Sunetric Sells Out to Mainland Company for $16M
Disabled Veteran Dies Under Anesthesia at Notorious Dentist Office
HNN: ...a homeless disabled veteran who went in to get one tooth pulled left Dr. Stover's office in an ambulance.
We've obtained 60 pages of documents showing Curtis Wagasky, 52, died three days after a procedure from Dr. John Stover.
"He said I'll see you when you get out. And he never gets out. He flat lines right on the table. They put him under and that was it," said Sherry-Ann Kaiawe, Wagasky's friend who went with him to the dentist's office in Kona.
Wagasky was having one tooth removed in December 2012. He did have previous medical problems. According to Dr. Stover's report the patient became uncooperative and IV sedation was used. Then there were complications with his breathing.
"I watched him on the table, the whole time while they're telling me to get out and I would not because I told them he needs to come home with me please. Don't let him die please," said Kaiawe. "They made it like it was just another day and handed me his s--- and just left."
A former staff member we spoke with claims Dr. Stover knew Wagasky was not supposed to have IV sedation, but he used it anyway. The employee also claims Dr. Stover waited 15 minutes before calling for paramedics.
Wagasky was flown to Tripler Army Medical Center on Oahu where he died three days later. There was no autopsy performed and no police report.
Wagasky was homeless and didn't have family to press the issue. Now 15 months after the incident there still are no investigation results....
read ... Disabled veteran dies after having 1 tooth removed
Senators Jockey for Position as Kim, Ige Head for Higher Office
CB: There are still some Hawaii state senators who want to see a change in leadership, though it’s unlikely to happen during the current session and maybe not until the fall elections.
The latest episode centers on a bill regarding the Hawaii Community Development Authority, which stalled last week in two Senate committees. House Bill 2554 would require the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to conduct a public hearing on any plans for residential development on its Kakaako lands before proposing the plans to the HCDA.
Some senators wanted Senate President Donna Mercado Kim to allow HB 2554 to be heard in Senate Ways and Means to keep the measure alive. Kim, Civil Beat has learned, said no.
Related: Kakaako: Sneaky Legislative Tactic of the Day
read ... Jockeys
Neal Milner: Fixing the Sad State of Campaign Coverage in Hawaii
CB: The gold standard of campaign coverage should include a variety of polls that appear often enough to track trends; analysts who understand modern campaign tactics; long-term historical, economic and political scholarship that can be used to put the day to day campaign activities into the proper context; media people who know how to incorporate this context into their stories; and post-election studies combining statistics with compelling narratives about the campaign.
Coverage of the 2012 presidential race came very close to this standard. Hawaii is about as far away from this gold standard as you can get. Let’s start with the polls.
In its pre-Gannett days, the old Honolulu Advertiser regularly did election polling, but that ended when Gannett took over. Nobody saved the raw data from these polls. No one seemed to want them. Oops, there goes a database that could be used to measure trends over a long period of time.
Today the Star Advertiser and Civil Beat are the only sponsors of publicly accessible election polls. The problem with the Star Advertiser and Civil Beat polls isn’t their quality but rather their quantity. There aren’t enough polls to monitor what is going on. Trend analysis is impossible.
In fact, there is no systematic body of knowledge about Hawaii’s voters. The lack of good information goes much deeper than that. There is a huge gap in the resources needed to explain Hawaii politics.
First of all, there are almost no systematic studies of Hawaii elections. Tom Coffman’s "To Catch A Wave," still the best book ever written about political campaigns, is close to 50 years old. How much can you say about elections here if there is virtually nothing to rely on between the time of John Burns and the time of Tulsi Gabbard? (Ben Cayetano’s memoir is also excellent, but by its nature a memoir has a limited perspective.)
Here are just a few of the many foundational questions that never get answered: Why is turnout so low here? Why is the Republican Party so weak? How have political campaigns changed since Coffman wrote his book? How does the economy matter in elections? What are the effects of race, ethnicity, and social class? How powerful are labor unions? When do endorsements have impact? What do politics and elections look like from the citizens’ perspectives? People here talk about these questions all the time, but talk is cheap without evidence to fall back on.
What makes this evidence problem even more profound is that there is so little scholarship describing the contemporary political, economic or social history of Hawaii. Without such works, there are no broader perspectives to draw on, no way to discover the link between broader economic and social forces and everyday campaign activities. In short, there is nothing to fall back on and no way to connect the dots.
So professional political analysts as well everyone else who is interested in politics, grab on to half-baked explanations to fill this gap in understanding.
read ... Neal Milner: Fixing the Sad State of Campaign Coverage in Hawaii
Will Senate Investigators Be Able to Fix the Hawaii State Hospital This Time?
CB: A federal judge once likened the conditions at the Hawaii State Hospital to those of a 19th century insane asylum.
Today that same judge could say it’s more like the Roman coliseum.
Hospital staff report being assaulted at an alarming rates, about once every three days. They believe increased staffing and better training could reduce violence.
But state senators are now questioning why this is still a problem in light of a decades-old consent decree that highlighted staffing shortages as a major cause of dangerous conditions at the hospital.
That legal agreement, which took 15 years to satisfy, was supposed to have brought Hawaii’s state-run mental health system into the 21st century.
While it solved some problems — many related to hygiene, medication and the use of restraints — it didn’t fix everything.
read ... This Time?
SB3064: Don’t let Oahu interests dictate MMMC’s future
MN: I've been a physician on Maui since 1999. I was a major contributor in Dr. Ron Kwon's attempt to bring a second hospital to Maui. Currently the governor, the state legislators, hospital administration, physicians and nurses all agree that a public-private partnership for Maui Memorial Medical Center is now needed.
MMMC/Hawaii Health Systems Corp.'s Maui Region loses approximately $43 million a year. It is now a critical time to create a new foundation for the future.
We must be open to all potential partners. The state Legislature, in SB 3064, has limited partnership to existing Hawaii corporations. By eliminating the opportunity to attract a well-known, state-of-the-art institution (for example, the Mayo Clinic), we limit ourselves.
It would then be likely that MMMC would serve primarily as a referral hospital to Oahu, with services cut back. Even if services were maintained, how likely is it that an Oahu entity would invest $750 million to build a new hospital on Maui? Whereas an out-of-state institution would be bringing new resources and expertise.
read ... Dr. James W. Jones, M.D.
Hawaii mulls $15M tax hike to pay for useless Obamacare exchange
AP: Hawaii lawmakers are considering supporting the state's troubled health insurance exchange with up to $15 million per year.
It's not clear whether the money would come entirely from a proposed sustainability fee on insurers or general fund appropriations. The fee would hit insurers that aren't participating in the exchange.
Far fewer people than expected enrolled in health insurance plans through Hawaii Health Connector, so the exchange has not collected enough revenues to be independently sustainable. There were 5,744 individuals enrolled in plans at the end of last week, according to the Connector's website. ($15M / 5744 = $2611.42 in taxes per customer--just to manage their accounts. Note this amount does not pay for their insurance.)
"They had expected to serve 100,000 to 150,000 to even as many as 200,000 customers, and they are woefully below that level," Ige said.
The language was added to a version a bill (HB 2549) that has been working its way through Senate committees. It was added during a joint meeting of the Senate's Health and Commerce and Consumer Protection Committees last Tuesday, and the Ways and Means Committee was informed of the changes on Friday.
Starting in January, the state insurance commissioner would collect an annual sustainability fee of no more than 0.345 percent of medical and dental insurance premiums sold by insurers that are not selling plans through the Connector website.
read ... $15M/yearly
Head of Hawaii Health Connector called to testify on Capitol Hill
KITV: On Wednesday, Matsuda confirmed he'll be testifying before a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee next Thursday. Although schedules are not yet posted, Matsuda is likely to appear before the Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Health Care and Entitlements, which is chaired by Republican Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma. Matsuda and Health Connector spokesman Bobby Lambrix would not confirm to KITV4 which subcommittee had called on Matsuda to testify....
Sen. Sam Slom believes the last thing the state should do is prop-up the state's online health exchange. The Hawaii Republican has asked the U.S. Government Accounting Office to investigate how the Hawaii Health Connector has spent its federal funds.
"You know we talk about scams in Hawaii, particularly against older people, hey I'm sorry, but in my humble opinion this is a scam," Slom told KITV4. "Unfortunately, it's become more about money then about healthcare and health insurance."
Reuters: Faulty state Obamacare exchanges weigh joining HealthCare.gov
read ... National Embarrassment
Hawaii Health Connector joins federal exchange in softening March 31 enrollment deadline
PBN: “As long as individuals and families start an application by March 31, the Hawaii Health Connector has the flexibility to work with consumers to help them get coverage. While this means that everyone has a little more time to complete the process, consumers need to act before March 31,” clarified Tom Matsuda, interim executive director of the Hawaii Health Connector.
This means that while the deadline remains solid at March 31, individuals can still get coverage if they at least start an application by that date.
PBN: Got questions on HealthCare.gov extension? Don't expect many answers
read ... Hawaii Health Connector joins federal exchange in softening March 31 enrollment deadline
Honolulu City Council Leaders Cutting Into Mayor Caldwell's Budget
CB: The budget battles of 2013 may continue into the mayor’s second year in office.
Honolulu City Council leaders are already taking a scalpel to Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s proposed budget for the 2015 fiscal year. Council members proposed reducing funding this week for some of the mayor’s top initiatives, including his Housing First program, his energy efficient lighting plan, and even his trumpeted road repaving program.
The proposed cuts won't just hit funding for the mayor’s 2015 priorities. Council Chair Ernie Martin and Council Budget Chair Ann Kobayashi have also proposed snipping away at the mayor’s own office spending, according to proposed budget amendments made public this week.
Martin has suggested reducing the mayor’s proposed $709,752 office budget by 8 percent. Much of the savings for the city — $34,284 — would result from cancelled salary increases for staff.
read ... Honolulu City Council Leaders Cutting Into Mayor Caldwell's Budget
Sustainability = Barrel Tax Extension
SA: Hawaiʻi Green Growth, a group of leaders representing a public and private cross-section of our community, has identified the following top legislative priorities to keep us on the path to sustainability:
» Extension of the barrel tax to 2030. These funds will go toward clean energy, agricultural food security and response to environmental disasters, such as the molasses spill in Honolulu Harbor.
» Increased funds for watershed protection to safeguard fresh water and assist the invasive species battle.
read ... What Sustainability means
Kauai utility getting lots of interest in liquefied natural gas effort
PBN: The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative recently sent out a request for qualifications for liquid fuel, and thus far, of the 20 responses, about half are for LNG, its President and CEO David Bissell told PBN.
“We’re not seeing game-changing price reductions on this, so we’re assessing, looking at it,” he said. “There’s an awful lot that has to happen, lots of challenges, such as the high cost of infrastructure.”
Despite the numerous hurdles, Bissell contended that the Kauai utility is looking hard at it.
March 21: Hawaiian Electric expects cost savings of up to $500M a year using LNG
HP: Solar Scammers Continue to Whine
read ... Kauai utility getting lots of interest in liquefied natural gas effort
More People Are Underemployed in Hawaii Than Are Jobless
CB: Hawaii's traditional unemployment rate is low, at 4.6 percent, but newly released federal data shows that more people in the islands are underemployed than are jobless.
There were 31,500 residents who were unemployed in 2013 while another 32,800 residents were working part-time even though they wanted more work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As Civil Beat reported in February, the "real unemployment rate" was 11.5 percent last year. That's the rate economists sometimes use to more precisely describe the true unemployment situation.
Hawaii's "real unemployment rate" is more than twice as high as the one we usually see because it includes people who have stopped looking for jobs and people who only work part-time even though they want — or need — to have full-time jobs.
Though the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations doesn't track the number of Hawaii residents who are involuntarily part-time workers, the federal Bureau of Labor and Statistics released data this week that gives a more detailed glimpse of just what's going on with Hawaii's workforce.
read ... More People Are Underemployed in Hawaii Than Are Jobless
The search for a home for Mr Obama’s library and museum has begun
Economist: The money needed to build the library—possibly about $500m—will be raised by the foundation. This will include an endowment to cover some of the maintenance costs. The rest will come from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) which is charged with running all the presidential libraries at an annual cost of $70m.
Last year a mere 10,600 scholars used the libraries. By contrast 730,000 people attended public and educational programmes there, and 2.4m people visited the associated museums (see chart). Ronald Reagan’s library in Simi, California was the most visited in 2013, with some 425,000 trooping in to see, among other things, his Air Force One. Online visits are more numerous and growing rapidly. Every library seems to be bigger than the last, but then records and artefacts are accumulating at an ever-faster clip. Herbert Hoover’s library stores 500 gifts; Dwight Eisenhower’s, 25,000; that of Bill Clinton (a man of appetites), more than 150,000.
read ... The Economist
New HCDA rules allow for 'Intervenors'
SA: While lawmakers debated whether to rein in HCDA, the agency changed its hearings process with little fanfare during the discussion on a proposed tower project called Keauhou Lane held March 19.
Anthony Ching, HCDA executive director, said the agency modified its public-hearing procedure to be more clear about what has been a long-standing right
of the public under state law governing contested-case hearings.
The agency's public notice for the hearing, which ran in the legal ad section of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Feb. 8 and was distributed to roughly 2,000 people or groups on HCDA's mailing list, noted that interested parties could "intervene" in the hearing by filing a motion.
Previously, no mention about the opportunity to intervene was stated in HCDA public notices for development project hearings, though the right existed under state law.
read ... New HCDA rules protect against Legislative Action
Some election workers won't endure 14-hour shifts this year
HNN: For the first time, the state will allow a limited number of polling place workers to work shorter shifts this election year instead of the 14-hour days they've had to endure in past elections.
The state pays election workers $85 for a more than 14-hour shift at polling places from 5:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. or later.
But some of those poll workers -- especially elderly folks -- have complained Rob Rabideau, who's been a precinct chair in six elections on Maui and Oahu and worked in the last 12 elections.
read ... 14 hours?
Ha Appointment to be considered after Ruderman Makes Fool of Self
HNN: Ha was appointed to the Agriculture Board in 2010. He's up for another term. He supports the science behind GMOs as a means to food security.
"My agenda is try to lower cost for the farmers as well as the customers of those farmers," Ha said.
Ruderman owns health food stores on the Big Island that sell organic food. He said he didn't intend his email as a personal attack on Ha.
"He's a good person. I like him personally, and I deeply regret my choice of words. And I apologize to him for using any unpleasant words," he said.
How Ruderman's words might affect the Ha's status could surface Thursday when Ha goes before the Agriculture committee.
Background: Ruderman Secretly Lobbies Against Appointment of Pro-GMO Farmer to Ag Board
read ... Idiot Ruderman
Anti-GMO Hypesters Take Travelling Roadshow to Maui
MN: Scheduled speakers include activist Walter Ritte Jr. of Molokai, Maui District Health officer Dr. Lorrin Pang and Maui County Council Member Elle Cochran. Entertainment will be provided by George Kahumoku Jr., Makana and Marty Dread.
The event is being organized by the Shaka Movement in conjunction with Defend Maui, GMO Free Maui, Babes Against Biotech, Mana Ai, Ohana Kaua'i, Kulture Tatoo, Kauai Rising, Hawai'i Seed, Millions Against Monsanto, Food Democracy Now, Hawai'i GMO Justice Coalition, Molokai Mom on a Mission and Hui O He'e Nalu.
Those unable to attend the event may watch it live at www.shakamovement.org.
read ... GMO moratorium rally
Gabbard Joins Push for New Ban on Online Gambling
RC: A new hand started Wednesday in the high-stakes battle over online gambling.
The fight involves some of the nation’s most powerful figures, including Las Vegas casino mogul and major GOP contributor Sheldon Adelson, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other assorted characters who don’t line up neatly along partisan lines.
There’s bipartisan support for the bill in each chamber, and whenever the debate comes, the efforts won’t fall neatly on partisan lines. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, was among the lawmakers at Wednesday’s rollout and Graham has the backing of longtime online gaming opponent Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
“Internet gambling has been a longstanding position of mine and I’m happy to be on [Graham's] bill,” Feinstein said.
Gabbard’s involvement should be no surprise, either, since Hawaii and Utah both have gambling prohibitions.
read ... Helping Vegas Casinos Maintain Profitability?
‘Break through your fears’
KGI: In his travels, Nick Vujicic has spoken in 54 countries and had nearly 3,000 speaking engagements. He has given presentations on bullying at hundreds of schools.
On Kauai, he gave two public programs and talked at seven schools on bullying and why it must be stopped. His time here, he said, was among his most memorable. Not necessarily good.
“It was just intense,” he said. “You guys are in a lot of pain.”
Most schools have similar challenges and issues, he said. But Vujicic sensed something troubling in Kauai’s young people. It was something he picked up on right away, and it bothered him.
“All in all, you have a very high rate of people wanting to give up,” he said.
By give up, he was speaking of those considering suicide.
“I want you to know, it sort of baffled me and my team, a little bit, to think, it’s so beautiful, Kauai is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to in my life,” Vujicic said. “And yet, there’s so much pain, there’s so much suffering, there’s so much abuse, there’s so much substance abuse. There’s so much culturally acceptable things that really shouldn’t be accepted.”
read ... ‘Break through your fears’
Legislation would increase allowance for foster families
WHT: A bill making its way through the Legislature would give a cash infusion to Big Island foster families who haven’t seen a funding increase in more than two decades.
Child advocates say the current rate of $529 a month hasn’t kept pace with the cost of living and doesn’t reflect the work and sacrifice that goes into caring for children who often have behavioral issues and other challenges. House Bill 1576 passed unanimously through the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday.
“It’s exceedingly difficult to find foster families, and the cost of living has increased dramatically since 1990,” said Sen. Josh Green, D-Kona, Ka‘u, who is vice-chairman of the Human Services Committee.
The state Department of Health and Human Services proposes raising payments by $77 a month for newborns to children age 5, $155 for those age 6 to 11, and $183 for youths older than 12. Those rates would be on pace with U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics showing what it costs to raise a child, according to testimony submitted by DHS Director Patricia McManaman.
read ... Foster Families
Legislative Motion:
Proposed Hawaii legislative resolution bans import of non-native species
Joe Blackburn… pulled nomination papers last week
Toughen laws against child-sex predators (as long as they aren't state employees)
Woody Harrelson Joins Campaign to End the Bloody Ivory Trade
SB2274: Ruderman's Pet Developer Tries to Justify Himself
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