Bill 65 Will Destroy Historic Oahu Railway
FBI, Police Investigate: Homeless Tent City Operators Shake Down City
Hawaii is #1 for Per-Capita Hepatitis Caused by Organic Food: 140 Infected Nationwide
UH Manoa: False Harassment Claim Can Lead to Eviction
SHOPO 16.8% raise: Caldwell's Latest Excuse to Push Tax Hikes
HNN: The State of Hawaii Police Officers Union (SHOPO) has been awarded a 16.8% raise over a period of four years in arbitration starting July 1....
"My priority for this administration is to focus on providing improved core services, such as road repaving, sewer infrastructure, bus and rail transit, and better maintenance of our parks facilities. It is clear that the City administration and the Honolulu City Council will need to address revenue enhancements while looking for additional cost savings if we are going to meet our financial obligations.
"City expenses continue to rise, and, as leaders, we will need to find new ways to pay for these expenses while providing needed services to all of our residents."
SA: Ikaika Anderson told the Star-Advertiser that the city should be able to cover the officers' increased pay through the 2013-2014 fiscal year
read ... State of Hawaii Police Officers Union gets 16.8% raise
Ann Kobayashi Sees Waste Everywhere
MW: City Council Budget Committee chairwoman Ann Kobayashi celebrated her 76th birthday in April. She’s spent more than 23 years in elective office, 13 in the state Senate and 10 on the City Council. Factor in staff work in the state Legislature and for Gov. Ben Cayetano, and Kobayashi’s career in government runs to more than 30 years. But it may be coming to a close.
“I’m thinking about retirement in two years,” says Kobayashi. “I want to have my cup of coffee and newspaper in the morning, and if there’s something alarming happening in the town I can shake my head and mumble, ‘That’s too bad,’ instead of getting mad, calling a meeting, feeling I have to do something.”
Few would begrudge Kobayashi her rest. She’s won a reputation for watching government’s bottom line in both the state Senate and on the City Council. Council Chairman Ernie Martin has described Kobayashi as wielding “a very, very sharp knife.”
Kobayashi sees waste everywhere: in the $300 million for a proposed new boiler for H-Power; in the $1,200 per month the H-Power contractor demanded for use of restroom facilities for city garbage truck drivers; in the $100 the city paid for garbage cans that private contractors purchased for $40 … the budget chairwoman’s list goes on and on and on....
Kobayashi herself entered politics as a Republican. She worked for Manoa Republicans Eureka Forbes and Wadsworth Yee in the state Legislature. Family real estate and asset-management companies also made her aware of the tax burdens borne by small businesses. She first won election to the Legislature as a Republican, and it was the party’s stance on gender issues that persuaded her to switch her allegiance to the Democrats.
read ... Kobayashi
Nonprofits to be Blocked from Receiving HI County Contingency Funds?
WHT: Now that each County Council member gets a $98,877 contingency fund, Hilo Councilman Dennis Onishi wants to be sure the money goes for district necessities rather than donated to nonprofits.
Onishi is sponsoring a bill to repeal provisions in county code that allow nonprofits to be given donations from the fund.
The bill will be heard by the council Finance Committee, which meets at 1:45 p.m. Tuesday in Hilo.
Onishi said he’s sponsoring the bill because he remembers that when the council had the contingency fund in the past, nonprofits often asked for donations from it. (And threatened not to support the incumbent if he didn't pony up.)
“This discretionary fund should be used for county projects,” Onishi said. “We should keep the two separate.”
Examples of projects from the contingency fund include volleyball nets, scoreboards, speed bumps, overtime for police for speed traps and other projects that are needed but might have been overlooked in the annual budget, he said.
read ... A Good Idea
Customers to begin receiving letters about water billing error
KITV: The Board of Water Supply told KITV in June that once it realized that some customers were being overcharged, it began taking steps to get a handle on the problem.
The letters being sent to 26,000 affected customers acknowledged the mistake.
"The Board of Water Supply has discovered situations where some bills were being estimated when, in fact, actual meter readings were available," it read.
read ... Customers to begin receiving letters about water billing error
More city sidewalks cleared--100 Empty Beds at Local Shelter
KITV: In each of the five raids since enforcement of Bill 7 began, representatives from the Institute of Human Services have been on hand to discuss options with those in need of shelter.
"We want to ensure that we can provide services for our homeless individuals who are on the street, and at this point we are," said Jun Yang, the city's housing director. "It's a matter of people accepting the help that's out there, and it's a bit of a challenge."
According to officials at IHS, 100 beds are available at its men's shelter in Iwilei, and openings are usually available at its women's shelter. Although the city is encouraging the homeless to go there, Caldwell hopes for a more permanent solution through a housing-first program, which provides shelter upfront and counseling services later on.
"Right now, the city council seems to be very supportive of the housing-first initiatives that we're trying to create," said Yang. "There are a few policy points that we need to move so that we can actually get the funding to do this."
The city hopes to provide scattered housing for 25 chronically homeless people by the end of 2014 as part of a housing-first demonstration project. The second phase of the demonstration project will place an additional 50 persons into housing during 2015, provided funding is available
KITV: Drug addiction is a common reason for rejecting shelters
read ... 100 Empty Beds
EHRs: 3 year Grant Program Wraps Up
WHT: Federal officials said in 2010 one reason Hawaii Island was a strong candidate was that, at the time, about 40 percent of physicians were already using electronic records.
The figure is now closer to 84 percent for primary care doctors, those in general, family, pediatrics and some obstetrics and gynecology practices, Hunt said. Switching to electronic records can be a difficult transition — one West Hawaii pediatrician asked federal officials when the program began who would see his patients while thousands of records were converted ...
And making the switch came with financial motivation for many physicians, because the Medicare program offers $18,000 in incentives for doctors who reach a certain level of electronic medical record keeping, she said.
Beacon’s goal was to have 60 percent of doctors eligible for Medicare incentives to achieve that status; the program actually was only able to reach about 40 percent, Hunt said. A number of factors, including delays at the state level, kept the program from reaching that goal, she added.
read ... Beacon touts successes as 3-year grant program wraps up
Big Island man accuses DOE of race, age bias
HNN: Over the past six years, Big Island resident James Johnson said he was interviewed 61 times for a permanent teaching job, only to be rejected each time.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court, the 70-year-old substitute teacher is accusing the state Department of Education of age and race discrimination. He says one fellow teacher gave him this explanation for his failure to get job:
"He says why are you surprised you haven't been able to get a job? You have three strikes against you: You're old, you're white and you're male."
Eric Seitz, Johnson's attorney, said in several instances his client was the only candidate to make the interview list but still was not selected.
"The DOE is one of the most discriminatory agencies in the state of Hawaii," he said.
"If you go to Big Island, you can count on the fingers of two hands, the numbers of Caucasians who are hired to teach in the Department of Education."
Prior to moving to Hawaii in 2001, Johnson worked as a newspaper editor in Tahiti, taught courses on celestial navigation in community colleges in Micronesia and Oregon and authored a textbook on that subject.
He also was a member on the Clackamas (Oregon) Community College's Board of Education and was a chair of the policy council of Big Island's Head Start program.
He received his Hawaii teaching credentials in 2006.
read ... What it takes to not get hired
Charters face new scrutiny
SA: The National Association of Charter School Authorizers lists performance contracts with charter schools as an "essential practice," with 94 percent of so-called charter school authorizers nationwide executing such contracts in the 2011-12 school year.
Under the Hawaii contracts, charter schools will be rated on two "performance frameworks," and any substandard ratings may result in monitoring or intervention:
» Financial: Provides the commission with data to assess a school's financial health and viability on an ongoing basis. Schools will be rated annually, using such indicators as assets and liabilities; net income and revenues; enrollment changes; and debts.
» Organizational: Allows the commission to determine compliance under state and federal laws and rules for a school's education programs, financial management, governance and reporting, employees and school environment.
The academic standards portion of the contracts appears to require schools to implement the new, more rigorous Common Core State Standards, national benchmarks in language arts and mathematics being rolled out in most states. (Forty-five states, including Hawaii, have adopted the set of K-12 standards.)
But charter schools can "retain the autonomy to select a particular curricula and/or instructional approach" consistent with the Common Core or other state academic standards, the contracts state.
read ... Charters
Big Cable to Benefit BioFool Scam?
DN: HECO has filed documents in open PUC regulatory proceedings which state that HELCO can meet renewable energy requirements but HECO can not. This they allege is because Hawai`i Island has excessive renewable energy resources while Oahu lacks renewable resources. They assert that HECO and HELCO combined can meet renewable energy requirements. Therefore HELCO will buy high priced biofuel from Aina Koa Pono and HECO ratepayers will subsidize the price. In essence HECO ratepayers would be purchasing renewable energy credits from HELCO.
read ... Walking the Walk
Arakawa Challenges MECO on Transparency
MN: "We agree that, until now, MECO has not employed 'sound business practices focused on customer value,' '' he said.
Arakawa referred to "previously ignored studies by experts" that conclude that "cost-effective projects like replacing the 1948 and 1949 Kahului Power Plant (generators) would pay for themselves, either as standalone storage projects or a combination of quick start generation, plus storage."
The mayor supported a MECO plan to decommission the Kahului power generators by 2019, or sooner, beginning in 2014.
"This is a step in the right direction," he said.
Arakawa was critical of Maui Electric's action plan, saying that a sustainable business model, by definition, "must be based on rates the customer can afford and then it must incorporate community concerns and impacts."
"The MECO Action Plan does not respect community input received at countless public hearings," he said. "It seems to treat projects with significant public opposition - like the new 69-kilovolt transmission lines in South Maui to accommodate 'future growth' - as having equal value with projects like storage that could lower . . . operating costs of the business. The public wants projects to lower costs."
CB: You can read Arakawa’s letter here
read ... Arakawa
Interpol Report: Mafia Involved in 'Green' Energy Sector
EU Pol: there are increasing reports of Italian OCGs engaging in the so called ‘Alternative or Green Energy’ market, for example investments in wind energy farms. Such projects offer attractive opportunities to benefit from generous MS and EU grant and tax subsidies, but apart from effectively exploiting eco-friendly incentives for their financial gain, they also create possibilities to launder proceeds of crime via legal business structures.
read ... Mafia Green
Bob Jones: Will Next UH President Defend Free Speech on Campus?
MW: One question I’d like to ask any prospective UH president is, “What would your policy be on free speech, even politically incorrect speech, by faculty and students on and off campus?”
That’s no small question. Campus and off-campus speech is under attack across the country, especially at schools getting federal funds, and therefore subject to the whims of an education secretary, the Congress or a president.
It’s very serious. Last year, UCLA research professor James Enstrom was terminated for claiming others at the school used junk environmental science to impose new environmental regulations on California businesses. He was accused of speech that disrupted the workplace.
read ... A Query For UH Prez Candidates
Star-Adv: Approve Ewa Development Plan
SA: The Ewa Development Plan (DP) was devised to outline the city's policy for growth in this district; it is one of eight Oahu subdivided regions, each with its own development plan or sustainable communities plan to help guide the area's unique visions for growth.
Key in these plans is community input that helps shape these guidelines, which are supposed to be reviewed and evolved every five years by the city. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats have fallen short on this — and in the case of the Ewa Development Plan review, it's been 13 years. Now, finally, the City Council has before it a proposed revision, which should be briskly approved to bring the planning vision up to date and in sync with recent events. The Council's Zoning and Planning Committee already has voted for approval.
Reality: Bill 65 Will Destroy Historic Oahu Railway
read ... Development guides need 5-year reviews
Council votes to move ahead with Election-Oriented Scandalmongering
MN: Formal investigation of Old Wailuku Post Office funding OK’d in 5-3 tally
read ... Fake Scandal
Optimistic guard soldiers headed home
SA: Hawaii Army National Guard soldier Ryan Taniguchi has seen the drawdown firsthand. The 35-year-old sergeant first class was there for the closure of forward operating bases Lagman and Smart in southeastern Zabul province.
“It’s another step for them (the Afghan people),” Taniguchi said. “The overall intent is, this is their country, it’s their responsibility, they are going to make the decisions, and they took over these bases that were closing down.”
Taniguchi is among about 140 Hawaii National Guard soldiers who are returning home after spending the past eight months training Afghan security forces as part of 12 security force assistance teams.
read ... Optimistic
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