Hawaii Leads Nation in Making Welfare More Attractive than Work
It pays not to work: Hawaii highest welfare benefits in US
Feds Push Expensive Offshore Windfarms for Hawaii
Kauai: Hawaiians Voice Suspicion of Akaka Tribal Roll
Publicly Funded Ads Promote Purchase of HMSA, Kaiser Policies
Atheist Threatens DoE Employees at Board of Education Meeting, Sheriff Called to Keep Order
SA: (Quick IQ Test: Did you notice that the gays and atheists are coordinating their attack on Hawaii?)
State sheriff's deputies were called to today's Board of Education meeting following a feisty exchange between advocate Mitch Kahle and board Chairman Don Horner....
"The DOE has actually been involved in a cover-up," Kahle said during the public testimony portion of the meeting.
Horner asked Kahle to wrap up his testimony after he hit the allotted two minutes. Kahle said he wasn't finished....
"Don, as a pastor of New Hope, we understand why you don't want this testimony to be heard," Kahle said, talking over Horner on a microphone. "You have a conflict of interest, and I would say to you that you might want to abstain from this discussion."
Horner is a licensed pastor and serves as a volunteer staff member of New Hope Diamond Head Church, according to his profile on the BOE's website. He's also a member of Hawaii Pastors Roundtable.
Horner, smooth as silk, explained, "For your information, sir, I'm in full compliance" with the state's ethics code. "And you are out of order."
Kahle continued, saying subpoenas would be issued to obtain documents and witness testimony.
Horner interjected: "Mr. Kahle, can I ask one other question? If you could direct your threats to this board and to the senior management. Respectfully, I ask you not to threaten our employees in the field."
Sheriff's deputies were called during the exchange for the safety of board members, the superintendent and the public, a DOE spokeswoman said.
HNN: Atheist Harassment on Video
read ... They Want Your Children
Jihad Against God: Atheists Aim to Ban Churches from Renting School Facilities
ILind: In December 2011, The New York Times reported on the end of a small evangelical Christian church’s 16-year legal battle to overturn a New York City ban on the use of public schools for religious worship services.
(Here's the program, Hawaii: Kick all churches out of the schools and mandate the teaching of homosexuality.)
The final chapter in the longstanding legal crusade by the Bronx Household of Faith came when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a lower court decision backing the city’s ban. The Supreme Court’s action allowed the city to begin kicking churches out of the schools where many had worshipped for years.
It wasn’t really the end of that story, but that’s for another day.
Five thousand miles away in Honolulu, Mitch Kahle, founder of Hawaii Citizens for Separation of Church and State, read the Times story with interest.
“I wonder what’s happening here in Hawaii,” Kahle recalls thinking at the time.
That small question started Kahle and his partner, Holly Huber, on a year-long investigation culminating in 2,245-page report and an unusual and controversial lawsuit....
And that could mean a big payday for the state as well as for the plaintiffs. The “false claims” law provides for damages amounting to three times the amount the state was shorted. For example, the estimated avoidance of $5.6 million in rental fees allegedly owed the state could lead to triple damages of $16.8 million, with 25-30 percent going to the plaintiffs along with reasonable attorneys fees and costs.
ILind: Documents back up charge of massive underpayment for church use of schools
ILind: Over at Civil Beat: ‘Jihad against God’?
read ... Jihad Against God
Atheist Advertiser Plans to Force Gay Marriages on Churches, Just like Civil Unions
SA: The draft, shared with the Star-Advertiser by sources who requested confidentiality because it is a working document, closely mirrors the religious exemption found in the civil unions law. (All us atheists got together with the gays and we all agree on what we are going to do to you. And no, you can't see a copy.)
No clergy or others would be required to perform gay marriages or be subject to fines or civil liability for their refusal. But the draft adds the statement that clergy and others have "rights as guaranteed by the Constitution of this state and the United States Constitution." (Quick IQ test: Are you impressed by this?)
