Djou Seeks Seat in Majority for Hawaii
Register to Vote: July 10 Deadline for Primary Election
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Abercrombie Vetoes 7 Bills, 6 Become Law without Signature
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Djou: No Problem with Name Recognition against no-name Opponents
Boylan: How do I find traction on a crowded field, none of whom has previously run in anything larger than a city council district?”
That’s the question faced daily by each of the Democrats seeking the first district congressional seat being vacated by Congress-woman Colleen Hanabusa.
And in the back of their minds, there’s another: “Should I win, how do I draw sufficient support to defeat former Republican Congressman Charles Djou, who has run three times for the office and has no problem with name recognition?”
Their dilemma was on display two Saturdays ago at a candidates’ forum held at Honolulu Community College.
read ... Field Crowded with Losers
Speakers laud Hawaiian unity against federal recognition
SA: Many of those who spoke before a standing-room-only crowd at Pomaikai Elementary School expressed gratitude that the federal meetings have helped unite the Hawaiian community toward a common cause.
"Just you folks coming here, something good has happened. Around the islands we have never gathered like this. Never. My only hope is that when we leave tonight, we do not stop, we keep this canoe going," said Kaui Kahaialii. "Look, Maui, look around you. ... This is awesome to see all the kanaka in the room with one voice."
"E paa oukou (We need to), stay strong," Sydney Laukea told the audience. "Look, Maui, this is amazing!"
Some 158 people had signed up to speak ahead of the meeting, but only about 80 people were able to voice their opinions before the three-hour meeting adjourned promptly at 9 p.m. to boos and complaints.
read ... Speakers laud Hawaiian unity against federal recognition
Did Hawaiian Hearings Set Up a Political Train Wreck?
ILind: ...the new conservative majority of the Supreme Court, and in the U.S. Congress, is hostile to everything that smacks of affirmative action or racial preferences....
If this isn’t successful—and it’s hard to see the Interior Department panel finding a way to move forward in light of the hostility expressed during the hearings—a whole range of institutions that have provided critical community services and support to Hawaiians, including Kamehameha Schools and the other alii trusts, along with OHA, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, and the network of nonprofit health, education, and cultural organizations built over recent decades with federal funding, will remain at risk.... (WRONG)
Realistically, the Interior Department’s initiative is throwing a lifeline to Hawaiian programs, offering a potential way to survive lawsuits that will end up being decided by an increasingly conservative Supreme Court.... (WRONG)
read ... Train Wreck
Judge Protects Papaya Farmers from Eco-Terror Attacks
HTH: Judge Greg Nakamura granted a preliminary injunction Tuesday preventing Hawaii County from disclosing the identity and specific location of farms growing genetically engineered papaya.
The order in Hilo Circuit Court allows the county to maintain a registry of genetically modified organisms, but prevents information that could identify papaya growers from being released publicly.
Two growers of GMO papaya, Ross Sibucao and an unnamed plaintiff, challenged the requirement that they register with the county, arguing it would expose them to vandalism or other forms of economic harm.
read ... Preliminary Injunction
Healthcare Pay-For-Performance Folly
SA: Hawaii physicians are being offered contracts to join a "clinically integrated physician network" (CIPN) with Queen's Medical Center through one of the local physician organizations. This is the next phase in implementation of health care payment and delivery system reforms envisioned under the Affordable Care Act.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is encouraging integrated networks of doctors and hospitals to form organizations that can assume financial risk for the cost of health care through initiatives such as bundled payments, shared savings and capitation.
The rationale for these reforms originated with policy leaders in Washington allied with the health insurance industry, and it is the same rationale used for HMOs two decades ago. The assumption is that U.S. health care costs are so high because we deliver and consume too much health care due to fee-for-service incentives.
