Man at center of university procurement scandal back on the job
HPU Rises in U.S. News & World Report rankings
Oversight of Home-Community Based Services Working Group to Meet
Battleship Missouri Reenlistment Ceremony Marks September 11
Rail construction to resume Monday after council expedites approvals
KITV: A special management area use permit (SMP) as well as an intergovernmental agreement between the city and the Hawaii Department of Transportation easily passed the council by a vote of 9 to 0.
The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation said after more than a year of sitting idle, the controversial project would resume construction Monday morning along a 10-mile stretch from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium. A spokesperson for Kiewit Infrastructure West Co., the rail project’s main contractor, told KITV4 more than 150 workers are expected back on the job.
“It’s going to be back to work in a couple of places simultaneously,” said HART Executive Director Dan Grabauskas. “First of all, people will see us work around the area where we were working on the columns last year. We’ll also be doing re-grading of maintenance and storage facility.”...
But with another lawsuit by rail opponents making its way through the federal court system, not all council members are convinced the transit authority will actually realize savings by resuming construction.
"Without a real cost analysis, and for me, I think this is kind of like a roll of the dice,” said Councilman Joey Managan while questioning Grabauskas. “I mean it's kind of a crap shoot as far as saving money."
HNN: Ann Kobayashi and Joey Manahan voted yes with reservations
read ... Rail Construction
Church Pushes Back Against Atheist Lawsuit
KITV: New Hope has begun broadcasting a new television ad touting its support for Hawaii’s schools and children....
“Rent for one year, $300,000. Upgrades and improvements, $1.7 million. Supporting Hawaii's children and community priceless,” says the voiceover.
It comes on the heels of a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by atheists Mitch Kahle and Holly Huber....
New Hope church says it planning a news conference to talk about its efforts to get the lawsuit dismissed.
The church is now looking at buying land for a permanent facility and expects to share more about exactly where with its congregation later this month.
CB: Atheists Imply Church Lying
Read ... New Hope
Lobbying expected to target legislators in House
SA: Some lawmakers have said privately that the count in favor of passing a bill is 28, two more than the 26 needed to get a measure passed in the 51-member House.
“We’ll see, is probably the best answer over how this plays out over the next few months,” said House Minority Leader Rep. Aaron Ling Johanson (R, Fort Shafter-Moanalua Gardens-Aliamanu).
“That weighs on a lot of people — the practical political ramifications,” he added. “That’s one of the reasons we’re probably having a special session now as opposed to in the general session, because 2013 is not an election year but 2014 is.”
Johanson’s counterpart, House Majority Leader Scott Saiki (D, Downtown-Kakaako-McCully) said he expects the vote count to solidify in the coming weeks, and he expects to have at least 26 by the time the special session rolls around.
Still, he acknowledged that seven weeks is a long time for opposition to mount.
“It gives us ample opportunity to work with the members and with the public to address any questions or concerns and to make sure that we’re able to fine-tune the legislation that we’re going to end up voting on,” Saiki said.
The HawaiiRepublican Party, which opposes the special session, urged members to continue contacting lawmakers to voice their opinions on the issue.
Eva Andrade, executive director of the Hawaii Family Forum, said her group would urge the public to make direct contact with lawmakers to oppose the bill in special session and take it up as a constitutional amendment in the regular session.
“We believe that rather than the Legislature making this decision that it should be put to the people, so that the people can raise their voice,” Andrade said Wednesday.
The Hawaii Catholic Conference, one of the faith-based groups that opposes the special session, said it would pursue a lobbying effort of emails and phone calls to try to persuade lawmakers to vote down the measure and pursue efforts such as a constitutional amendment during the regular session.
read ... Lobbying expected to target legislators in House
Mainland Homosexuals Top Spending Lobbyists in 2013
PR: During the first half of the session, gay rights advocates who unsuccessfully pushed for a marriage equality bill topped the lobbying list. (Gov. Neil Abercrombie, responding to U.S. Supreme Court rulings in June that legally married gay couples are entitled to federal benefits, has called lawmakers back for a special session in late October to consider a gay marriage bill.)
Interest groups spent $998,375 on lobbying from January 1 through Feb. 28. Here are the top five:
*Equality of Hawaii -- $87,672; Equality Hawaii Inc. -- $10,471; Total -- $98,143
*Altria Client Services (tobacco) -- $50,552
read ... Buying Support
Homosexual Prostitute Gets Life for Murdering Homosexual Customer
AP: Henderson was strangled, prosecutors say. His nude, decomposed body was found in his Waikiki condo five days after he was last seen leaving campus.
McCormick had a stipulated facts trial, where lawyers on both sides allowed Perkins to make a decision based on police reports, mental health evaluations and McCormick's statements.
The 1996 case was unsolved until 2008, when McCormick (then a recovering gay prostitute) confessed while being treated at a psychiatric facility. He later went to police and confessed again, his attorney, Michael Green, has said.
“As years went by, he had a problem living with himself,” Green has said.
In closing arguments at trial, Green said McCormick was drunk and went into a rage because he was sexually abused as a child and believed Henderson made sexual advances toward him.
There was a message scrawled on Henderson's body, accusing him of molesting children.
read ... Gay Murder Solved 17 Years later
Hawaii counting on LNG, undersea cable and geothermal to meet renewable energy goal
PBN: The head of the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism says that in order for the state to reach its renewable energy goal, it needs an undersea cable connecting Oahu, Maui and eventually the Big Island’s electric grid and that, as a transitional fuel, liquefied natural gas, or LNG, needs to be shipped in to the state....
“The long-term vision for Hawaii is geothermal, but that’s on the Big Island and it’s going to require an undersea cable, [but] who knows how long that will take, 10 to 20 to 30 years, [so] we need LNG as a transitional fuel,” he told an audience of energy stakeholders from throughout the Asia-Pacific region on the conference’s final day. “We have to do more than one thing at a time and geothermal is the best, cheapest, long-term solution and we need LNG in the meantime and we believe that we can do both.”
read ... 30 years ... or never
Board of Water Supply: The nightmare continues
ILind: Yesterday we received a letter-size packet with 10 pages of materials from the BWS....
there were nine pages of bills for the periods beginning December 15, 2012 and running through August 27, 2013.
Remember they claim these are “based on actual readings.”
...there are huge red flags.
First red flag…although supposedly based on actual meter readings, our monthly meter readings were 16,000 gallons per period from December 2012 through the end of April 2013. I have no idea how much water that is or if its a reasonable amount for us to use. But it seems odd that the use is so steady, despite differences in the number of days in the billing period, and whether or not we were traveling for a portion of the billing period.
Second red flag…from April 25 forward, the monthly use abruptly fell to just 3,000 gallons per month. Remember, they say this is from actual meter readings.
And it has remained exactly 3,000 gallons per month through the end of August, again regardless of the number of days in the duty period....
Third and perhaps biggest red flag…there’s a special note in the cover letter:
Special note: If you subscribe to Automatic Bill Payment (ABP), and each individual bill shows an amount due, then you can expect to see multiple deductions from your ABP account.
read ... Nightmare
Love Hawaii schools? Open the Department of Education's Books
HPH: ...education reform is working from accountability, transparency, choice and competition.
Hawaii Department of Education (DOE) ranked an "F-minus" for the overall lack of available data of departmental spending.
The Cato study entitled "Cracking the Books" calculated scores by looking at online data from the DoE's website.
Hawaii was the second worst of all 50 states. This reflects a significant lack of publicly available information about the state's financial practices....
read ... Grassroot Institute
Hawaii schools now evaluated through student growth
LN: The areas in which middle schools are measured are Student Achievement, Student Growth, College and Career Readiness, and Student Achievement Gap Reduction.
HTH: Isle police investigate bomb threat at Keaau High School
read ... Hawaii schools now evaluated through student growth
US Senate Judiciary Defines What a Journalist Is
TH: Conservatives, however, blasted the legislation for giving Congress power to decide who qualifies as a legitimate journalist.
“The remedy that this legislation seeks to provide is to differentiate between different types of journalists and to determine in the Congress’s mind who’s legitimate and who’s not legitimate,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a critic.
Cornyn said Congress shouldn’t pick and choose who’s protected by the First Amendment.
“The First Amendment makes no such differentiation,” he said. “It talks about a free press, and we would say you’re a member of the free press if you meet certain legislative criteria and if you don’t, you’re not.”
