HFF: Same-sex "marriage" is not a done deal
DoE New System 'Report Card' Makes it Looks Good
Ex-University of Hawaii president spends big ‘for kids’
Property Tax Exemptions on Honolulu Council Committee Agenda
Gambling: Hawaii County Resolution 158-13, A High Stakes Game
Two New Members Appointed to Hawaiian Homes Commission
DBEDT Boosts Economic Growth Projection
18% of DoE Students 'Chronically Absent'
CB: Nearly two out of every 10 of Hawaii’s public elementary students missed school last year at “chronic” rates that the Department of Education says strongly indicate which kids are at high risk for falling behind and dropping out.
Eighteen percent of elementary school children were chronically absent last year, meaning they missed 15 or more days of school, according to data released Monday that outlines the first annual results of the DOE’s new so-called Strive HI Performance System.
Chronic absenteeism is just one of several metrics the new system uses to measure school-specific student performance and improvement across all grade levels. Those metrics are tallied into a total score that then determines a school’s ranking.
SA: Using a broader range of measures helps aim changes where needed, school officials says
read ... Chronic
Attorney for teacher accused of sexual assault begins fighting against bias
KITV: The attorney for a former Sacred Hearts Academy teacher, who faces seven counts of sexual assault, began defending his client against "presumptive judgements" Monday.
That on the day when his client formally plead not guilty to all of those charges.
Reality: McKenna: Being Gay is Big Advantage for Judicial Appointments
read ... Attorney for teacher accused of sexual assault begins fighting against bias
Teacher: I Hated the HSTA
CB: During my first year of teaching, in the days of furlough Fridays, I hated the Hawaii State Teachers Association.
Like many educators, I blamed them for the lost instructional days, their protection of bad teachers and the general lack of planning and collaboration time in our schools.
I fumed at every banal professional development meetings that I attended. I wondered how they could allow schools to consume so much teacher-planning time while simultaneously constricting required work hours so that teachers don't have time to collaborate significantly within their content areas.
I should mention, I’m usually very pro-labor. I see the decline of union membership in the private sector as a factor that is linked to the decline of the middle class. And I think our country is going to be in big trouble if we don’t do something to address rampant economic inequality.
But when it came to Hawaii’s teacher association, I felt that I would have preferred to suffer the wrath of having no union at all rather than to hear the public voice for teachers push for an agreement that took learning time away from students.
read ... Furlough Blame
Gay 'Marriage'? House Dems to Count Votes Again
SA: State House Democrats are meeting this week to determine whether there is enough support among members to approve a gay marriage proposal.
Speaker Joe Souki (D, Waihee-Waiehu-Wailuku) said Monday that the Democratic leadership plans to meet Wednesday and expects to call all members to a caucus to determine the count, which insiders say is close. The Senate has the votes to pass a bill.
If support is solid, Souki said, the leadership will inform Gov. Neil Abercrombie. The expectation is that a clear signal will prompt Abercrombie to call the Legislature to special session to take up a bill.
"If we have the votes now, we'll go and tell the governor we can go now," Souki said. "If not, we'll just wait until (next) session.
read ... Still Don't Have the Votes
Calling for special session could open can of worms
Borreca: Then there is the matter of writing a new marriage law.
First, what to do with the existing civil unions law: Should that be scrapped, or should it be allowed to continue? What about the part of the law allowing churches to opt in or out of solemnizing civil unions? If marriage between same-sex partners is allowed and becomes a right, can churches refuse to solemnize the marriage? Can the state force churches to recognize gay marriages?
Then there is the issue of timing. If the Legislature and the governor don't come up with a draft bill soon, the Democrats will run into the fall activities such as planning for a new state budget, which must happen by Thanksgiving.
After that, it is close to the January legislative opening, so, opponents could argue, wait for the regular session.
And that means the gay marriage bill will be drawing more legislative scrutiny and more lobbyist and activist attention and become a focus for the 2014 election.
read ... Worms
Ray Soon Takes over at Honolulu Hale
CB: Ray Soon, a well-connected, Harvard-educated private consultant, will take over as Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s chief of staff on Sept. 3.
Caldwell’s administration confirmed the hiring to Civil Beat on Monday,ending months of speculation about who would fill the role as the mayor’s on-the-ground, political lieutenant at Honolulu Hale.
Soon, who will be paid $125,000 a year, has strong ties to Neil Abercrombie, helping run the governor’s transition team after the 2010 election, and is a former Bill Clinton appointee to the President’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
He was an executive at Kamehameha Schools and served as the head of the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands from 1999 to 2003. His consulting firm, Solutions Pacific, was also awarded $352,000 in contracts to help bring the struggling State Historic Preservation Division into compliance with federal standards overseen by the National Park Service.
Caldwell spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke said Soon will now act as the mayor’s “vote counter,” working behind the scenes with Honolulu City Council members and others to make sure the administration’s message is clear.
LINK: Ray Soon resume
read ... Consigliore
Electricity rates jump Again SA: The bill for a typical household on Oahu using 600 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month is $210.14 in August compared with $204.27 in July, according to HECO.
The residential rate on Oahu rose to 33.5 cents per kilowatt-hour in August from 32.5 cents per kilowatt-hour in July. The July rate was lower than the same month last year, when residential customers on Oahu paid 34.5 cents a kilowatt-hour.
Topping the state in August was Kauai, where residents paid 41.6 cents a kilowatt-hour for electricity, down from 42.3 cents a kilowatt-hour in July.
Hawaii island's residential rate rose to 39.4 cents a kilowatt-hour from last month's 39.2 cents. The typical bill rose to $247.13 from $245.57.
