VoteVets: How Tulsi Beat Mufi
Fifteen Candidates Fail to Report Campaign Spending
Eight Candidates File to Run in Maui OHA Trustee Special Election
Why Your Vote for OHA Trustees Matters
Do We Belong to the Government?
Tax Review Commission: Tax Hikes on Agenda September 11
Priebus: GOP Will Win Senate Majority Without Hawaii
BIG WIND: PEIS Comments Due Oct. 9
Star-Adv: Kim Should Be Unpleasant With Greenwood, Apple, Regents
SA: The session is not likely to be pleasant, and it shouldn't be. Kim has said she believes the concert debacle "could be the tip of the iceberg as far as the policies in place, the procedures on oversight over university affairs. And that worries us. That worries the public as well." Ditto here.
So far, the only real questioning of UH President M.R.C. Greenwood and other UH officials may have occurred before the regents on Aug. 22, but that, included in a 7 1⁄2-hour session, was behind closed doors. Emerging, the board stood behind Greenwood and UH-Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple.
Of special interest to the committee should be the handling of athletic director Jim Donovan, who was put on administrative leave in July in the wake of the concert fraud that cost UH $200,000. On Aug. 12, Donovan was reassigned to Apple's office and offered a $211,200 a year under a three-year contract, which he accepted, on the condition that he would not sue the school. Greenwood and Apple acknowledged that an external report cleared Donovan of "wrongdoing."
After the Aug. 22 closed meeting, regents briefly apologized for how UH administrators had "mishandled" the Donovan matter. They should be prepared to expand on that inadequate explanation before Kim's committee.
Kim is known for her scolding of public officials so it's hoped that she will ask the tough questions of Greenwood and others outside the cozy cocoon of the regents' support. Kim has explained to constituents that "we're not the body that fires or does any of that. … It is important that the public understands our roles." The UH officials "do have autonomy but with the understanding that there is accountability. It is the accountability that we have to look at."
read … Concert probe deserves answers
Rail contractor announces layoffs after court decision stopping work
SA: Kiewit Infrastructure West Co. announced today it has cut 30 jobs so far in the wake of the Hawaii Supreme Court decision on Aug. 24 that stopped work on the Honolulu rail project.
Kiewit had a workforce of about 250 before the city shut down construction on the project.
A statement from Kiewit said the company “will continue to work with the city and HART to assess construction plans and related activities. Kiewit looks forward to moving ahead with the project and restarting construction as soon as allowed.”
read … Rail contractor announces layoffs after court decision stopping work
PRP, FACE Urge Supreme Court to Reconsider
PBN: The pro-rail groups Pacific Resource Partnership and Faith Action for Community Equity have filed a brief that asks the Hawaii Supreme Court to reconsider an August ruling that caused the city to stop construction on the project.
That brief was filed earlier this week by attorney William Meheula, a day after the City and County of Honolulu filed a motion for the Supreme Court to reconsider the ruling.
PBN: Hawaii Supreme Court gives plaintiff a week to respond to City and County of Honolulu's motion in rail suit
read … Amicus Brief
Dem Convention: Clinton Winner, Obama Loser
PBN: Obama didn't do what he needed to do -- make a persuasive case that the next four years of his presidency would be better than his first four years. The president delivered his speech well, and talked about goals he wanted to pursue in a second term, but he didn't provide any details on how he'd achieve them. His speech was like a greatest hits album -- full of familiar tunes that folks loved in the past, but lacking anything new to get excited about. He may come out of Charlotte with a slight bounce in the polls, but he squandered an opportunity to close the deal with voters.
read … loser
Dem Boss: Hordes of Obamabots Hirono’s Only Hope
WHT: “The president is going to do 65-70 percent of the vote in Hawaii,” Pavao said. “We want to correlate that Mazie Hirono is part of the Obama team.”
“The (Republican National Committee) is probably going to put $6 million into the race,” Pavao said. “They think it is a race they can win and they definitely are counting it as a seat they need to take over the (Senate) majority.” (This is a core Hawaii Democrat lie designed to pump fear into their base.)
“We know where our strengths are,” Pavao said. “If our our numbers turn out as they should, Mazie should have no problem because Hawaii is a strong Democratic state.
“The issue is turnout,” he said. “If people get complacent and they think the president is going to win Hawaii anyhow and and just take things for granted, then Mazie is going to have a problem.”
Reality: Priebus: GOP Will Win Senate Majority Without Hawaii
read … Nobody voting for Mazie
Ethics Board to Consider County Paid Union Campaign Rallies at County Facilities
HTH: Complaints against … union-endorsed candidate forums on the taxpayers’ dime: The county Board of Ethics has a full plate of issues when it meets Wednesday in County Council chambers….
An Aug. 1 West Hawaii Today article describing how 538 Hawaii County employees and their state counterparts were sent to two-hour “educational and informational meetings” on county time at county facilities to listen to a union-endorsed lineup of candidates has also inspired an ethics complaint.
United Public workers State Director Dayton Nakanelua has defended the practice, saying it was upheld by the courts in 2010 and protected in the union’s contract. The state Ethics Commission doesn’t offer an opinion on county activities. Section 2-83 of Article 15 of the Hawaii County Code of Ethics prohibits county employees from using county time, equipment or facilities for campaign purposes.
read … Ethics?
Will Soft-on-Crime Judges Serve Past Age 70?
SA: The Hawaii chapter of the American Judicature Society has set up a special committee to consider whether the state Constitution's mandatory retirement age at age 70 for state justices and judges should be changed.
James Burns, retired chairman of the Hawaii chapter and former chief judge of the state appeals court, announced the formation of the committee Friday.
The Hawaii chapter said the committee was created after "renewed public interest" arose on the issue following the retirement of Associate Justice James Duffy, who was forced to leave the bench at age 70 this year.
The chapter also cited a Honolulu Star-Advertiser editorial in June calling for the lifting of the mandatory retirement age.
Chairmen of the committee are former Associate Justice Steven ‘Broken Trust’ Levinson (inventor of gay marriage) and Honolulu attorney Colin Miwa of the Cades Schutte law firm….
read … Mandatory retirement age for judges to be weighed
Mai Tai Slip-Fall Scores $2M for Bodybuilder
SA: A Honolulu man left permanently disabled after slipping on a wet floor at the Mai Tai Bar in Ala Moana Center has been awarded more than $2 million in damages.
Ernesto Verdugo was leaving the popular gathering spot, which is owned by the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., when he slipped on a tile floor slick with spilled drinks and landed hard on his left leg, according to Verdugo's attorney Howard Glickstein.
The trauma resulted in a serious blood clot and, later, a condition called post-thrombotic syndrome, a painful, lifelong condition in which impeded circulation causes chronic swelling in Verdugo's left leg. The condition left Verdugo, a former tour guide and bodybuilder, unable to work.
Verdugo was 37 at the time of the incident in 2005. Glickstein said his client, who was to have served as designated driver for his friends, consumed only one alcoholic beverage
read … About your Majestic Judiciary at Work
HUD Needs More Time To Review City’s ORI Plan
CB: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development needs another few weeks to review the quarterly report submitted by the city at the end of July before determining the fate of $8 million in federal grant money….
HUD spokeswoman Gene Gibson told DC808 in an email Friday that Community Planning and Development staff in the Honolulu office told her “it will be approximately three more weeks before they have a final letter back to the City.”
“There are always a lot of details to work out with something like this,” Gibson wrote.
read … ORI Plan
Fake Orthodox Bishop Named Head of Leftist Interfaith Group
SA: Bishop Randolph Sykes, a leader in Hawaii's interfaith movement, says people need to take action in their personal lives to be part of a solution to global problems.
"Our goal is to change ourselves to effect change in the world," Sykes, the new president of The Interfaith Alliance Hawai‘i and secretary of the All Believers Network, said in an interview with the Star-Advertiser.
Sykes, 61, who said he has "tested the waters of a number of religions and New Age philosophies" before (allegedly) converting to Orthodox Christianity, has been involved in interfaith work since 2005. He spoke about the movement's progress at an Interfaith Alliance meeting Wednesday at Harris United Methodist Church.
Sykes is also on the board of the Institute for Religion and Social Change, noting that "there is some cross-pollination" of board members among the three nonprofits. In the secular world he is employed as a program coordinator for the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization.