"To some extent it's explicitly saying what legally would happen anyway, because if somebody has a constitutional right to something, that will always trump a statutory right or statutory provision," said Blake Oshiro, Gov. Neil Abercrombie's deputy chief of staff, who has worked on the draft.
"So now it's making it expressed rather than implied."
Lois Perrin, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, said the draft strikes the right balance. (They all pat themselves on the back.)
Reality: Churches sue over forced Civil Unions
read ... What they call, 'Balanced'
Mainland Homosexuals Hot to 'Marry' Local Boys, Abercrombie Says 'Be Patient'
Abercrombie's main threat to re-election is his own ego
Shapiro: Gov. Neil Abercrombie's surprising 50,000-vote victory in 2010 over the better-funded and heavily endorsed Mufi Hannemann boiled down to a simple political dynamic.
Hannemann's ego-driven style as Honolulu mayor left droves of antagonized voters itching to take him down a peg, and Abercrombie sold himself as an acceptable alternative.
Ironically, the same dynamic is at play in next year's Democratic primary between Abercrombie and state Sen. David Ige, except this time it's Abercrombie who must beware of antagonized voters....
the good will evaporated soon after the election when the new Abercrombie reverted to the old Abercrombie, picking unnecessarily nasty and often ill-informed fights with seniors, teachers, nurses, environmentalists, the Pro Bowl and the media. Despite an improving economy that is usually political gold for governors, Abercrombie's approval in the polls has been below 50 percent throughout his term....
the governor can't erase the ill will he created by failing to govern his own ego. The intriguing question of 2014 is whether he's ticked off too many voters past the point of no return, as Hannemann had in 2010....
Abercrombie: If you agree with me you should see a psychiatrist
read ... Ego
Nonpartisan effort needed to change harmful Jones Act
SA: With the growing awareness of the Jones Act and its impact on the cost of almost everything in Hawaii, calls for action are mounting.
In a recent Honolulu Star-Advertiser informal poll, for instance, 82 percent of online respondents to “The Big Q” said they favor either a Hawaii exemption from, or an outright repeal of, the nearly century-old federal statute.
read ... Kelii Akina
Kauai: Anti-GMO Luddites no-show at Hearing
KGI: More than 20 people wearing blue shirts attended a Kauai County Council meeting Tuesday afternoon to show opposition to Bill 2491, which would affect companies that grow genetically modified organisms. Nobody wearing a “Pass the Bill” red shirt showed up....
Medeiros said those who attack the seed companies act like their workers have no morals and don’t care about the people of Kauai. “I have four kids,” Medeiros said as she cried. “I would never put them in danger, or anybody else’s kids.”
KGI: Bronster Exposes Hoosier's Phony Hearings
PR: Notice
CB: GMO Fight Club: Accusations Fly Over Biotech on Kauai
read ... Island's IQ Improves Markedly
Scott Nago to Get $20K Raise?
Sen Sam Slom: The State Election Commission meets today, 10 am in the State Office Tower (Beretania Street next to the Capitol) and among other things, will, from behind closed doors, recommend a rumored $20,000 salary increase for the Chief Elections Officer, Scott Nago. This is the same CEO who botched last year's elections statewide so badly with non-delivered ballots, erroneous ballots, etc., resulting in many residents not getting to vote. Nago should be fired, but instead they want to give him a salary hike. Outrageous. Public testimony is welcomed this morning.
read ... Reward for Incompetence
Former PUC Chair Subject of Ethics Query By Hawaii Energy Regulators
CB: A former state utility commissioner who is now representing a company that wants to build a wind farm on Lanai is in ethical hot water with his former colleagues.
Honolulu attorney Carlito Caliboso has two days to tell the Public Utilities Commission why he should be allowed to continue representing Castle & Cooke in its efforts to move the Lanai wind farm forward.
PUC Chair Mina Morita sent Caliboso a 14-page letter Thursday that lays out the state’s ethics laws and rules of professional conduct. It asks him to explain why his prior service to the commission doesn’t conflict with his current work in the private sector.
The letter may be a stab at rebuilding the commission’s integrity in the public eye. The PUC has been publicly criticized recently for its revolving door of employees leaving the commission to work for companies they once regulated.
Caliboso chaired the PUC from 2003 to 2011, then went to work for a firm downtown that focuses on energy law and public utilities.
When he was with the commission, he voted in favor of giving HECO a waiver from the competitive bidding process. The commission’s 2-1 vote in November 2010 let the utility negotiate an agreement with Castle & Cooke and First Wind to develop a 400-megawatt wind project on Lanai and Molokai.
read ... Ethics?
Lawsuit: Hoku Charged with Fraud, Racketeering
PBN: JH Kelly LLC, the Washington state general contractor for Hoku Materials Inc.’s failed $600 million polysilicon processing plant in Pocatello, Idaho, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging fraud and racketeering charges against the bankrupt Honolulu-based Hoku Corp. and China-based Tianwei, the firm said Tuesday.
According to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boise, Idaho, Hoku Materials owed JH Kelly in excess of $25 million for work completed through December 2011....
during recent discussions with local stakeholders and policy makers, Longview, Wash.-based JH Kelly said it confirmed that representatives from Hoku/Tianwei made repeated promises, representations and commitments to numerous officials and entities during the course of the construction of the project.
“These documented promises, commitments and misrepresentations are the foundation for our suit,” Evans said.
ABS: Battery Scammers Take Aim at Solar Farms
read ... Another Act 221 Success Story
Thanks to Union, 20 HGEA Jobs Will Disappear at HHSC
WHT: Chief Nurse Executive Pat Kalua offered the senators one recent example, a person hired who worked one day, then never returned. Under the state’s civil service laws and the union-negotiated contract, the hospital wasn’t allowed to replace that employee or initiate disciplinary actions until the 15th day the worker failed to show up. At that point, the hospital could issue a warning letter and had to wait a few more weeks before terminating employment. That left the hospital short that staffer for a month, Kalua said.
In the meantime, other hospital employees are called in to work overtime and cover shifts, leaving those employees overworked and exhausted, too, she said.
Dean Herzog, regional chief financial officer, said he would like to see the Legislature “work with unions to get our own bargaining unit. (There are) so many built-in rules that create overtime. It doesn’t really apply to hospitals.”
From an employee’s first day on the job, he is eligible for 21 sick days, 15 holidays and 21 vacation days, Herzog said. He and Kreuzer estimated their inability to craft work schedules that reflect the hospital’s patient census and avoid some of the automatic overtime — if an employee misses lunch, for instance, the hours worked after the scheduled lunch break are overtime, and the hospital pays the worker $10 for the missed meal — is costing Kona Community Hospital $3 million a year.
Hilo Medical Center is twice as big as Kona, so Herzog estimated the costs there are closer to $6 million, and Maui Memorial, three times larger than Kona hospital, likely loses $9 million a year because of those rules. Those rules cost the state, which provides some funding to the Hawaii Health Systems Corp., nearly $20 million a year, Herzog added.
Looking at next year’s budget, Kreuzer said officials are anticipating a $3 million loss, mostly because of changes in Medicare reimbursements and the impact of federal sequestration. That comes after the hospital’s two best financial years ever, Kreuzer said. The only way to make up for next year’s anticipated losses, he said, is by lowering labor costs. The hospital will do that next year, Kreuzer said, by eliminating 20 positions through attrition.
Background: HGEA/UPW employees earn less, cost more
read ... Labor Costs
New DoE Testing Scheme Looks Bad for Charter Schools
HTH: E.B. DeSilva Elementary, Waters of Life Charter, and Konawaena Elementary schools were among a total of 14 schools across Hawaii classified at the top of a five-tiered ranking system announced Monday. The first tier schools are classified as “Recognition Schools.”
Waters of Life earned additional recognition, being the only charter school in the state to be ranked in the top tier.
An additional 40 Hawaii Island schools were in the second tier, exhibiting “Continuous Improvement.” Nine fell under the third tier identifying schools that need to show more improvement, called “Focus Schools,” while three schools were named “Priority Schools.” The lowest tier, known as the “Superintendent’s Zone,” does not yet contain any of the schools across the state.
The lowest performing schools on Hawaii Island, listed as Priority Schools, included Hawaii Academy of Arts & Science, Ka Umeke Kaeo, and Nawahiokalaniopuu Iki charter schools. Despite Waters of Life’s success, charter schools in general made up an unusually high proportion of the lowest-ranked schools, taking eight of the bottom 14 spots in the Priority Schools tier.
read ... Except Waters of Life
Musto: Senate Seniority is the Great Equalizer
CB: The University of Hawaii Professional Assembly (UHPA) has endorsed the election of Brian Schatz in 2014 because he is...young....
Reality: Seniority: Hawaii is better off without it
read ... Seniority?
Omidyar Launches Hawaii Law Center to Push HPD Disclosure
CB: ...the law center was born in part out of our continued frustration with the challenges in getting public records from state and county agencies, and the Legislature's apparent indifference to the role that journalists play in holding government officials accountable.
Specifically, our investigative series earlier this year on police misconduct records, In the Name of the Law, explored the need for more disclosure of police misconduct in the same way that all other public employees' disciplinary actions are available for public review. An OIP opinion supporting making the police records public has been ignored for years by the counties.
A legislative effort to make even a limited amount of additional information available died in the House Public Safety Committee, ostensibly because of push back from the politically powerful statewide police union. No one, it seems, wants to go up against the union.
Hawaii's media shield law, once a model for the nation, died a much-publicized legislative death, too. The law protected journalists from having to reveal confidential sources or turn over unpublished material. But the five-year-old law expired this year and lawmakers couldn't agree, among other things, on whether bloggers should be protected and whether reporters could be forced to reveal confidences in civil cases....
read ... Civil Beat Law Center Aims To Bring More Firepower to Public Issues
How it Takes 3.5 Years to Fix Bathroom
KHON: ...this facility, has been closed for two-and-a-half years.
“We’ve had to go through various properties, state highways, underneath state highway, Bishop Estate to tie in. We had some other coastal zone issues because the bathroom is close to the ocean,” Takashige said.
KHON2 dug deeper and found that fixing the bathrooms required many approvals.
It took the city more than a year to put together the plan to submit to the Department of Transportation in March 2012. It was approved six months later. Kamehameha Schools gave its blessings in July — the major utilities, in the fall — and the contractor was awarded the bid this past April.
“It’s getting to be for a government official to be embarrassed at something that takes so long to get so little accomplished with what I think is not a rocket science project,” Rep. Ward said.
“Hope they fix it soon, I don’t know why it would take them three years to fix something like that,” Perez said.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, is all I can say. I do agree that it’s been quite a long time,” Takashige said.
The contractor has 240 days to finish the project.
The city says these restrooms should reopen by the end of next January.
The city has been paying about $550 a month for porta potties that are nearby.
read ... Kafka
Wahiawa Transportation Base Yard Sits Empty Two Years After Rebuild
SA: Question: I live in Wahiawa, and on my daily walk I pass the state Department of Transportation’s base yard on California Avenue, across from Kaala Elementary School. It was an old place but rebuilt about two years ago. Everything is brand new but never been occupied. It’s a joke. Why did the state build this only to have it sit empty? It’s becoming an eyesore and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Answer: While the $2.3 million Wahiawa Baseyard was substantially completed at the end of 2012, it remains closed with no opening date in sight.
Work along the perimeter of the property at 115 California Ave. still needs to be done before the base yard receives an occupancy permit, said DOT spokeswoman Caroline Sluyter. The DOT then has to get additional funding for the work.
read ... Kokua Line
Native Hawaiian group throws major roadblock into state resurfacing project
PBN: The Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., on behalf of Paulette Kaleikini, is in settlement negotiations with the state after filing a lawsuit last week alleging a breach of its settlement agreement from a lawsuit involving the development of the Walmart and Sam’s Club stores on Keeaumoku Street in Honolulu, an attorney involved in the matter told PBN.
David Kopper, who is an attorney for the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., declined further comment.
The 2005 agreement said that any time a project is being built in the Oahu urban corridor, the state Historic Preservation Division couldn’t allow a project to proceed solely on the basis that the land was previously disturbed, according to court documents.
read ... Resurfacing?
Native Hawaiians Did not Exercise 'Sovereignty' Under Hawaiian Kingdom
ILind: In 1893, pre-overthrow, residents who were not Native Hawaiians were Cabinet members, legislators, justices/judges, other government officials and voters….
Sovereignty is the quality of having independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make laws. The “sovereign Hawaiian nation” and its Absolute Monarchy ceased to exist no later than 1852. It was replaced by the “sovereign nation of Hawai‘i” and its Constitutional Monarchy.
When Queen Liliuokalani was in office, there were three branches of government and she was in less than complete charge of only one of them – the Executive Branch. Others were in charge of the Legislative branch. Others were in charge of the Judicial branch.
On January 16, 1893, the day prior to the overthrow, Native Hawaiians did not have political or economic control of Hawai‘i.
read ... Sovereignty?
Ideas to make Hawaii more walkable
BH: A Walk Score is a number from 0 to 100 that measures a city’s walkability – and our ability to run errands without a car. Honolulu has a Walk Score of 62 (somewhat walkable), according to WalkScore.com. Downtown Honolulu, with a Walk Score of 88 (very walkable), is very pedestrian-friendly. Makakilo, with a Walk Score of 23 (car-dependent), is much less pedestrian-friendly.
Just for comparison: Hilo, Hawaii has a Walk Score of 30 (car-dependent); Lihue, Kauai has a Walk Score of 78; and Lahaina, Maui has a Walk Score of 85 (very walkable).
read ... Ideas to make Hawaii more walkable
I Aloha Molokai Plans Events
IAM will be hosting our annual Paddler’s Dinner for the Na Wahine O Ke Kai on September 21, 2013. This event is open to the participants of the race and the community. Come join us for great food and entertainment. Call our office at (808)-213 1321 for more information.
Planning is underway for our third annual Alternative Energy Festival. The festival will expand to a three day event: Thursday, January 9 – Friday, January 10 – Saturday, January 11, 2014. If you would like to be involved in anyway, give us a call at (808) 213-1321
read ... IAM
Hawaii County Considers $10,000 Fine for 'Dangerous Trees'
HTH: Glenn Bousquet, testifying from Pahoa, said the measure will make it hard for people to buy and sell property. He questioned whether buyers would be warned that property they are interested in could be subject to mandatory tree removal. Removing a single albizia tree can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000.
(The result will be that the County seizes private property.)
“Are we going to criminalize everyone when they’re living in Canada and they buy a lot in Hawaii?” he asked.
But Tim Rees, testifying from Hilo, said applying an ordinance aimed at unoccupied lots to occupied lots could run afoul of state law.
“The state Legislature has drawn a bright line between occupied and unoccupied lots,” Rees said.
Kern’s amendment, which he plans on improving before reintroducing, would make it harder for neighbors to file frivolous complaints. It would require owners of a new home built too close to an existing stand of trees used for wind blocks, boundary markers or ornamentals to seek other legal remedies.
(And others will use this to ensure that their neighbors lots never are built on.)
If an individual files three unsubstantiated complaints against the same neighbor, that individual would be prohibited from complaining about the same issue again. (This is Puna, after all.)
read ... Targeting Private Ownership
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