Maui Electric Co. customers saw their rate decline to 35.9 cents per kilowatt-hour from 36.1 cents per kilowatt-hour last month. The typical Maui bill fell $1.35 to $224.13.
The increase in the rate on Oahu was partly the result in an increase in the price for low-sulfur fuel oil...
Really? LSFO Prices Drop
read ... Blames Oil Prices
Not Everybody Feeling the Recession
SA: There's the upcoming vacancy on Hawaii's Supreme Court, due to the mandatory retirement of Associate Justice Simeon Acoba in March, when he turns 70. The 10-year term pays $206,184 annually.
And up at the University of Hawaii, three top jobs are expected to be filled this week: Vassilis Syrmos, tapped as UH vice president for research at $239,016 annually; Cynthia Quinn, as the Board of Regents' executive administrator at $140,016 yearly; and Steven Smith, interim veep for information technology, $225,000 yearly.
read ... Nice work, if you can get it
Abercrombie 2005: Scrap the HCDA
DN: The headline on this 2005 story by Richard Borecca is clear—then-Representative Neil Abercrombie wanted to see the end of the HCDA:
Abercrombie wants to shutter agency handling Kakaako plans -- The U.S. Rep. wants the state planning agency, the Hawaii Community Development Authority, scrapped
At a news conference yesterday at the gateway to the existing Kakaako park, Abercrombie, who opposed the creation of the HCDA nearly 30 years ago, called on the 2006 Legislature to repeal the laws creating the semiautonomous state planning agency.
"This plan does not take into account our ordinary hard-working people of Hawaii," he said. "The best solution is for the Legislature to repeal the act that brought the HCDA into existence and put the authority back with the city."
[Star-Bulletin, Abercrombie wants to shutter agency handling Kakaako plans, 11/15/2005]
read ... Disappeared News
Led by Marijuana Grower, Hundreds Denounce OHA Geothermal Scheme
BIVN: Amid a flurry of sign-waving, drumming and shouting, hundreds of protesters converged on Kilauea Avenue in Hilo this morning to show their opposition to a planned geothermal expansion in Puna.
Carrying signs reading everything from “Save Pohoiki” to “Geothermal Kills,” the vocal group of marchers made their way toward Hawaiian Electric Company’s main office building across from the Hilo Shopping Center, where another group of protesters had gathered to await their arrival.
The march and ensuing protest was arranged by the Puna Pono Alliance....
Look at all the criminals on both sides:
read ... OHA Can't Shut them Down
6 months after Munet's escape, are procedures improved?
HNN: As a result of the Munet escape, when prisoners arrive at court, sheriffs and corrections officers are supposed to make sure the iron gate leading to the drop-off garage is closed, so inmates are unloaded in a secured area.
But last Thursday morning, Hawaii News Now watched a transport van unloading two male prisoners with the gate left wide open. However, the prisoners did have leg shackles on as well as handcuffs making it hard for them to run away.
When corrections officers arrived in a second van Thursday morning full of women prisoners for court appearances, the officers closed and locked the gate as they are supposed to and the inmates leaving the van were behind bars and fully secure.
"We've made spot checks. The ACOs may not know it, but we've made spot checks to make sure this is happening," Sakai said.
Corrections officials have also worked with the courts to stagger inmate delivery times, Sakai said, so that a large number of prisoner transport vans don't clog the sally port.
"We have a bigger window now so we arrive at 15-minute intervals so we don't have the situation where we have three vans arrive at the same time when the sally port can hold only two," Sakai said.
The public safety department's transport vans are very old. Some of them have 200,000 miles on them and break down frequently, officials said. The department is in the process of buying two new vans.
What about discipline for those guards and their supervisors whose lax oversight let Teddy Munet escape?
"There is an active investigation. It hasn't been completed. There's more than one officer who we're looking at," Sakai said.
read ... Escape?
Honolulu Won't Help State With New Online Voter Registration System
CB: Honolulu has declined to collaborate with the state on its new online voter registration system....
The state Office of Elections is going to have to find a way to get the new system up and running on its own. The office has until the 2016 primary election to do so, as mandated by a law Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed in 2012....
Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s spokesman, Jesse Broder Van Dyke, said Monday that it is a question of limited resources; the city simply can’t afford the cost of taking on the online voter registration system.
As such, the Office of Elections is looking into developing a separate system that would be networked in with the city’s databases, Nago said.
The Legislature appropriated $500,000 last year for the Office of Elections to use in the planning and design of the new voter registration system. With that phase done, Nago said the next step involves putting the system into place.
Nago said his office will be seeking bids from companies to do so, but he wasn’t sure when those would go out. There is, he added, no estimate of how much the next phase will cost.
Common Cause Hawaii, a nonprofit focused on promoting public participation in the political process, researched the cost of implementation in 2011. It found that startup costs ranged from $120,000 to $245,000 in Oregon, Colorado, and Maryland.
read ... No Help
Health Department notifies county clerks of dead voters
SA: There are various ways deceased voters are removed from the voter rolls, according to Glen Takahashi, Honolulu County elections administrator.
The state Department of Health, by law, reports deaths to county clerks each month, while family members also can notify the appropriate clerk’s office of a death.
Election officials also remove names from voter rolls based on returned election mail and outdated postal information, Takahashi said. “If a person is reported as deceased, absentee ballots and other election materials would not be mailed from that point.”
If a ballot is mailed, every signature on a returned absentee ballot envelope is verified against a reference signature on file.
read ... Dead Voters
QUICK HITS: