the case.
Spencer Clark, now 18, was diagnosed with autism at age 2....
Beginning with the fifth grade, Spencer’s IEP placed him at a private special education facility — Horizons Academy of Maui — at the expense of the Department of Education.
The student’s father, Doug Clark, was unable to attend Spencer’s annual IEP meeting in 2010 due to scheduling conflicts and an illness. At that meeting, the DOE changed Spencer’s educational placement, moving him to a program at Maui High, his local public school.
Clark protested the move through a due process hearing, but loss that fight. A U.S. District Court judge upheld the decision, which Clark appealed.
The three-judge panel, which heard oral arguments in the case in October in Hawaii, said that “parental participation in the IEP and educational placement process is critical to the organization of the IDEA.”
Spencer’s parents have kept him enrolled at Horizons at their own expense. The panel has remanded the case back to state district court to determine if the Clarks are entitled to tuition reimbursement.
Related: Lawsuit: Act 163 Discriminates Against Disabled Students
DN: Will the state learn from the 9th Circuit ruling against the DOE?
CB: Court Ruling: Hawaii DOE Failed Autistic Student
read ... Another Day in the DoE
Former Waianae charter school clerk pleads not guilty to theft
HNN: A former Waianae public charter school office clerk pleaded not guilty in Circuit Court this morning to felony charges that she allegedly stole $19,750 from the school....
The state alleges Atisanoe took money from charter school Ka Waihona o Ka Naauao between January 2010 and March 2012.
“The whole case is complicated,” Atisanoe said outside the courtroom. “The entire amount wasn’t taken by me. … I feel bad that it had to (happen), but one person gotta take the fall, I guess.”
She declined to elaborate, adding that she has a second- and eighth-grader who attend the school.
read ... Another Day in the DoE
Fifth Prosecution for Stealing School Money Since 2010
SA: Four other public school employees have been prosecuted for stealing school money since 2010. They are:
» Janel Echiberi, a former Lehua Elementary School secretary, who was sentenced in 2010 to community service for stealing more than $15,000 from Lehua Elementary. She paid back the money she stole.
» Denise Hayashi, a former Pearl Ridge Elementary School secretary, who was convicted in 2011 of stealing $69,000 from the school. Under a plea deal, she was sentenced that year to five years' probation, was ordered to perform community service and was ordered to pay off a $10,000 fine and $10,695 in court costs and fees. She also paid back the money she stole.
» Warren Harada, a former Waipahu High School business manager, who was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison for theft and money laundering. He stole nearly $500,000 from the school over five years. He missed a court deadline to pay back the money he stole in order to get probation and a shorter jail term.
» Williamina Muranaka, a former Fern Elementary School secretary, who was sentenced last year to one year of jail time for stealing nearly $15,000 from the school.
read ... Another Five Days in the DoE
DoE Brass Push for More Pay Hikes
SA: Specifically, the school board is concerned that top-level administrators, whose pay has been frozen for seven years, are now being outpaced in compensation by some school principals.
Before 2011, salaries of the deputy superintendent, six assistant superintendents and 15 complex-area superintendents were capped at 80 percent of what the state superintendent is paid.
And that is limited by state law to $150,000 annually, which is what Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi has been earning since she took the top job in 2010.
State lawmakers lifted that cap two years ago, but budgetary considerations had constrained top pay levels until recently.
Now that the fiscal belt-tightening has eased somewhat, the BOE is taking another look.
Since 2006, principals have received across-the-board increases amounting to 11.5 percent in all, compounded by step increases equal to a 3.6 percent boost. The furloughs and recession-driven pay cuts reversed some of that, but the reductions will be restored in the coming fiscal year, which starts in July.
The effect of those contract provisions has been substantial, especially with more senior principals. Two principals now earn more than Matayoshi, let alone any of her lieutenants who outrank principals in every way other than pay.
The only way to create a more rational command structure for the DOE would be to take principals out of the union and reorder pay levels according to rank.
read ... And the Star-Adv Agrees
KCC managers accuse their chancellor of discrimination
HNN: Richards has headed the KCC campus since 2007 and has worked there since 1977. In May 2012, his salary was listed at $155,952.
Eileen Torigoe, who headed KCC's human resources department, is one of those filing the civil rights complaint, sources said.
When Torigoe retired at the end of April, the entire rest of her HR office, three people, also left. Before she stepped down, she was KCC's EEO officer, handling investigations of personnel complaints such as the one she's now filing against her former boss.
