Ethics Investigation: Legislators Accepting "Significant Gifts and Prizes" from State Contractors
Before Going BK, Hoku Sold Performing Assets to Political Insiders
PBN: A state Department of Transportation spokeswoman confirmed last week that Hoku Solar sold its subsidiary that owned these systems to Kairos Energy Capital.
Hoku Solar was the state’s fourth largest solar PV company with 9,615 kilowatts installed in 2012, including 10 commercial projects, according to PBN research.
Kairos Energy Capital is the brainchild of Larry Gilbert, once president of the Hawaii State Bar Association and judge in the District Court for the First Circuit in Hawaii and Karl Stahlkopf, the retired president of Renewable Energy Hawaii Inc., the renewable energy subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Co.
read ... Business as Usual
Hoku Among Largest Solar Bankruptcies
BI: At the top of the solar PV value chain, Hawaii-based Hoku, which had gone back and forth for several years to open a proposed polysilicon plant in Idaho, apparently is the latest upstream manufacturing casualty, filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy -- typically the kind that leads to liquidation, not to restructuring and resurrection. The company, which posted 2012 revenues of just $12 million and just $1.6 million so far this year, reportedly owes up to $1 billion to dozens of creditors -- including Pocatello itself, which bought the site and leased it back to the company for a song. Things got so bad last year that the plant couldn't pay its electric bill, finally mothballing the Pocatello, Idaho plant and incurring the legal wrath of the plant's contractors. (The local Pacific Business News has a neat timeline of the company's rise and fall.)
The market for polysilicon looked vastly different in the mid-2000s than it does now, but even so the Hoku plant in Pocatello, Idaho, has been fraught with delays and cost overruns. And the polysilicon market has become pretty much ground zero for upstream cost pressures, with a raft of global competitors, already at scale, already suffering attrition and trying to throttle back if they can.
read ... Throttled
HECO Seeks Rate Hike for Solar Users
CB: If you’re lucky, you now pay only a small monthly fee to Hawaiian Electric Co. for allowing you to keep your solar system hooked up to their electric grids on Oahu, the Big Island or Maui County. The grids act as battery storage for your solar system and allow you to draw electricity from HECO when the sun isn’t shining, while you feed excess solar energy back into the grid during the day.
But is your solar system driving up costs for the rest of Hawaii’s electric customers?
HECO says it is. The utility says it’s time to talk about whether solar system owners need to pay the utility more to help cover its operating costs.
“Today, the costs are not fairly allocated to all customers," said Scott Seu, HECO's vice president for energy resources and operations, during the final meeting of a 68-member community advisory group convened to assist the utility in coming up with long-term energy plans.
As more people switch to solar to escape electricity rates that are three times the national average, the rest of HECO’s customers could see their rates go up, the utility says. That’s because there will be fewer ratepayers left on the grid to cover HECO’s fixed costs.
“People are opting out of escalating rates,” said Seu. “It is mostly people that can afford to opt out. So you have a situation where the people who are stranded are going to be increasingly burdened with carrying the (utility’s costs).”
SA: HECO cleared to run more EV stations, lower charging costs
read ... Rate Hike
Honolulu Cop Under Fire for Facebook Comments About Deedy Murder Trial
CB: In his testimony Monday, Hosaka told jurors that there was a “strong odor” of alcohol on the federal agent and that his eyes were “red and glassy.” Hosaka also said that Deedy's footing was “uneasy” as they walked to the police cruiser.
None of these observations were in Hosaka’s police report, according to defense attorneys.
They said Wednesday that he had also potentially biased himself when he began expressing his opinions about Deedy’s guilt on Facebook.
Hart said Hosaka had posted his subpoena in the case to his Facebook page and commented on the social media site both before and after his testimony Monday about the federal agent.
“He has a bias toward the case that he expressed internationally before he testified,” Hart said.
Deputy Prosecutor Janice Futa agreed that it would have been “inappropriate” for Hosaka to have posted any comments about his opinions of the case to his Facebook page, and Ahn described the scenario as a “hornet’s nest.”
Ahn also told Futa to contact Hosaka immediately to tell him to stop posting comments to Facebook about the case.
Hosaka's Facebook page had been pulled down late Wednesday morning....
This wasn’t the first embarrassing moment for HPD during the Deedy trial. Another officer who testified during the case admitted to losing a camera that he used to take photos of the crime scene.
read ... Just another day in the HPD
Koa Ridge, Ewa Development Win Approvals
National group calls for Hawaii Democrats to withdraw open primaries suit
AP: New York-based IndependentVoting.org, prompting the group to take out an ad that will be running in Sunday's Honolulu Star-Advertiser. The ad says requiring party registration would end political privacy.
"So many Americans are concerned and upset about the issue of partisanship," Jacqueline Salit, the group's president, said Wednesday. "It's becoming a hot-button issue around the country."
The lawsuit would narrow the democratic process and goes against Hawaii's spirit of openness and inclusiveness, Salit said. While there have been similar attempts by Republicans, "this is the first time in recent history that a state Democratic party has taken this action," she said of going to court to change the primary system. (FALSE!!!)
2000: Calif Dems vs Jones (Question: Is 2000 'recent history'?)
IVN: More of the same
read ... Anything to save the old boys
Time for a Makeover for the University of Hawaii?
CB: J.N. Musto, UHPA’s executive director, says the delegation of tasks, such as oversight and control of the athletics program, is muddled, often making it confusing as to which administrator is accountable for specific duties.
“The paradigm in management is you can delegate authority but you can’t delegate responsibility,” he said. “That’s worked the other way around here.”
Musto suggests that each chancellor become a de facto president for his or her campus, with greater discretion over campus budgets and operations. The university-wide president would instead be the Board of Regents’ CEO and multi-campus chancellor with oversight of the campus presidents....
In testimony to the Board of Regents in 2007, Musto wrote that the current structure promotes “dual reporting.” Community college chancellors, for example, report to both the vice president for community colleges and the president.
The dual reporting is just one symptom of what Neal Milner, professor emeritus of political science at UH, described as an “insidiously counterproductive” system.
“You get a great deal of confusion,” Milner said. “That translates into a constant level of tension between the president’s office and the chancellor’s office.”
Milner argued in an op-ed for Civil Beat that the university’s current organization cripples its efforts to find good presidential candidates because it “makes it impossible for a president to succeed.”
read ... Time for a Makeover for the University of Hawaii?
The pros and cons of the Jones Act
LL: ALTHOUGH that perennial US protectionist chestnut, the Jones Act, is rarely far from controversy, this year has witnessed an especially lively domestic Jones Act debate.The Jones Act is Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. It requires, for the purpose of US coastal shipping,...
read ... Lloyd's List
Precisely as Predicted: Gay Marriage Mongers Target Church Zoning Appeal
ILind: The request by New Hope Leeward, a 5,000-member megachurch in Waipahu, to rezone part of a 200-acre parcel of agricultural land in Kunia to allow development of a major Christian community was miraculously resurrected after the development’s original architect took over as the city’s planning director earlier this year.
read ... City reconsiders megachurch rezoning: Miraculous change of heart or ethics issue?
No Surprise: Civil Unions now an Excuse for Gay 'Marriage'
Council: Tobacco Illegal, Marijuana OK
HNN: Bill 28 bans smoking within a 20 foot perimeter around all of the nearly 4,000 city bus stops. People can go outside that boundary to smoke but have to put the tobacco out before coming back in.
Some smokers thought the bills were a joke and mocked the process.
"I didn't see in here marijuana. So we can still smoke our marijuana at the beach park, but no cigarettes," testified one man who said he is direct descendant of Kamehameha I....
"My only questions is what's next cemeteries?" testified Kawika Crowley, Hawaii Bar Owners Association.
