Mental Health: Can Reform Solve Hawaii’s Homeless, Prison and Unfunded Liability Problems?
Purchases of Goods and Services for Resale Afforded Lesser Rate
Army to construct infantry platoon battle course at Pōhakuloa
Ige Predicts Victory: Backed by Akaka, Ariyoshi, Kim, Kidani
SA: At his first campaign rally Saturday at Pearl City Highlands Elementary School, an understated affair with plate lunches and a live band, the senator stressed his deep roots in the community, the values he learned from his parents and the hopes he and his wife have for their three children. He did not mention Abercrombie at all, leaving listeners to read between the lines for how he would be a different chief executive.
Ige said education, the economy and the environment would be the issues of his campaign, but he did not draw any policy contrasts with Abercrombie. Instead, the early message from the senator and his allies is that he would be a sensible, trusted and deliberative alternative to the often volcanic governor.
"I decided to run for governor because I believe that I can make a difference," Ige (D, Pearl Harbor-Pearl City-Aiea) told the rally, made up primarily of friends, family and older Japanese-American voters who have supported him for decades....
The rally attracted several of Ige's political colleagues: Senate President Donna Mercado Kim, Sen. Michelle Kidani, Rep. Gregg Takayama and Honolulu City Councilman Breene Harimoto, who is interested in Ige's Senate seat.
Donn Ariyoshi, the son of former Gov. George Ariyoshi, who had appointed Ige to fill a state House vacancy in 1985, hosted the event. Millie Akaka, the wife of former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, also attended....
Ige acknowledged that he is up against history. "We know that it will be a tough campaign. No governor has ever lost re-election," he told the rally. "Except for 2014."
read ... Ige takes personal route in first appeal for support
Long-ailing state hospitals direly need new treatment
Borreca: The problem is that the state hospitals provide most of the health care on the neighbor islands, but most of the money coming into the hospitals is from Medicare and Medicaid, which officials say pays only 65 percent of the cost.
According to audits of the system, the 2012-2006 operating losses were, respectively: $143 million, $112 million, $101 million, $145 million, $131 million, $71 million and $38 million.
Every year, respectively, there were subsidies of between $100 million and $38 million. Notice that the subsidies did not match the losses, so every year the hospitals were still in the red.
Randy Perreira, Hawaii Government Employees Association executive director, noted in the article that the Legislature did not appropriate enough for the pay raises won in the last round of negotiations with the state, so that bill will be paid forward.
In a briefing with legislators earlier this month, HHSC detailed some of the problems: operating financial shortfall, declining government and third-party reimbursements, unfunded collective bargaining costs, aging facilities and lack of resources.
The details include: Kona needing a new hospital, estimated cost $250 million; Hilo Medical Center being 48 years old with no significant renovations; Kauai's hospital, built in 1952, which still has four-, six- and eight-bed wards; Maui's hospital's master plan calling for $500 million in renovations. And Kula Hospital is more than 100 years old.
On Oahu, HHSC officials said Leahi Hospital cottages have "sloping floors, termite infestation and brown water coming out of the pipes."
State Sen. Josh Green, the Kona emergency physician and Health Committee chairman, is calling for a statewide round of public hearings to search for some consensus on what to do.
"There are major governance questions: Should they pursue local partners or partners from the mainland?
"I may propose a 20-year plan to modernize the hospitals. That would force the governor to give us direction," Green said in an interview, adding that so far he has had "zero contact" from Abercrombie on the issue.
(Translation: HHSC management is ramping up push for privatization or subsidy in preparation for next legislative session.)
read ... Long-ailing state hospitals direly need new treatment
Matsumoto: End Low Growth to Solve Public pension problem
SA: ...how will the state and the counties finance the statutorily mandated payment and wedge it into their budgets? The answers may involve cuts in existing programs, new tax increases and serious ongoing fiscal discipline. But taxing and cutting are hardly recipes for prosperity. The best solution lies in growing our tax base by restoring Hawaii's economic vitality. Of course, that is easier said than done.
Hawaii has recently begun to show encouraging signs of economic recovery with record tourism numbers, declining unemployment and rising tax revenues.
But recent history shows that these positive economic cycles are short-lived. Data from the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism reveals that during the 25-year period from 1965 to 1990, Hawaii enjoyed annual GDP growth of 10.2 percent. That rate of growth fell precipitously during the most recent 21-year period from 1991 to 2012 to a lackluster 3.6 percent.
Accounting for inflation, the real rate of growth was only 1.1 percent. The data depicts two starkly contrasting periods that suggest something is misfiring in our state's economic engine during the last two decades.
It is a struggle to identify similar examples of successes during that period. Instead, the economic landscape is littered with failed investment projects of scale and a continued flight of capital from Hawaii. Our low, single-digit GDP growth rate is an alarm calling for action.
We need to undertake economic initiatives that will better ensure that Hawaii's economy will grow at a robust rate....
(This is followed by an Hawaii Business Roundtable column arguing that the UH Innovation Initiative will be the solution to spurring economic growth.)
Background: Act 268 Hawaii Unfunded Liabilities Plan: Pot of Gold for Corrupt Union Leaders
read ... The public pension problem
New effort in pursuit of Akaka Tribe has slow start
SA: Some Hawaiians suggest the relatively low turnout for Kana‘iolowalu may reflect a lack of interest as well as "list fatigue," after previous registration efforts failed to produce concrete results.
"Only 15,000 people enrolled in Kana‘iolowalu in a year," said Mililani Trask, a pioneer in the push for native sovereignty. "We have hundreds of thousands of Hawaiians in the state and on the continent. It's pretty clear that they are not endorsing this initiative."
"When OHA was created, 55,000 Hawaiians were registered in a period of six months," added Trask, a former trustee for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
According to the 2010 Census, more than 527,000 people in the United States identified themselves as being of Hawaiian descent, with nearly 290,000 of them living in Hawaii....
The number of people on the list will shoot up after Sept. 15, with the addition of the first batch of 50,000 names of certified Hawaiians from previous OHA registries, such as Kau Inoa, according to Clyde Namuo, executive director of the roll commission.
Those who don't want their name transferred must contact OHA by Sept. 15 to opt out.The older registries are Kau Inoa, a nation-building effort that began in 2004 and has 110,000 names; Operation Ohana, an earlier effort to verify Hawaiian ancestry, with 29,000 names; and the Hawaiian Registry, which issues identification cards and has 28,000 names, according to OHA spokesman Garett Kamemoto. The lists overlap....
...some people object to the transfer, which was authorized in a bill quietly passed after legislators gutted and replaced the text of House Bill 785, which originally dealt with production of records in criminal cases. OHA and Kana‘iolowalu officials testified in favor, while the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands successfully argued against having its beneficiaries automatically included on the roll.
Many people were unaware of the legislation. It became better known with the August issue of Ka Wai Ola, OHA's newsletter, which described the plan and how to opt out. The publication warned, however, that those opting out "risk waiving their right and the right of their children and descendants, to be legally and politically acknowledged as Native Hawaiians and to participate in a future convention to reorganize the Hawaiian nation."
"That's when I got upset because I was sort of like being threatened that if I took my name out, it would jeopardize my children and my grandchildren," said Melissa Leina‘ala Moniz, who had signed up for Kau Inoa but doesn't want to have her name transferred. "I have 13 grandchildren."
She expressed fears that Kana‘iolowalu will give Native Hawaiians the status of a Native American tribe rather than restoring the nation they had taken from them.
"What it's going to do, I believe, is it's going to take away our identity as Native Hawaiians and throw us into a bucket, into the Indian nation," she said. "It's going to lead to us losing a lot of our rights and our lands."
Reality: Akaka Tribe “Disenrollment” -- 75% of Hawaiians “will not be acknowledged”
read ... Slow start
Wind Scammer will return to Kahuku
SA: A fire on Aug. 1, 2012, destroyed the battery storage building at the 30-megawatt wind energy project, forcing First Wind to shut down the entire facility and disconnect it from Hawaiian Electric Co.'s power grid.
The battery maker, Xtreme Power Solutions, said the fire was caused by defective parts in inverters supplied by another company, Dynapower Corp.
Xtreme Power sued Dynapower for damages, and the two companies settled the suit out of court, according to a spokeswoman for Xtreme Power Solutions.
Instead of replacing the batteries, First Wind is installing a dynamic volt-amp reactive system, or D-VAR. The D-VAR system uses patented technology to regulate power fluctuations in both traditional and renewable energy generation systems....
HECO signed a 20-year agreement to pay First Wind an average of 22.9 cents a kilowatt-hour for electricity produced by the Kahuku wind project. (Thanks to HCEI, HECO buys wholesale intermittent electricity for 2x the retail rate on the mainland. Now you know why your electric bills are so high.)
First Wind financed construction of the project, in part, with a $117 million loan guaranteed by the U.S. Energy Department. First Wind is current on its loan payments, Lamontagne said.
FIRST Wind also has a second wind energy project on Oahu and one on Maui.
The company's 69-megawatt Kawailoa Wind project northeast of Haleiwa did not require a battery system because of its proximity to one of HECO's main 138-kilovolt transmission lines, according to First Wind officials.
The Kahuku project, by contrast, is located near the end of a smaller 46-kilovolt HECO transmission line. The smaller capacity line, combined with the project's remote location, means that more needs to be done to protect the local circuit from fluctuations in power output associated with wind energy, the officials said. (Expect power outages on the North Shore)
The first phase of First Wind's 51-megawatt Kaheawa Wind energy project on Maui is equipped with an Xtreme Power Solutions battery system. (DANGER!)
Link: DVAR System
Background: Skeletons in the Closet of the Wind
read ... Wind scammer will return to Kahuku
Star-Adv: Let Water Board Keep Raising Rates
SA: The Council is considering a proposal by Councilman Ikaika Anderson that would give it final approval of the water board's operating and capital improvement budgets, even though city tax revenues are not affected or tapped by the agency. It also would require Council review of any land transactions or land condemnation contemplated by the water board, and require that the semi-autonomous board's members follow the city's standards of conduct.
"They have a right to be upset," says Ernest Y.W. Lau, who was appointed manager and chief engineer of the self-sustaining water supply system by the board in January.
Lau previously had been deputy director of the state Commission on Water Resource Management and head of the Kauai water department.
Last November, the water board unanimously approved a 70 percent rate increase over five years, the first rate hike since 2006, to maintain and replace aging infrastructure, sorely needed due to deferred maintenance.
Previously, the water agency also had spent nearly $490,000 over a three-year period on lobbyists to persuade the state Legislature to enact bills related to the board....
Lau does not want to undo what the board had done before his arrival — such as the transition to an automatic meter reading (AMR) system, which has proven to be controversial and problematic due to maintenance and bad-battery issues. For example, as many as 16 percent of all of the 166,000 customers complained when they started receiving bills in April based on faulty estimates rather than actual usage.
While the board "really messed up on this estimated bill issue," Lau said, temporary estimates have been necessary, although in reduced numbers, because of malfunctions in implementing a new billing system.
read ... Keep politics in water policy to a minimum
Residents raise stink over watery sewage situations
Shapiro: City officials are scrambling to pacify Waikiki residents up in arms about the sickening stench emanating from the Ala Wai since the city began removing a temporary sewage pipe. Urban decay takes on a whole new meaning when it starts to smell....
And the quote of the week … from Mayor Caldwell on complaints about the foul odors from the Ala Wai: "I would be surprised if it's anything with sewage. I think it's just the natural smells that get you have when you have a canal built here." When you've been a lawyer and politician for as long as he has, everything starts to naturally smell.
read ... Residents raise stink over watery sewage situations
Excuses from the Top: Stopping sick-leave abuse not easy
SA: The Department of Public Safety has been dealing with the issue of absenteeism for many years.
Some have asked, "Why not just fire them?"
But there are many factors that must be considered before taking action that will impact the safety of other employees, inmates and the public at large.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser's Aug. 11 editorial, "Stop Abuse of Sick Leave at State Prison," correctly states that absenteeism is a problem that needs to be addressed.
However, the editorial did not illustrate the extreme conditions our adult correction officers (ACOs) face each day....
Previously, all a prospective recruit had to do was pass a physical agility test and an interview to be accepted into the basic corrections training. New testing now measures reading, writing and math skills to make sure the prospective recruits can communicate at a 12th-grade level. It also checks character issues like judgment, professional attitude, conduct and teamwork.
We are already seeing noticeable changes in the type of recruits who are coming through in this next class....
read ... Excuses
GMO summit to be held Monday on Big Island
HTH: On Monday, two island business groups are hosting what they are calling the “Hawaii Island GMO Summit” to allow their members to delve into the controversial issue.
Held by the Hawaii Island Economic Development Board and Hawaii Leeward Planning Conference at the Fairmont Orchid, the gathering will include speakers and a panel discussion, with several participants coming from the mainland.
A few may be recognizable to those who follow the national debate over genetically modified organisms.
Jon Entine, executive director of the Genetic Literacy Project, and Karl Haro von Mogel, who runs biofortified.org, will be among the three guests given 30 minutes to speak on the topic.
The third will be Martina Newell-McGloughlin, director of the University of California’s biotechnology research and education program.
A panel will include Kamanamaikalani Beamer, assistant professor in the University of Hawaii’s Hui ‘Aina Momona program; Hector Valenzuela, a vegetable crops extension specialist with UH-Manoa; and Dennis Gonsalves, retired director of the Pacific Basin Agriculture Research Center.
HTH: Council members to introduce GMO bills
read ... GMO summit to be held Monday on Big Island
OHA Trustee: We are cashing in on Geothermal, so Stop Protesting Already
HTH: The draft geothermal report confirms that the community has its worries about health and safety. It acknowledges that we have not had the kind of tracking of community health and environmental impacts in a way that allows us to draw firm conclusions. The report tells us that “Puna’s public health profile is unclear,” that “health studies are needed” and that “geothermal operations carry health risks.” We can all agree with the recommendations to establish health and safety benchmarks, to invest in better monitoring and the study of impacts from geothermal development, to call on expert resources and to ensure ongoing communication with the community.
My fellow Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees and I have been impressed with what one Native Hawaiian company, Innovations Development group, has done to prepare to develop geothermal in a clean, sustainable way. We were impressed with the three years of conversations that the IDG team has conducted all over the state. We were impressed with the kind of leading edge technology partners and capital they have been able to attract. We were impressed that they are already engaged in developing geothermal on behalf of indigenous communities in New Zealand, a country known for its environmental safeguards. By taking a stake in Hu‘ena Power, the development arm of IDG, a super-majority of OHA trustees chose to give our beneficiaries a seat at the table in shaping their energy future.
We are very fortunate that we can have strong Native Hawaiian representation as we embark on the next phase of geothermal development. No foreign company will feel for or act on behalf of the community the way IDG and its team of partners can, and will.
The IDG team consists of veterans of the fight for Native Hawaiian rights.
read ... Protesting for Dollars
Hawaii's kupuna need to remain engaged
SA: Our aging population represents a growing natural resource that can be tapped for the greater good. How does Hawaii begin to recognize the power and potential of older adults by promoting active or successful aging?
Given the rapid growth of the older adult population, it is unlikely that Hawaii will ever have enough resources to address the demand for long-term care services. More attention needs to be placed on moderating this demand with methods that include an active aging approach. This initiative throughout the state will also help us address workforce shortages, civic engagement, well-being and intergenerational support.
Our challenge is not with longer life expectancy. Even with 20 bonus years, there are too many among us who have not planned how best to use this longevity dividend. As a state, we are also witnessing the loss of an enormous quantity of experience, knowledge and skills. How can we marshal even a percentage of the talents and skills of these active retirees?
Active aging is a movement that is building momentum throughout the U.S. and the world. Active aging will require the promotion of fitness — physical, mental, nutritional, financial, social and civic.
Active aging will also require the commitment by state and county governments to build the infrastructure to support it through the creation of age-friendly communities. This is what Mayor Kirk Caldwell referred to in his State of the City speech earlier this year and Gov. Neil Abercrombie committed to in his New Day in Hawaii plan two years ago.
This calls for Hawaii to envision older adults striving to achieve active life expectancy. Older adults should be encouraged to be actively engaged inter-generationally and continuously contributing to the community.
read ... Hawaii's kupuna need to remain engaged
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