When insurance risk is shifted to doctors and hospitals, they will have a financial incentive to deny care, instead of the insurance companies doing that. This creates obvious ethical conflicts for doctors and hospitals, whose traditional ethical responsibility has been to assure care to those who need it. To counter this perverse incentive and discourage arbitrary denial of care, CMS is encouraging pay-for-performance by developing data systems to more closely track the details of health care delivery, with financial rewards and penalties for scoring well or poorly on quality measures.
Related: What’s Wrong with Pay for Performance?
read ... Healthcare Pay-For-Performance Folly
Kauai Council to consider property tax hike
KGI: The Kauai County Council will consider a trio of bills on Wednesday that finance officials say will help clean up current real property tax policies and narrow inequalities in assessing property values.
One bill in particular, Bill 2549, will create a new tax class called “residential investor,” which will apply to non-owner occupied properties that are valued at $1 million or more.
“This new tax class recognizes that high-value valued residential properties tend to be more speculative in nature, are not typically offered as affordable housing, and often serve as second homes or investment properties,” County Finance Director Steve Hunt wrote in a memo to the Kauai County Council.
The measure, Hunt explained, is similar to a tax law crafted by the City and County of Honolulu that aims to close a tax loophole for high-end properties that are neither used as vacation rentals nor used by homeowners as their primary residences.
read ... Council to consider property tax class changes
Legislature Never Overrides Abercrombie Vetoes
- 2014: 7* vetoes/0 overrides
- 2013: 4 vetoes/0 overrides
- 2012: 14 vetoes/0 overrides
- 2011: 17 vetoes/0 overrides
read ... By the numbers
Mass Resignations from LUC to Avoid Exposure of Financial Interests
HNN: Some state boards and commissions are canceling meetings after at least 16 of their volunteer members resigned rather than make public their financial disclosures under a new law Gov. Neil Abercrombie let become law without his signature.
The state Land Use Commission decides controversial issues like reclassifying agricultural land for developments such as Hoopili in Kapolei.
But after five of its nine members resigned to avoid disclosing their finances and two others’ terms expired last month, there are just two members left, so the commission has canceled its next meeting that was supposed to happen Wednesday."Basically the Land Use Commission can't do anything until some new members are appointed,” said attorney Ron Heller, who chaired the Land Use Commission for the last year before his four-year term as a commissioner expired June 30.
“You need five members just to have a quorum and there are a lot of actions that require six affirmative votes."Heller said he wrote Abercrombie asking him to veto the new law and would have quit as well because of the new disclosure requirements for members of 15 boards the governor allowed to become law.
read ... What are they Hiding?
Thousands of Dollars in Golf and Millions of Dollars in Contracts
HNN: Government contractors provided thousand of dollars in free golf outings for more than a dozen state workers who deal with their projects.
Hawaii News Now has learned that the state Ethic Commission is winding down its year-old investigation into golf perks, which targets a number of employees at the University of Hawaii and the Department of Transportation....
For instance, one Maui-based DOT employee, highways engineer Ferdinand Cajigal, received more $800 in free golf outings from contractor SSFM International Inc. SSFM has received more than $8.5 million in DOT contracts since 2009, according to the state procurement office.
A UH architect, Bruce Teramoto, disclosed that he received nearly $1,300 in golf perks from Bowers + Kubota Consulting Inc. During the past two years, Bowers + Kubota received more than $1 million in UH work. Figures before 2013 were not available on UH's procurement site.
read ... Golf perks investigation
Special Counsel Reinstates Hawaii VA Whistleblower
AP: The independent Office of Special Counsel said 30 of the complaints about retaliation have passed the initial review stage and were being further investigated for corrective action and possible discipline against VA supervisors and other executives. The complaints were filed in 28 states at 45 separate facilities, Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner said.
Lerner provided the figures in testimony prepared for a Tuesday night hearing before the House Veterans Affairs Committee. The Associated Press obtained copies of her testimony and other witnesses in advance.
Lerner said her office has been able to block disciplinary actions against several VA employees who reported wrongdoing, including one who reported a possible crime at a VA facility in New York.