The committee adopted by an amendment sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in a 13-5 vote to set apart people viewed by Congress as legitimate journalists.
The language defines a journalist as someone with a traditional or contractual arrangement with a media outlet for at least three months in the past two years or for at least one year in the past 20 years. It also includes reporters with a substantial track record of freelancing in the past five years, student journalists and persons approved by a federal judge as worthy of protection.
Schumer emphasized at the committee markup Thursday that the agents of foreign powers would be excluded, depriving protections for Al Jazeera, a broadcaster based in Qatar.
Full Text: Language Proposed
Read ... Federal Shield Law
How 'Funding Regulations' Keep UH Students from Graduating on Time
CB: Seniors in the rigorous dietetics program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa may not be able to graduate at the end of this year because there is no one to teach a mandatory class....The problem emerged when a professor who had taught the course at UH Manoa for three years and who was seeking tenure unexpectedly resigned just weeks before the start of the fall semester and relocated to California.
Dr. Vincent quickly lined up another one. He recruited a trained dietician who had previously taught the course. The challenge was that the instructor was already working full-time in another capacity at UH. The department chair arranged for her to cut that job down to 75-percent of her job so that the other 25 percent could be devoted to teaching the dietetics course. Bureaucratically both positions would be bracketed under the same salary. Vincent thought his problem was solved and the instructor started to teach the class in late August.
They soon discovered that the arrangement was a no-go when Vincent received a notice to that effect last Friday from high-level university administrators. The two funding sources to pay the salary couldn't be combined into a single salary due to funding regulations, Vincent learned.
And when the department chairman offered to hire the woman — who was already teaching the course — as a lecturer, a title that pays less, she refused the job.
read ... Red Tape
Oi: Stop Listening to the public
SA: Chang, responding to complaints from people annoyed with having to dodge other people who lounge around on the city’s hot, grubby sidewalks, is proposing that such unhygienic behavior be outlawed.
read ... Just Listen to the Homelessness Industry
Matson could face millions in federal fines after molasses spill
KHON: The state found at least 10 different types of fish killed from the molasses spill in Honolulu Harbor on Monday.
“The impact is across a number of ecosystems,” Aila said.
DLNR will examine these fish to find out what’s causing them to die and determine the extent of the damage.
On Monday, Matson leaked 233,000 gallons of molasses into the water through a broken pipe.
“I’m essentially gathering evidence,” U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist Michael Fry said.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is also investigating the incident.
Fry has captured at least 400 images of this as the agency builds its case against Matson.
HNN: Underwater Video uncovers mass kill from Matson Molasses Spill
read ... Matson could face millions in federal fines after molasses spill
Religious freedom defense quashed in marijuana case
SA: A federal judge Wednesday rejected the religious freedom defense raised by Hawaii island cannabis advocate Roger Christie to his marijuana-trafficking charges.
U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi ruled that the prosecution had establish-ed that the practices of The Hawaii Cannabis Ministry, led by Christie, posed a substantial risk that marijuana would be distributed to people who were not members of the ministry and those people would use marijuana for nonreligious purposes.
The judge held that the prosecution showed that the marijuana laws are the "least restrictive means" to halt the distribution of "mass quantities of marijuana to non-adherents" of Christie's ministry.
read ... Just a Dope Dealer
Parole Board Cuts Big Island woman's killer sentence, Parole in 2023
SA: The Hawaii island man who fatally shot his ex-girlfriend seven years ago in front of their 2-year-old son has had his minimum prison sentence cut in half, upsetting family members of the murder victim.
The Hawaii Paroling Authority board set Jeffrey Boyd Santos Jr.'s new minimum at 50 years, compared with 100 set by a previous board in 2008.
"It is very disappointing," said Bev Akimseu, the grandmother of Daysha Aiona-Aka, the murder victim. "Our hearts are heavy....
At a hearing last month, tearful members of Aiona-Aka's family had urged board members to keep Santos' minimum at 100 years, saying that's what he deserved for the brutal killing and the long-term effects it will have on the family, especially the couple's son, now 9.
Family members said the son, Dayson Akimseu, cries often because he misses his mother, is unable to share his childhood accomplishments with her and will suffer the rest of his life because of what happened that November day.
read ... Soft on Crime
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