Feds: Hawaii DoE no longer 'High Risk'
Photo Essay: Skeletons of Dead Windfarms
President of National School Choice Week to Speak in Hawaii
Honolulu Ranks 62nd in Per-Capita Public Employees
Reporter Protects Numerous Hawaii Politicians from Exposure
CB: These are things I have been hearing for years, and from many people. I'll withhold names and offices, and fudge genders and timeframes to keep things anonymous:
The affair between the married state senator and the married state representative; the married member of Congress who had relationships outside marriage; the married mayor who dated others and did not share a domicile with the mayor's spouse; the married governor who slept with a legislator.
There are more, including rumors about sexual preference, harassment and domestic violence involving well-known officials. I share them to illustrate not only that they exist, but that they persist and can be used to damage reputations, particularly in political campaigns.
read ... Warning: Obey or be Outed
Progressives Instruct Media How to Help Schatz against Hanabusa
Neil Milner: To understand the mayor’s race, you have to understand the strategy of PRP, which was by far the most important pro-rail, anti-Cayetano organization. The core of this strategy was a combination of carefully targeted media use and data-driven grass roots politics. This core was a black box that the local media never opened. TV and print journalists paid almost no attention to the grass roots. During the last few weeks of the campaign some stories touched on at the canvassing PRP was doing, but this coverage began too late and reflected little overall knowledge of what had been going on throughout the campaign. As a result, the tardy coverage, with its talk of paid canvassers armed with electronic devises had an aliens-in-our-midst tone to it but offered few details about what was actually going on.
Voters are not typically influenced much by debates or speeches, and they certainly were not in the mayoral race. What really mattered was the sophisticated combination of data mining, targeting, and grass roots activities that was the heart of the PRP campaign.
In fact PRP had good data on where and how the ads were working. It was able to track the effect of the ads on a real time basis. PRP had specific targets for these ads and knew over time how the ads affected their targets. No journalists covered this part of the story. Given that media coverage, it’s not surprising that so many people were befuddled by the size of Caldwell’s victory.
The Cayetano–Caldwell race is likely to be the model for future elections in Hawaii. (ie Schatz vs Hanabusa) Unless the media changes, the public will be more and more in the dark as time goes on and more and more at the mercy of the campaigns’ spin masters.
Here are four ways to make things better. Three apply to the media. The other one is about the rest of us....
read ... Modernizing campaign coverage
Progressives Complain Hanabusa Raises Embarrassing Question About Schatz' Gay Marriage Position
Borreca: Last week started with an Internet site dredging up a Schatz flier from his 1998 campaign for the state House. In it, Schatz came out strong for "traditional marriage." (Translation: I instruct you stupid politicians not to damage our effort to invent gay 'marriage' while attacking each other.)
In normal days this would raise no eyebrows, but in the overheated rhetoric of Hawaii's 1998 campaign against gay marriage, it was a move by Schatz to both toss a shaka to same-sex supporters and calm those worried about what a gay marriage law would do.
"I support traditional marriage. I support traditional family values," Schatz wrote. "I am committed to a solution that preserves traditional marriages without discriminating against minorities or their civil rights."
Back then the state was voting on a constitutional amendment that would specifically give the Legislature the power to define marriage, but both sides used the amendment as a voting litmus test for same-sex marriage.
For instance, Mike Gabbard, who was the chairman of the Alliance for Traditional Marriage, said when 70 percent of the voters approved the amendment, it meant "Hawaii residents don't want homosexual marriage."
The slippery parsing went both ways. Then-U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie voted for the amendment, but said it didn't mean he was against gay marriage.
read ... Schatz, Hanabusa contest young but already muddled
Okabe: HSTA-DoE Contract to be Model for Nation
SA: The state had the obstacle of implementing Race to the Top during a protracted contract fight with the Hawaii State Teachers Association. Teachers approved a new four-year contract in April that will eventually link pay raises to performance evaluations.
Principals agreed to performance evaluations in January, nine years after they had been required by a state education reform law.
Performance evaluations for teachers and principals that include student achievement were among the state’s promises in applying for the federal grant. Schatz said the contract dispute with teachers was “one of the main rocks in the middle of the road.”
Wil Okabe, president of the teachers union, said there is better collaboration among teachers, the department and the school board.
“We are working with the department at the table to try to look at education transformation and set the status for the rest of the country,” he said.
Okabe said teachers overwhelmingly ratified the contract after assurances that performance evaluations would be “fair and equitable for not only our members, but to address the concerns about education for our students.”
read ... The Nation is Doomed
HECO Customers Subsidize Solar $12M/year
SA: a consultant for the Public Utilities Commission said HECO failed to account for, among other things, the utility's loss of revenue as more customers install PV panels and generate their own electricity instead of buying it from HECO.
"Concerns regarding customer exit in response to higher rates and further exacerbation of rate impacts have not been sufficiently addressed or dispelled in the IRP report," according to the analysis written by Carl Freedman, a Maui-based energy consultant.
The vast majority of HECO customers who switch to PV stay connected to the grid so they can receive electricity from the utility at night or during cloudy days. Although they pay HECO a monthly service charge of about $17, that isn't enough to cover what it costs the utility to maintain the equipment needed to supply customers with power at all times. HECO calls the shortfall a "lost contribution to fixed costs," and in 2012 it was estimated at $12 million.
Freedman also questioned HECO's contention that it wouldn't necessarily need an undersea cable connecting Maui and Oahu counties in order to meet its target of 40 percent renewable energy.
Full Text: LINK
CB: Independent Expert Rejects HECO's Five-Year Energy Plans
read ... Solar oversight
Kauai: Genetically Modified Marijuana top trouble for law enforcement
KGI: Constantly-changing synthetic drugs that are dangerous and odorless, along with higher THC marijuana, were a prominent discussion topic at the crime prevention seminar Friday at Kauai Memorial.
Chief Keith Kamita of the state Department of Public Safety — Narcotics Enforcement Division, delivered a presentation on the dangers of synthetic drugs. He also cautioned the public about the dangers of contemporary marijuana.
“People ask why are we so worried about marijuana when we have a meth problem?” Kamita said. “There are over 2,000 chemicals in marijuana today and it is much different than what we had year ago with a 1 to 4 percent THC level, that is now about 15 to 20 percent and when concentrated it is up to 40 to 60 percent.”....
Kamita also cautioned against THC liquid extraction processes that produce a molasses-like “honey oil” that is 100 percent THC and dangerously potent. It vaporizes instantly when smoked, he said.
People are converting electronic cigarettes and using the oil as an almost odorless method to smoke marijuana in public, he said....
Background: US Patent Pending for Genetically Modified Marijuana
read ... Drugs top trouble for law enforcement
How a Former Soldier Continues his Battle in the Classroom
CB: The week before a new semester is a time for teachers to look back comprehensively over all of the successes and failures of the cumulative years, and to start formulating the next plan of attack.
But, with a teacher turnover rate of 56 percent every five years, the beginning of a new year is also a reminder for returning educators: you have once again made the cut....
Entering my sixth year in the classroom, I feel that I can only now call myself a “highly-qualified” teacher — a title that should be reserved to distinguish those who have earned it, rather than every teacher who passes a standardized test.
I know that what keeps me in the classroom is the combination of a commitment to an ideal and, up until now, a relative disregard for financial incentive. But we can’t staff schools with teachers who are truly “highly qualified” on the hope that we can find enough educational ideologues to soldier on.
The most valuable investment that we can make in our education system is in our teachers — not a third-party curriculum company, not a fancy new automated grading software, and not an army of education consultants. I wish that the governor would understand that.
For those new teachers who have found this profession, I salute their journey and I hope that they find the personal purpose and inspiration that will convince them to stay and fight to make it better.
And for those teachers who are returning this year, I look forward to another year of sweating it out in the trenches, alongside you, for the sake of our students. And for Hawaii.
read ... How a Former Soldier Continues his Battle in the Classroom
Flossie Produces $350K Paid Vacation for Hawaii Co Employees
HTH: The threat of Tropical Storm Flossie cost taxpayers more than $350,000 in lost worker productivity, and it inconvenienced residents when garbage transfer stations were closed and public bus service suspended, but Mayor Billy Kenoi on Monday afternoon maintained a “better safe than sorry” stance.
Kenoi put all “nonessential” county employees on paid administrative leave for Monday. The nonessential designation covers just about all 2,400 county employees except those in the Police Department and Fire Department and some wastewater workers.
read ... Flossie Produces $350K Paid Vacation for Hawaii Co Employees
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