The counsel’s office also reversed a suspension for a VA employee in Hawaii who reported seeing an elderly patient being improperly restrained in a wheelchair. The whistleblower was granted full back pay and an unspecified monetary award and the official who retaliated against the worker was suspended, Lerner said.
read ... Reinstated
BioMass: Coal-based Green Energy on Maui
IM: MECO asserted that it was entitled to an exemption or a waiver from the Public Utilities Commission's Framework for Competitive Bidding because the power supplied by HC&S at Pu'unene Sugar Mill was "non-fossil-fuel" and is "renewable power."
Sierra Club filed a Motion to Intervene, noting that more than 25% of the fuel mix is coal and petroleum.
HC&S burns bagasse to provide power for its agricultural operations. They add primarily coal and a little oil to flatten out the electricity output in order to supply MECO with constant power.
Thus MECO is actually indirectly responsible for HC&S adding the fossil fuel to the input mix. This hardly makes the output green energy.
read ... Coal-based Green Energy on Maui
Should Hawaii Legalize Marijuana?
HB: ...there is no debate that marijuana harms teenagers. The National Institute for Drug Abuse estimates that one in nine marijuana users become addicted; for people who start using as teenagers, this increases to one in six.
“Young people who try marijuana are especially vulnerable to develop addiction, as well as problems related to use, like memory and cognitive impairment, because their brains are still developing,” says A. Eden Evins, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
People who start using marijuana as teens are “potentially at risk of losing IQ points because of an interference in normal brain development that occurs in the teenage years,” says Roger Roffman, a professor emeritus in the School of Social Work at the University of Washington and author of “Marijuana Nation,” a book that addresses both sides of the marijuana debate.
When my friends and I smoked marijuana as teenagers, we would laugh off the concerns about “brain damage.” But that’s exactly what we were doing, and our pot was less potent than today’s....
read ... Should Hawaii Legalize Marijuana?
Homeless Losing ID While Jailed
CB: While people on the front lines assisting the homeless describe the destruction of ID cards as commonplace, Ted Sakai, director of the Hawaii Department of Public Safety, said that’s not the case.
He said homeless and mentally ill inmates are exempt from the department’s 30-day property destruction policy, which requires that confiscated possessions be donated to charity or thrown away if the inmate doesn’t have someone come pick them up in time or pay for them to be mailed somewhere. Inmates must be notified in writing of the policy and have it explained verbally to them when they enter jail. Sakai said the 30-day policy is in place because of a shortage of storage space.
“My understanding is that if we know an inmate is homeless or mentally ill, because they are so closely intertwined, we will hold on to (their belongings),” said Sakai. “As far as IDs and other documents, we keep it — we secure it and put it in sealed bags until they leave.”
Related: Aiona Proposes Homeless Court, Veterans Outreach
read ... Too Delusional
Thousands of Illegals in Hawaii eligible for temporary deportation relief
KITV: "A lot of these people are afraid to come forward because of lack of information about the program and fear of exposing themselves or their families. There are a lot of Filipino and Pacific Islanders who would qualify for DACA but who have too much shame to come forward. If we break through that shame and show people that if they do qualify for DACA, it can change their lives in some pretty incredible ways," said immigration attorney Clare Hanusz.
Immigration lawyers are ready to help with the applications and a group of churches, unions and other organizations are getting out into the community to encourage people to sign up. An outreach workshop was held Tuesday evening in Honolulu and there will be another workshop held on July 26 at the Filipino Community Center in Waipahu at 10 a.m.
read ... Thousands eligible for temporary deportation relief
Another HPD sergeant arrested for driving under the influence
HNN: A Honolulu police sergeant was arrested Tuesday for allegedly driving under the influence, and refusing to take a sobriety test.
It happened around 2 p.m. this afternoon near the Neal Blaisdell Center.
Sources say the arrest of 59-year-old Susan Medeiros happened after a minor accident.
read ... HPD sergeant arrested for driving under the influence
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