The alliance's "mission is to be a progressive voice in Hawaii, promoting the positive and healing role of religion in public life by encouraging dialogue, challenging extremism and facilitating nonviolent community activism," he said. (Challenge: Try to find and attend services of the ‘Inclusive’ ‘Orthodox’ ‘Church’. It is fake from top to bottom. You can become a Bishop for $45.)
read … Likes dressing in black
Dope Pushers Leave Storefronts as California Cracks Down on Medicated Marijuana
LAT: For a man whose apartment was raided recently and now faces felony drug possession and cultivation charges, he doesn't seem particularly worried about the mission at hand. Ricky rants about a federal and local crackdown on medical marijuana that closed various dispensaries that he ran and forced him back to the streets, where he began as a teenager in the 1970s. (Except then, he was a dealer. Now he is a "mobile dispensary.")
"It's too late!" he bellows. "The genie is out of the bottle. A huge demand has been created. It's back to the underground. Anyone who is smart is just going to take it back to the streets."
He says he knows lots of people scurrying to the shadows as the state has struggled and failed to regulate the medical cannabis industry and local law enforcement agencies and the federal government have tried to curtail it.
read … once a pusher,always a pusher
Obama Tax Hike will Hit Mortgage Aid
LAT: Struggling homeowners who obtain reductions in their mortgage debt face a new obstacle starting next year: a bill for taxes on that aid.
A special exemption of as much as $2 million per household in principal reduction and other aid from banks, in place since 2007, is set to expire at year's end.
It is one of a number of similarly expiring tax provisions — most notably the President George W. Bush-era tax cuts — and the automatic government-spending reductions looming at the same time that are referred to as the fiscal cliff.
Housing advocates and lawmakers are worried that the exemption will disappear just as thousands of homeowners are receiving large amounts of mortgage debt relief from the nation's five largest banks as part of a national settlement of foreclosure abuse investigations.
read … Owners could face taxes on mortgage aid
Case involving end of life issues also raises question of political power
ILind: Queen’s, through its Queen Emma Land Company (formerly known as the Queen Emma Foundation), controls key real estate in the center of Waikiki, including the International Marketplace and Duke’s Lane. It’s affiliate, Queen’s Development Corporation, controls the business side of the hospital business, including rental of its medical office buildings, pharmacies, parking lots, and also has a 90 percent interest in Diagnostic Laboratory Services, Molokai General Hospital, etc.
In short, this is an institution with a very long reach.
If doctors are reluctant to testify against Queen’s, as attorney Makuakane alleges, then this is a powerful special interest that is having real social and political impacts on lots of people.
I can’t help thinking that Queen’s, along with HMSA, are two near monopolies that get far less critical attention than they should from reporters.
Related: Meet the Insurance Executive Behind Assisted Suicide in Hawaii
SA: Ruling on hospitalized 95-year-old’s fate is expected to take weeks
read … Case involving end of life issues also raises question of political power
Reverse Mortgage $$ Targeted In Two Alleged Cases of Elderly Financial Abuse
HR: One case involves businessman Daniel Doi, the target of several legal complaints filed in the past two years by state regulators and the Attorney General’s office.
“We’re going to request that the Circuit Court issues a permanent injunction against Mr. Doi,” Deputy Attorney General C. Brian Fitzgerald said today.
The action comes after a Washington D.C. resident, Elizabeth Pierotti, complained to state officials and Honolulu police about Doi’s attempts to sell financial services to Pierotti’s 85-year-old aunt in Hawaii.
“When my aunt told me the story of what Mr. Doi was doing, I immediately Googled his name and up popped a 2010 story in Hawaii Reporter about him,” Pierotti.
Yu did confirm that the department is investigating another man, Jeffrey Mora, accused in state court papers of taking more than $100,000 – including $46,000 in “reverse mortgage funds”-- from 94-year-old Waikiki resident Ellen Kimoto.
read … Elder Abuse
Shipping Containers for Farm Housing
From Office of Tom Berg: The Honolulu City Council has a solution in mind to offer farmers on the Leeward Coast the opportunity to place as many as five retrofitted shipping containers on their land to serve as workforce housing. Resolution 12-74 CD1, introduced by Councilmember Tom Berg (Ewa Beach, Kapolei, Makakilo, Waianae Coast) passed the Zoning and Planning Committee last month and will be up for adoption this Wednesday, September 12 before the full council.
read … Shipping Containers
QUICK HITS: