Hanabusa: Obama Considers Creating Akaka Tribe Without Congressional Approval
President of National School Choice Week to Speak in Hawaii
Simplified property taxes
UH New Pres Lassner Makes Excuses for Multi-Million Dollar BUZZEO Disaster
KITV: He characterizes lost millions over a untested BUZZEO software contract in the 1990's this way: "We attempted to do something no one ever attempted to do before and it did not succeed. That was not a failure of any one person. That was an agreement to take risks and government is often unwilling to take risks and the nature of risks is not every one of them works out," Lassner said.
The regents are taking a risk on Lassner, who up till now has had his hands full with a new technology center which is still under construction.
The project will finally pull together all the University's tech systems in one place all of which is set to happen this fall.
With his new duties, Lassner expects to find someone to take over the job of chief technology officer next month.
Meanwhile Lassner says he has no plan to move into what has been the traditional home of the UH president at College Hill.
"I will not live there, and I have no housing allowance," he said emphatically.
Read ... Taking a Risk
Gay 'Sheriff' corrals legislators who stray from party gospel
Shapiro: Michael Golojuch Jr., chairman of the Democratic Party's gay caucus, brazenly declared himself the "new sheriff in town" after he initiated sanctions against 11 Democratic legislators who proposed a constitutional amendment on traditional marriage.
This sheriff is making Democrats look like Barney Fife in going after lawmakers — many of them longtime party stalwarts — who were only doing their job of considering all sides of a contentious issue instead of listening to only one view.
It's preposterous that a fringe player with an inflated ego like Golojuch would presume to dictate to rock-solid Democrats such asSenate President Donna Mercado Kim and former House Speaker Calvin Say that they must legislate his way or else.
He's been abetted by party leaders who have let the nonsense drag on under capricious and contradictory rules instead of providing sorely needed adult supervision.
A party investigative committee finally dropped charges against Kim, Say and seven others who co-sponsored the proposed constitutional amendment, but kept alive the case against the two primary sponsors, Sen. Mike Gabbard and Rep. Sharon Har.
Both are lawmakers from the Kapolei-Makakilo district with whom the Golojuch family has feuded for years.
read ... Golojuch corrals legislators who stray from party gospel
Cross-Dressing Accused Murderer Employed by Pacifist Center
SA: Baker lived for 11 months at the Honolulu Diamond Sangha, a Palolo Zen Buddhist center founded by dead full-time surrender activist Robert Aiken, where he was paid a small stipend for performing maintenance. He was asked to leave July 2 when his health failed him and he was unable to perform his maintenance duties.
Michael Kieran, a teacher at the Palolo center, said Baker first came to the center in 2002.
read ... A Pacifist Murderer
'Progressive' 2nd CD is Full of White People
CB: The 1st District is larger, with about 6,500 more people. It also has slightly more women, and more people aged 60 and above.
The 2nd District has more Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, more Latinos and many more white people, but far fewer Asians.
Foreign-born population? The district that includes Honolulu has twice as many as its counterpart. But there are roughly twice as many people living in the 2nd District that report having German, Irish or Portuguese ancestry.
read ... Guilt Ridden
Kauai 100 Gather for Push Back Against Anti-GMO Hype
KGI: The pair of forums — held Monday at the Waimea Theater and Tuesday and Kapaa Elementary — were organized by the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association.
Panelists included Folta, an associate professor of horticultural sciences at the University of Florida; Jerry Ornellas, president of the Kauai County Farm Bureau; Kirby Kester, the applied genetics manager at BASF Plant Science in Kekaha and president-elect of the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association; Dennis Gonsalves, the former director of the Pacific Basin Agriculture Research Center; and Steven Savage, a consultant with more than 30 years of experience in agricultural technology.
Kester said the four biotech seed companies on Kauai — BASF, Syngenta, DuPont Pioneer and Dow AgroSciences — collectively farm about 13,000 acres (less than 20 percent of the total farmland) from Polihale to Hanamaulu, employ roughly 600 workers annually, and contribute roughly $80 million to the Kauai economy each year.
“This money is a direct injection into the economy in the form of salaries, contracts with local businesses, construction work and other money spent in our local communities,” he said.
The main reason these companies choose to operate on Kauai, according to Kester, is the weather, and the ability to carry out plant breeding and seed production year-round.
read ... Wisdom vs Ignorance
Lawsuit: State mental Health Cuts Behind Suicide of Teen
HNN: The suit says Roosevelt High School student Charlie Lee was depressed and suicidal when the state began to reduce mental health services for the teen.
"This young man had acted out and cut himself on prior occasions and threatened to kill himself previously and then ended up ultimately doing it," said his family's attorney Eric Seitz.
"On a couple of occasions, services were denied, intensive care services. Then they were provided belatedly. Then they were cut short."
The suit alleges that Lee had been in and out of treatment centers for over four years and that the state often provide inadequate mental health services and even cut them off.
He was last sent to Home Maluhia near King Street in October 2011 for not attending school. But the state sent him home and cut mental health services two weeks later. He hanged himself the day he was sent home.
read ... Lawsuit
Homelessness in Hawaii Hits Drudge Report
$10,000/mo Electric Bill Pushes Farmer to Go Hydro
SA: Now that his electricity bill has crept back up — to about $10,000 a month — Ha is finally pulling the trigger. He recently completed a hydroelectric project that will power his entire operation with energy to spare. He's finalizing an agreement with Hawaii Electric Light Co. to feed the excess electricity into HELCO's grid at no charge to the utility.
read ... $10,000 month
Tall Buildings, Cheap Rent and Hawaii's Ability to Manage Development
CB: A skeptical crowd gathered in the basement of the Hawaii State Capitol on Tuesday night, and it wasn’t for an after party for the The Cure.
The event drew more than 200 attendees, which was more than enough to leave standing room only in the stuffy downstairs auditorium. They were brought together by local politicians for the chance to grill the Hawaii Community Development Authority about the state’s plans for Kakaako, a 604-acre swath of Honolulu’s urban core that’s wedged between downtown and Waikiki....
Honolulu City Council members Ann Kobayashi and Carol Fukunaga organized Tuesday’s town hall style meeting with the help of state legislators Brickwood Galuteria, Suzanne Chun Oakland, Scott Saiki, Tom Brower and Della Belatti.
Dozens, if not hundreds, of written questions were submitted in hopes that HCDA Executive Director Tony Ching would answer them Tuesday evening.
read ... Tall Buildings, Cheap Rent and Hawaii's Ability to Manage Development
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