UHERO: Is Monopoly a Barrier to Hawai’i’s Ascent?
Lawmaker says advocacy group pays Hawaii teachers to attend ‘tolerance’ training
Informational Briefing on Grants-in-Aid
March 7, 2014: Election Commission Releases Updated Candidate List
Catch the Wave of HOPE with Nick Vujicic at Aloha Stadium
Video: Japan and the Free Market
PUC Approves Natural Gas Imports, Could Cut Electric Bills
SA: The state Public Utilities Commission has cleared Hawaii Gas to begin shipping small amounts of liquefied natural gas to Hawaii, but the commissioners rejected the company's request to recover nearly $1 million in equipment costs related to the plan from its customers.
Hawaii Gas plans to bring LNG to Hawaii in specialized 20-foot shipping containers in the first phase of a three-stage plan. By the time the third phase of the plan is rolled out in 2019, the company will be using LNG carriers to ship large quantities of the commodity to Hawaii that could be used for power generation.
Hawaii Gas, along with state government officials and Hawaiian Electric Co., say the state could significantly cut its electric rates, which are three times the national average, by using LNG to replace the expensive fuel oil that accounts for more than 70 percent of the power generated in Hawaii.
LINK: News Release
read ... Cut In 2019?
Justice: Judge Orders County to Stop Registering GMO Farmers
BIN: Judge Greg Nakamura today issued a temporary restraining order blocking the county from requiring that farmers of genetically modified crops register with the county.
The TRO was granted during a hearing on a lawsuit filed this week challenging a new county law that prohibits farmers from growing new transgenic plants and requires those already growing GMO varieties to register their crops.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by Honolulu attorney Margery Bronster is listed under the pseudonym “John Doe.”
Those farming GMO papayas have expressed concern that providing information about the location of farms puts them at risk. Over the past several years, several GMO papaya farms in lower Puna have been the targets of broad vandalism attacks, none of which has been solved by police.
The lawsuit said the plaintiff has already been the victim of “intimidation and threatening behavior” by anti-GMO activists.
Apparently in response to those concerns, County Councilwoman Margaret Wille, who introduced the bill, amended the legislation prior to the initial vote to provide that the county would not make the registration information public.
In the lawsuit, Bronster argues that the county cannot guarantee the information would be kept confidential, especially if it became subject to a legal challenge.
HTH: Judge halts GMO registration
KITV: "If there is vandalism as there has been before, these farmers stand to lose everything"
read ... Justice
Budget: Abercrombie Plays Politics as Legislators Grapple With Cutting his Bloated Budget Proposal
SA: Ige believes Abercrombie is emphasizing tax relief for seniors so voters might forget that the governor had recommended a pension tax in 2011 when the state was struggling financially. Ige had led the resistance to a pension tax in the Senate.....
Ige (D, Pearl Harbor-Pearl City-Aiea) is predicting that the Council on Revenues will downgrade the state's revenue forecast Tuesday, which would make new spending on tax credits difficult for the Legislature to approve.
Rep. Sylvia Luke (D, Punchbowl-Pauoa-Nuuanu), chairwoman of the House Finance Committee, has drafted a $12.1 billion state budget that reduces Abercrombie's spending request by $53 million.
The draft will move across to the Senate — and Ige's committee — on Wednesday.
"I'm anticipating whatever cuts she's made, that we are going to have to do more cuts," Ige said. "And I think part of the reason for the statement is I'm certain that the governor will accuse me of playing politics again with budget cuts. But the reality is going to be, we're not going to have the revenues that the governor thought he had back in December."
read ... Abercrombie Making Noise
Star-Adv: How dare Lawyers Rate Enviro-Activist Judge 'Unqualified'
SA: The Hawaii State Bar Association deemed Circuit Judge Michael Wilson unqualified for the state Supreme Court, but the greater taint has fallen on the legal group....the 21-member board's straight up-and-down vote, which may reflect unsubstantiated rumors, is patently unfair. The American Bar Association, a national group, provides a much better model, as it gives specific reasons whenever it deems judicial nominees unqualified.
The HSBA defends its process as ensuring candor from its members, but the substantive basis of a nominee's rating easily could be disclosed without impeding such candor....
The mission of the Hawaii State Bar Association is to unite and inspire Hawaii's lawyers to promote justice (translation: Promote the advancement of politically correct activist judges and attorneys, while crushing those who dare to dissent) serve the public and improve the legal profession. It has not accomplished that during this sorry spectacle, and should quickly make its rating system more transparent or risk becoming irrelevant in a judicial selection process that is vitally important to every person in this state. (Wilson is a God-Like Enviro-Activist and therefore is above question by mere humans.)
Reality: Zoning Board: Abercrombie's Supreme Court Pick Operating Illegal Enterprise for Over a Decade
read ... Blasphemers!
Local Pollsters: Merriman Group Should Get Lost so We can go Back to Manipulating Public Perceptions
Borreca: "Polling demands care and diligence in design, execution and analysis no matter where you are," advises Jim Dannemiller, president of SMS Research....
Local folks can tell the difference between a local accent and, as Dannemiller says, "a tidewater twang," and there is more of a chance that Hawaii voters won't be bothered with pollsters from the mainland. (Dream on)
"I think the real question here is: Is it more difficult for national pollsters to poll in Hawaii than it is other places?' And, to that, I'd have to say yes," answers Rebecca Ward, president of Ward Research.... (Which is why Merriman keeps embarrassing these clowns.)
The takeaway is that all politics is local, and that includes the polling.
July, 2012: Ward Poll Shows Hannemann beating Gabbard 43-33
read ... Outsiders messing up Ward's Games
UH Admin Blew $28M TV Rights Deal
SA: Hawaii News Now general manager Rick Blangiardi said the University of Hawaii cost itself "millions of dollars by not sitting down and listening" to the stations' TV rights proposal, and cited the process as an example "of the lack of transparency" at the school.
UH announced a six-year extension of its TV and pay-per-view sports rights contract with Oceanic Time Warner Cable on Feb. 28, the last day of a four-month exclusive negotiating window with the cable operator. Oceanic will pay UH $2.3 million initially in a deal that escalates to $2,539,386 by June 30, 2020, and show at least 60 events a year, according to terms of the contract.
Asked this week if HNN and Blangiardi had notified UH of a wish to be part of the process once the exclusive window expired, Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple's office said in an email, "Yes they did. Hawaii News Now expressed some interest, but informal discussions indicated that the $2.3 million offer could not be matched and meeting the bottom line had to be the first priority."
On Friday, Blangiardi said that assertion was "preposterous" and said "I don't understand where he (Apple) is coming from. I never, ever indicated that we couldn't pay that bill."
Blangiardi said he'd known of the $2.3 million minimum since last summer and HNN and its owner, Raycom, were prepared to commit to a $28 million investment over five years that could be modified for a six-year term. Blangiardi said, "We're not some body shop in Kakaako." He said he had a 32-page business plan to share with UH but was not given the opportunity.
read ... What a bunch of Losers
DHHL betraying its lessees
SA: In his ongoing series about problems encountered by Native Hawaiian beneficiaries of the state agency, Star-Advertiser writer Rob Perez this week turned the spotlight on another chronic issue.
This time he focused on a relatively small constituency those with pastoral lots, rather than residential leases, interviewing lessees on Hawaii island's South Point.
But no matter how few are affected directly, the shortcoming is indicative of a larger problem at DHHL and other government agencies involved: tolerance of the status quo, and an unwillingness to be solution-oriented.
It's long past time for some out-of-the-box thinking, by DHHL and county officials alike.
Almost three decades after these beneficiaries signed their 99-year leases with DHHL on unimproved farm and ranching lots on South Point homesteading acreage, the land is still not served by water or other infrastructure.
read ... Betrayal
Another Activist Complains about Treatment at Hearings
PR: Renwick "Uncle Joe" Tassill, who serves on the Hawaiian Homes Commission, has complained to state House Speaker Joseph Souki that he was denied an opportunity to testify on a Hawaiian studies bill before the House Finance Committee in late February.
Tassill said in a March 3 letter to Souki that both Rep. Sylvia Luke, the committee's chairwoman, and Rep. Scott Nishimoto, the vice chairman, denied his request to testify. He said he was only allowed to speak after Rep. Gene Ward asked him a question. The bill would create an instructional office of Hawaiian studies at the state Department of Education.
The committee had already moved past testimony and into the question-and-answer portion of the hearing when Tassill made his request.
Tassill is the second Native Hawaiian activist to complain about their treatment at the Legislature since the controversy surrounding Rep. Faye Hanohano's conduct. Some Capitol insiders view the complaints as an attempt to insulate Hanohano....
read ... Insulation
Liquid Metal Heading to O`ahu’s North Shore
IM: Picture a 40-foot trailer loaded with 25 tons of liquid metals....
New York State gave Ambri a $250,000 grant to develop a prototype battery to be installed at a Con Edison utility site.
The Hawaii-based Energy Excelerator also funded Ambri. One of the conditions of the funding is that it must lead to an actual Hawaii-based project.
The sites being evaluated are wind generation installations on O`ahu’s North Shore which are operated by First Wind. The battery would be installed next year.
The site would either be at Kahuku where a battery fire shut down the wind facility for over a year, or at the Kawailoa site owned by Kamehameha Schools.
Liquid Metal Batteries are not new; they date from the beginning of the 1900s. Serious work on liquid metal batteries started in the 1960s. But historically their financials have not penciled out....
On the downside they have traditionally operated at very high temperatures, require large space, have highly corrosive material, and can short circuit. They must be used in stationary applications.
IM: The Footprint of Hawaii Batteries
As Explained: Playing with Fire: Kahuku Windfarm to Install Molten Magnesium Batteries
read ... Liquid Metal Heading to O`ahu’s North Shore
Officials: Threat to Oahu's Water Supply More Serious Than Thought
CB: The Navy says it will install more monitoring wells around its massive Red Hill fuel storage facility to make sure that leaked fuel that has contaminated the groundwater isn’t migrating toward county drinking water supplies, an environmental threat that state and county officials say is a growing concern for them.
Mike Williamson, commanding officer of Naval Facilities Engineering Command Hawaii, outlined the commitment during a joint legislative committee hearing at the State Capitol on Friday, where Navy, state and county officials spent two hours briefing lawmakers about a recent 27,000 gallon fuel spill at the facility.
Williamson said that the Navy also plans to update its groundwater protection plan, look into cleaning up the fuel from this most recent spill, research better leak prevention and detection technology and establish a task force comprised of Navy, state and county officials to address concerns at the Red Hill facility.
KITV: State health official: Red Hill leaks may total 1.2 million gallons
read ... Water
Only One Meth Importer Convicted, Rest Walk Free
SA: "The failure of a federal jury to reach a unanimous verdict of guilt in what has been called the largest crystal meth case in the history of Hawaii reflects more of the disturbing underbelly" of problems within the federal justice system in Hawaii....
read ... Soft on Crime
Airlift concerning to tourism officials
HTH: Airlines have been paring back on their seats to Hawaii, while ticket prices have been inching up, Hawaii Tourism Authority Vice President for Brand Management David Uchiyama said Friday.
“They increase their prices, basically choking us off,” Uchiyama said during a Hawaii Tourism Authority marketing update at the Waikoloa Marriott. “It’s a downward cycle if we don’t stop it now.”
read ... Airlift concerning to tourism officials
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