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Saturday, July 20, 2013
July 20, 2013 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 5:41 PM :: 4216 Views

President of National School Choice Week to Speak in Hawaii

State Spending $9.4M to Move Out of OHA-Owned Kakaako Building

Asian Pacific Voters Republican Initiative

DLNR Names Interim SHPD Administrator

3 months to go: Obamacare Still a Mystery

SA: Less than three months before the state launches a health insurance exchange for an estimated 100,000 uninsured Hawaii residents, many consumers know little about the program aimed at providing free or subsidized coverage.

There has been no mass marketing about the exchange, known as the Hawai‘i Health Connector, and how people can benefit from it.

“There is a huge educational problem out there,” said Gerry Silva, president of AARP Hawaii, which advocates on behalf of seniors. “People need to know that the opportunity (to purchase health insurance at no or low cost) is coming up. We’re less than 90 days away from the actual opportunity to enroll. This is a daunting task.”....

“They (the uninsured) are a hard population to reach. The people who are uninsured tend to be less educated,” said health policy expert Frances Miller, a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law. “They’re late (educating the public) now, and they need to make up for lost time. It’s not a wise thing, and they should be doing it as fast as they can. They need to keep their eye on the ball. The ball is you want to get everybody covered as quickly and efficiently as you can.”

Seventy-eight percent of uninsured adults were unaware of new options for health insurance in a January study for Enroll America, a national nonprofit group established to maximize enrollment....

Obamacare has caused confusion among businesses as well, particularly since Hawaii law already requires employers to provide health insurance to full-time workers.

“There’s just so many unanswered questions. It’s just confusion,” said Tim Lyons, executive director of the Hawaii Business League, representing 900 small businesses. “Even after a day’s worth of seminar instruction by seven to eight different speakers, I was frankly just about as confused as I was when I got in. By and large, Hawaii businesses and employees for the most part have kind of let it fly by their heads. The average person and business hasn’t paid much attention to this at all.”

read ... Obamacare Still a Mystery

Kakaako Project Slowed by High Water Table

KHON: The price has gone up. Originally it was about $37M, and now it’s approximately $40M,” DOT Spokeswoman Caroline Sluyter said....

The project started in February 2011, and was expected to be finished by the beginning of this year, but that didn’t happen.

“It’s taking a little longer than they thought because they hit conditions that they didn’t anticipate. In the Ward area, they hit the ground water table sooner than they had anticipated, so they’re having to microtunnel now, and then they’ll put in the conduits so that the cables can be run through there,” Sluyter said.

read ... Completion of Ala Moana Boulevard project taking longer than expected

What's up with DLNR boat with tree growing out of its engine?

HNN: The DLNR enforcement boat is hardly in ship shape. There's actually a tree growing out of its engine.

According to Cox, "Someone alerted me believe it or not there's a tree. I couldn't believe it, so I went to check it out at the Ala Wai. Sure enough, there's a tree, a mangrove growing out of the engine."

The propellers aren't any better. They're encrusted in barnacles.

Cox has been watching the enforcement boat, sit idle, at the Ala Wai boat harbor for years. Ironically, breaking one of the rules it's supposed to enforce.

"You must demonstrate your boat is able to power out by its own power go around a buoy and come back" explains Cox. "Apparently the rules don't apply to and are different to the State."

read ... DLNR

8 Schools to Get 1:1 Digital Devices This School Year

CB: Keaau Elementary, Mililani Mauka Elementary, Mililani Waena Elementary, Moanalua Middle, Nanaikapono Elementary, Nanakuli Elementary, Nanakuli Intermediate and High, Pahoa Elementary

read ... 8 Schools to Get 1:1 Digital Devices This School Year

Protect rights when scanning license plates

SA: Modern technology has provided police the ability to track down vehicles belonging to people associated with serious crimes by scanning, storing and analyzing data from millions of license plates. At the same time, however, innocent drivers are being caught up in the surveillance.

This problem should serve to caution the Honolulu Police Department, which is acquiring the tools to adopt the practice. HPD and elected officials must guard against abuse of license-plate-scanning technology.

read ... Protect rights when scanning license plates

Hawaii Dodges Bullet, Not Critical Habitat for Loggerheads

CN: The NMFS action only proposed critical habitat for the "threatened" Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico DPS, maintaining that no critical habitat was identified within the jurisdiction of the U.S. for the "endangered" North Pacific Ocean DPS. The areas "around Hawaii and along the U.S. west coast represent a very small percentage of suitable loggerhead habitat and do not meet the definition of critical habitat," the agency said.

read ... Ecos Lose One

'Civilian' might have aided detained man's death

SA: On June 3 an officer investigating a vehicle theft arrived at a house in Wai­ma­nalo. Also arriving at the scene was the father of the young man whose truck and cellphone had been reported stolen, said Myles Brei­ner, the attorney for family of Stephen Dinnan, who, according to a medical examiner's report, died from asphyxia.

According to a police report, the vehicle was reported stolen from Maka­puu Beach Park and tracked to the Wai­ma­nalo property with GPS software tied to the cellphone left inside the truck. Brei­ner said the house is owned by Dinnan's friend, who had allowed Dinnan to store two cars there.

When Dinnan was spotted on the property, Brei­ner said, an effort was made to detain him, a struggle ensued and Dinnan was probably placed in a chokehold by the civilian or the officer.

"Per our eyewitness, the civilian who was present said to Dinnan, ‘This is what happens when you steal from Hawaiians,'" Brei­ner told the Star-Advertiser.

read ... 'Civilian' might have aided detained man's death

Killer Gets Probation, Threatens Woman with Knife

MN: A Lahaina man who had been paroled on a manslaughter conviction when he was arrested for stealing from a store was sentenced Friday to a five-year prison term.

Guy Ideta, 57, will serve the prison sentence at the same time as his parole revocation in the 1984 manslaughter case.

Originally charged with robbery for allegedly pulling out a knife and lunging at an employee at Lahaina Farms in February 2010, Ideta had pleaded no contest to second-degree theft....

"When you stole $9 worth of hamburger and apples, you basically used up your ninth life," 2nd Circuit Judge Rhonda Loo told Ideta. "Your record is horrible."

She said the clerk, who was working when Ideta committed the crime, was so scared that she left her job and left Maui.

"This is the kind of impact you have on people," Loo told Ideta. "So for the next five years, the kind of impact you're going to be having is the four walls of a jail cell."

In June 1986, Ideta was sentenced to a 40-year prison term after pleading no contest to reduced charges of manslaughter and attempted assault, as well as firearms and drug charges. The charges stemmed from the July 30, 1984, shotgun killing of 30-year-old Wade Okimoto in his Honokowai apartment. The victim's roommate also was shot....

Dunn said Ideta has a parole hearing next month and has made arrangements to participate in drug treatment when he is released.

read ... Soft on Crime

Helping Hawaii Make Sense of Micronesia

CB: This is the first of two stories on new publications about Micronesians, both authored by Father Francis X. Hezel, a Catholic priest who has lived and worked in Micronesia for more than four decades. Today's story focuses on the publications, which shed light on Micronesian history, culture and society, and the fast-growing number of Micronesians that are emigrating from the region to Hawaii and the mainland.

Hezel visited Hawaii this week to meet with government officials and others to discuss what the state and federal governments can do to help Micronesians.

read ... Micronesia

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