"How can people comply with this? It's making it so difficult you just won't have compliance," said Michael Zehner, Hawaii Smokers Alliance.
read ... LOL!
HIPA Scored $1.3M for Worthless 'Sustainability Plan'
QUESTION: Whatever happened to the state-funded Hawaii 2050 Sustainability Plan that took in opinions of thousands of people in an effort to reassess public policy directions?
ANSWER: The Hawaii 2050 Sustainability Plan, the state’s first long-range plan in 30 years, was completed several years ago by the Hawaii Institute for Public Affairs, a think tank.
The institute was paid about $1.3 million for three years of work that included multiple series of public meetings on various islands statewide about the issue of sustainability and more than 10,000 individuals’ “input,” Institute official Jeanne Schultz-Afuvai said.
read ... HIPA Sustains Itself
Waipahu HS Students Allowed to Enroll at LCC
SA: One of the latest programs to come into focus is called the Early College High School Initiative, outlined this week by Star-Advertiser writer Nanea Kalani. It was launched last summer at Waipahu High School, and it’s remarkable how much can be accomplished by using largely the basic state resources provided to every school.
Principal Keith Hayashi said the idea was to let high school students prove to themselves that they are college material by letting them enroll in select classes offered on their own campus through Leeward Community College and the University of Hawaii at West Oahu. The high school is able to afford tuition because the college campuses only charge the instructor rate as tuition, a critical piece of the partnership.
read ... About Something new for the DoE
Kauai Co Wastes $511K Defending Former prosecutor
KGI: Altogether, the council has approved at least $511,000 so far in private attorney fees in the case. The money approved Wednesday is to be split equally among the three defendants named in the lawsuit; former Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, planning inspector Sheilah Miyake and the county of Kauai.
The lawsuit filed Sept. 19, 2012, alleges political motivation as the reason for a prior prosecution lodged against Bynum over alleged zoning violations.
The 5th Circuit Court dismissed the charges against him with prejudice on May 3, 2012....
The lawsuit filed by Bynum states Iseri-Carvalho and Miyake had ulterior motives to go after him. Miyake had no warrant and illegally trespassed onto Bynum’s property, charged him with a zoning violation and then send it to Iseri-Carvalho for criminal prosecution — all against the advice of the County Attorney’s Office, the complaint states.
Furthermore, the lawsuit states county planning officials “maliciously” informed potential buyers for Bynum’s Wailua Homesteads property the alleged zoning violations would run with the land and become zoning violations for the new owners if the sale were to be closed.
read ... Expensive Retaliation
$2.8M: Hawaii Co Council votes to raise wheel tax, Property Tax Next
HTH: The Hawaii County Council on Wednesday voted 8-1 to approve higher vehicle taxes and registration fees, a move intended to support infrastructure and make costs more comparable with other counties.
The county’s registration fee will jump $5 to $12 and taxes will increase for most vehicles from 3/4 of a cent per pound to 1.25 cents per pound.
An additional $2.8 million is expected to be raised annually as a result.
South Kona/Ka‘u Councilwoman Brenda Ford voted against the increases, noting that the money will go into the county’s general fund.
HTH: Property tax panel formed
read ... Council votes to raise wheel tax
Leithead-Todd: Ecos Lose 6-3
WHT: The confirmation Wednesday of Bobby Jean Leithead Todd as Environmental Management director hinged on the definition of “related field.”
The County Council first studied the minutes of the 2009-10 Charter Commission to determine the intent of its ballot initiative that the Environmental Management director have an engineering degree or a degree in a related field. Most decided a law degree was related.
“If Bobby Jean had majored in art history, I would say that’s not a related field,” said Mayor Billy Kenoi, in a relatively rare appearance testifying before the council. “The law is not crystal clear … but it provides discretion.”
The council ultimately voted 6-3 with South Kona/Ka‘u Councilwoman Brenda Ford, North Kona Councilwoman Karen Eoff and Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille voting no.
read ... 6-3 Council
Quick Hits: