Poll: Aiona Wins Three-Way Gubernatorial Race
Tulsi Gabbard Full Text: Hawaii VA Director is a Liar, Should be Fired
Solar City: Tax Subsidies For Them, Big Bills For Hawaii
Scientist in Point-by-Point Debunk of Maui Anti-GMO Bill
Abercrombie Appoints Rep Wooley Replacement from Secret List
Pono Choices Authors Scheme for Upcoming School Year
Pono Choices proves liberals don't even know their own behinds
The High Cost of Living in Paradise
Hawaii VA Insider: Real Waiting List is One Year Long
KHON: The challenges in Hawaii for veterans to receive timely medical care are even deeper than what’s surfaced so far.
There are new allegations that patients may be waiting even longer than 145 days, more than what was originally reported in a national audit released Monday that showed Honolulu being the worst of VA medical centers in getting first appointments for new veterans.
According to a health care provider, who asked to remain anonymous over concerns of retaliation, Hawaii’s veterans are put on two waiting lists.
The first is for what’s called a “new initial exam,” where veterans can wait anywhere from “several days to a year.” And according to this provider, “if you miss your phone call, you can go to the end of the list.
“Once a new initial exam is complete, a veteran is assigned to a primary care physician (PCP). … that waiting list is not 145 days, it’s more like a year.”
The health care worker said one veteran has been waiting for a PCP since October 2012.
And veterans are “assigned a PCP if there’s room in a physician’s panel. Sometimes that only happens when someone moves or dies.”
The health care worker told KHON2 News that the “patients-to-doctor ratio is very high.” The worker said Honolulu has the equivalent of seven full-time PCP positions, and each has a panel of up to 1,300 patients. Part-time PCPs, who work two days a week, have a panel of 480 veterans.
read ... Hawaii veterans health care worker reveals deeper problems in system
Maui Mayor Arakawa endorses Hannemann for governor
SA: Arakawa, a former Republican, believes Hannemann can compete as an independent. "I think you'll see the results of this after the primaries are done and it starts getting to be a discussion and debate on qualifications and programs," he said.
Hannemann, meanwhile, said if elected governor he would create a new Hawaii Council of Leaders that would be made up of the governor and the state's four mayors. He said the new partnership would grow out the Hawaii Council of Mayors, the coalition he was part of when he led the city.
"The Hawaii Council of Mayors is proof positive that when all four county chiefs are working together, four heads are better than one," Hannemann said in a statement. "With the proposed HCL, the mantra will be five heads — with the governor included — will also be better than one."
CB: Arakawa Endorsement May Help Hannemann
KITV: SHOPO, Sheet Metal Worker's Union also gave endorsements to Independent Party candidate
read ... Maui mayor endorses Hannemann for governor
GE Tax Receipts Drop 1.4%
PR: State tax collections were down 0.8 percent through 11 months of the fiscal year, the state Department of Taxation reported on Friday.
The collections are below the negative 0.4 percent growth that the state Council on Revenues projected for the fiscal year. The fiscal year ends in June.
General excise tax collections, the largest single category, were off 1.4 percent from last year through May, according to the department. Hotel-room tax collections were up by 8.1 percent, however. Individual income tax collections were up 0.8 percent.
read ... Worse than Predicted
State Board of Land and Natural Resources defers decision on Thirty Meter Telescope
HTH: Board members voted Friday evening to defer a decision on the sublease for the proposed telescope project.
The sublease is the last major bureaucratic hurdle for scientists hoping to start operations in 2021. The project also faces paperwork and the threat of court action by opponents.
Organizers plan to build the telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea.
AP: Hawaii land board defers decision on sublease for $1.3B telescope to explore legal issues
read ... Lassner is On The Job!
Abercrombie's Sea-Level Planning 'Ruinous and Unnecessary'
SA: On Monday, Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed a measure that invests more than $567,000 to figure out how to plan for rising sea levels. The law addresses the problem in two ways: First, it creates an interagency climate adaptation committee tasked with researching and reporting on Hawaii's vulnerability to sea level rise through 2050. Second, it authorizes the state Office of Planning to develop a plan, based on the committee's report, to guide policymakers in areas such as land use, development and ocean resources management.
Skeptics may view spending more than a half-million dollars for another government study as an inevitable waste of taxpayer money. Business interests, such as the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce, worry that private entities such as hotel owners could get trapped in a ruinous and unnecessary regulatory vise. These are legitimate concerns....
Reality: Sea Level Rise? Nonsense, Oahu is Rising From the Sea for Next 1.5M Years
read ... Ruinous and unnecessary
FIT: PUC Moving to Give Green Energy Scammers Even More Money
IM: “In the commission's view, since its inception, the FIT program has experienced more than its fair share of challenges and setbacks.
After the opening of the FIT program, several problems arose with respect to the administration of the FIT queues and possible gaming by FIT developers that necessitated several rounds of motions and orders from the commission. …
More recently, the HECO Companies have pointed out … that the current pricing for the FIT program was approved over two years ago and does not reflect present market conditions. …
Moreover, the IO has reported areas of poor utility management of the FIT queues, such as delay in Interconnection Requirements Study ("IRS") determinations and processing.”
“Given these results, the commission is concerned that substantial resources have been expended to develop and subsequently implement the current FIT program, which has yielded very little renewable energy capacity as compared to other procurement methods during this same time period.”
“The HECO Companies have increased the overall amount of renewable energy upon each of their respective systems. Moreover, significant amounts of renewable energy are currently slated to be added in the near-term. At the same time, net system loads are declining due to increased energy efficiency and conservation, price elasticity response to high electric rates and distributed generation.
It is important that an optimal portfolio of cost-effective renewable resources be developed. How a reasonably operable FIT program would affect the overall portfolio of renewable resources needs to be evaluated. At minimum, the commission intends to review the FIT program more holistically in this proceeding.”
read ... PUC investigates changes to the Feed in Tariff (FiT) Program
NYT Editorial: Plastic is so common in Hawaii soils you can’t avoid burning it in campfires
NYT: On a nearby beach at Kamilo Point, geologists have identified a new kind of plastic-infused rock, in areas where the plastic is so abundant in the sand and soil you can’t avoid burning it in campfires. A paper published this month by the Geological Society of America suggests that “plastiglomerate” will someday be part of the fossil record, marking the geological era that some call the Anthropocene, for the human influence.
read ... A NYT Editorial written for and by morons who will believe anything
Wrong man hounded for child support, allegedly for years
KHON: Kevin Pacheco Jr., 31, says he’s been receiving child support collection letters for the past three years for a child that’s not his.
“They kept telling me stuff like write a letter, send a copy of your birth certificate and all that kind of stuff,” Pacheco said.
Pacheco says he’s never even met the child’s mother and has been trying ever since to clear up the misunderstanding with the State Child Support Enforcement Agency.
The Attorney General’s office told KHON2 its records indicated the problem has only been going on for the last three months, but Pacheco said it’s been much longer and has the paperwork to prove it.
read ... Wrong man hounded for child support, allegedly for years
OCCC: Rapist Escapes Again and Again and Again
KHON: Allan Abihai, a convicted sex offender, has been on the run for four days. The 51-year-old was released on work furlough Tuesday morning but didn’t return that night.
This isn’t the first time Abihai walked away from the jail.
Abihai was sentenced to prison back in 1985 for attempted murder, robbery, sex assault, and kidnapping.
In November 2006, Crimestoppers put out an alert after Abihai failed to return to the Laumaka Work Furlough Center. He was finally caught two months later.
Then in October 2009, he was released on parole after serving his minimum term. But he failed to register as a sex offender, and he was brought back to prison as a fugitive parolee.
read ... Law enforcement officers looking for OCCC escapee
Island Hauling Company caught in alleged illegal dumping
SA: An Oahu trucking company picked the wrong place to use as a makeshift dump site last week when it unloaded about 5 cubic yards of coral-fill material on a vacant parcel in Kalaeloa across from the management office of the group developing the area.
Jose Bustamante, vice president for development of Hunt Cos.-Hawaii Division, said the developer is pursuing criminal charges against Island Hauling Inc. for the June 6 incident, which was captured in photos and even a video taken by employees who saw the situation unfolding from Hunt's management office across from the lot at Saratoga Avenue and Bennington Street.
Police were called and a report was filed, Bustamante said.
"We just want to make sure that they understand that the dumping is illegal and negatively impacts the health and safety of the community," he said.
Bustamante noted that the 538 acres of the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station leased by Hunt, and in the process of being sold in fee by the Navy to the developer, have long been used as a dumping ground by trucking companies and others. He added that by pursuing the enforcement action, "we're trying to send the message that this is an area we're trying to develop, to beautify and to improve."
KHON: Illegal dumping caught on camera in Kalaeloa
read ... Busted
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