Sources said Carol Masutani, who heads KCC's business office, overseeing more than a dozen people, also filed a complaint against Richards.
The two women, who are Japanese Americans, accuse Richards, an African American, of gender and race discrimination....
Campus officials who refused to be named in public said the two women managers have been unfairly blamed for a number of problems on the campus.
In January and February of this year, some food suppliers stopped their deliveries to KCC's Culinary Arts program because the school was up to four months late on paying its food bills.
read ... discrimination
Another Day, Another Spy
HNN: They said that Inson -- who is of Cambodian ancestry -- took classified U.S. intelligence reports about the Cambodian military and gave it to unauthorized personnel.
Prosecutors said they also found military secrets illegally stored on Inson's home computer.
One of those documents provided detailed information about the U.S. Pacific Command's maritime strategy, prosecutors say.
Other records included emails and reports that describe sources and methods the military's uses to obtain foreign intelligence, according to testimony provided during today's hearing.
Military prosecutors also accused Inson of collecting data on members of the U.S. military who are of Cambodian descent. They allege that he intended to hand over that information to the Cambodian military.
Inson said nothing during the public session of his court-martial hearing at the courtroom at Wheeler Army Airfield today.
read ... Helping Cambodian Dictator Harass Cambodian Expats?
Hee's seat belt law causing confrontations in Taxis
KHON: TheCab president Howard Higa says one of his drivers had to pay the price for a passenger who did not buckle up.
“I think it’s a good law, but it has some flaws,” TheCab President, Howard Higa said.
He wants service vehicles like taxi’s – to have passengers pay, and not the driver…
“I don’t want my driver looking in the back seat every minute or so making sure their passenger has their seat belt is buckled,” Higa said.
To make it easier on his employees Higa gave these placards out to drivers…
“Printed in Japanese, also huge amount of Koreans who don’t know English at all so we did Japanese and Korean,” Higa said.
Explaining to passengers that the law says … buckle up.
Senator Clayton Hee who helped push through this law says the bottom line is, drivers are the ones behind the wheel – so they must enforce seat belt use or pay.
read ... More Hee Problems
City Begins installing LED Street lights
KHON: In the daytime you may not notice much of a change on Pahoa Avenue in Kahala.
There are 43 of them in all in Kahala, the first Oahu neighborhood to test them out, but more are to come.
This week, Manoa will get a new glow with 37 LED lights.
Followed by 52 additional lights in Nuuanu and 48 more in Mililani mauka later in June.
All 180 new lights were federally funded with a total cost of $79,000 and they’ll use 40 percent less energy, increasing the lights lifespan from 20,000 to 100,000 plus hours.
read ... 40% Less Electricity, Better Light
Green Energy Scammers Push Back Against PUC
CB: “The point is, that this is a process where the advisory group is supposed to be giving meaningful input and for various reasons that has completely gone out the window,” said Isaac Moriwake, an attorney at Honolulu-based Earthjustice.
Moriwake, along with nine other members of the 68-member advisory group, sent a letter to PUC Chair Hermina Morita this week asking that HECO’s deadline for submitting its energy plans be extended by four months to make sure that members have time to provide feedback.
HECO spokeswoman Lynne Unemori said that the utility will follow the guidance of the PUC. A prior request to extend the deadline was rejected by commissioners. And Unemori noted that Morita had already informed the advisory group that it will be given the opportunity to provide input after June 28.
But Moriwake and his faction worry that won't be enough and meaningful input will be difficult.
“Upon the June 28 filing, the process will necessarily shift from a more collaborative posture, to the more adversarial procedural posture dictated by commission rules,” the group wrote.
Representatives from Blue Planet Foundation, the Hawaii Solar Energy Association, I Aloha Molokai, The Kohala Center, Life of the Land and Ulupono Initiative also signed the letter to the PUC.
read ... Gimme the Green
MECO Appeals Rate Hike Decision
CB: Maui Electric Company wants the state Public Utilities Commission to reconsider its May 31 decision that denied the company’s requested profit level and lambasted the utility for not using the island’s wind energy more efficiently.
MECO formally responded Wednesday in two lengthy documents. Read them for yourself by clicking here.
Background: Hawaiian Electric Cuts Earnings After PUC Orders Consumer Refund
read ... Rate Hike
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