Federal Akaka Tribe Decision Revealed
Ohana Means Being Prepared Together
The Bleeding of Aloha: Ugliness of the Anti-GMO Movement in Hawaii
Punatics Always Wrong
Aiona: Lower the Cost of Energy
Ige Wants To Charge $500 For Parking In Downtown Honolulu!?
Affordable Food? Honolulu Scores 135th
Hawaii students get gift cards to participate in sex education program
Are Anti-Price Gouging Policies to Blame for Shortages on the Big Island?
Djou Campaign $626K Cash on Hand
HHSC Cuts Will Continue Until Partnership Approved
MN: Kaiser Permanente Hawaii has joined Hawaii Pacific Health as interested suitors in MMMC if the Legislature will allow it to partner with a private nonprofit. Kaiser officials made the announcement last Thursday and Maui Region Chief Executive Officer Wesley Lo confirmed the hospital has shared data with them.
It is time - past time, actually - for the Legislature to act. Last year, a bill to allow HHSC to pursue public-private partnerships died in committee. Then the Legislature voted to fund only $105 million of HHSC's expected $150 million shortfall this year.
Cuts have begun and they will continue unless a solution is found.
Maui Memorial Medical Center is the only acute care hospital in our county. It has made enormous strides in the last decade and to start going backwards now would be a travesty.
read ... Partnership
Abercrombie to Sign Multi-Million Dollar UHPA Contract Giveaway
CB: Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie — yes, he’s still our governor, until Dec. 1 — is expected to return today from a six-day trip to Taiwan....Tomorrow afternoon, Abercrombie, along with representatives from the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly and the University of Hawaii, will sign a 2-year faculty contract agreement that will succeed the current contract set to expire on June 30, 2015.
read ... Contract
Did Lawyer Feed Witness Names to Prison Gang?
AP: Federal prosecutors are concerned that a binder containing sensitive court documents in a prison-gang case was found at a downtown Honolulu restaurant.
They said in a court filing Tuesday that defense attorney Marcus Sierra should have to explain how the binder ended up there. Sierra told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he doesn't know if the binder is his or how it ended up at the restaurant.
Former Halawa Correctional Facility guard Feso Malufau was convicted last week of taking bribes from the "USO Family" prison gang to smuggle drugs to inmates. Inmate Tineimalo Adkins was found guilty of leading a brutal assault for the gang. Sierra represents Adkins.
There was testimony during the trial that gang members routinely use court documents to try to find out who's snitching. Trial witness lists in the public record contained blacked-out names of the inmates who were testifying.
Prosecutors said in their motion that they learned Tuesday the binder was found at Alakea Delicatessen by an employee. The binder contained what's believed to be Adkins' handwriting, the motion said.
The judge in the case ordered previously that attorneys for the defendants can show copies of witness material to their clients but can't provide them with copies.
"The witnesses in this case testified to their genuine fear of retaliation from the USO Family," said the motion by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Otake. "The fact that an attorney would even accidentally misplace such sensitive information regarding the witnesses in a public ... location, needs to be addressed by the court."
Sierra insisted he didn't give any protected materials to anyone. "I don't even know if this is my binder. If it is, I'll admit to it. I'll look into it," he said. "But how it got to Alakea Delicatessen I have no clue because I didn't give it to anybody."
It has been months since he's eaten there, he said....
read ... Prison-gang documents found at Honolulu restaurant
Soft on Crime: Pflueger gets seven months and $7000 fine for dam breach
SA: A state judge on Kauai sentenced retired car dealer James Pflueger Wednesday to seven months in jail for his role in the deaths of seven people who were swept to their deaths in 2006 by flood waters that had breached the Ka Loko dam.
Circuit Judge Randal G.B. Valenciano also sentenced Pflueger to five years probation. His company was fined $1,000 for each death after the judge rejected a $350,000 fine that had been part of the initial plea agreement.
Daniel Jay Arroyo, Alan Gareth Dingwall, Rowan Grey Makana Fehring-Dingwall, Aurora Solveig Fehring, Christina Michelle McNees, Timothy Wendell Noonan, Jr. and Carl Wayne Rotstein died Mar. 14, 2006, when the Ka Loko dam burst sending an estimated 400 million gallons of water down stream on Kauai's north shore.
A Kauai grand jury indicted Pflueger, 88, on seven counts of manslaughter in 2008 after the state Attorney General accused him of causing the deaths by filling in the dam's spillway.
read ... One Month per Death (unborn baby doesn't count)
Atheist Tweeker Scores $1.95M for Helping Keep Inmates Out of Drug Rehab
CB: Barry Hazle was paroled after a one-year prison term for methamphetamine possession in 2007 and was ordered to spend the next 90 days in a residential drug treatment program. When he arrived, officials told him it was a 12-step program, modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous, that required participants to confess their powerlessness and submit to a “higher power” through prayer....
(Problem: As an atheist, he worships only himself. Having surrendered himself to meth, he now worships the meth.)
Hazle refused and was declared in violation of parole and sent back to prison for 100 days. Seven years and two federal court rulings later, he and his lawyers announced a $1.95 million settlement Tuesday of a suit against the state and its contractor, WestCare California, for wrongful incarceration in violation of his religious liberty.
The money, which includes attorneys’ fees, wasn’t his main object, Hazle said. (Quick IQ Test: T or F?) “I just want to make sure that somebody else doesn’t have to go through this kind of thing,” he said.
The order followed a federal appeals court ruling that said Hawaii had violated another parolee’s rights by ordering him to take part in Alcoholics Anonymous.
read ... Your Tax Dollars at Work
WSJ: Honolulu Most Expensive City in USA, Hilo is 5th
WSJ: These data show that the most expensive region in the U.S. is Honolulu, followed by New York. The D.C. area is seventh. (Hilo is 5th).
read ... The Wall Street Journal
Aiona, Ige Support LNG for Hawaii
PBN: Two of the four candidates vying to be Hawaii’s next governor are against shipping in liquefied natural gas as a replacement fuel for power generation in the state, including Mufi Hannemann, the Independent Party nominee, and Jeff Davis, the Libertarian candidate.
Both state Sen. David Ige, who defeated incumbent Gov. Neil Abercrombie for the Democratic nomination, and Duke Aiona, the Republican nominee, said at a gubernatorial forum on Hawaii’s Clean Energy Future on Tuesday in Downtown Honolulu that they would support LNG as a bridge fuel as the state moves closer and closer to integrating more renewable energy.
read ... Natural
Lawyer: 9th Circuit panel biased in same-sex marriage decision
SR: A lawyer who argued against same-sex marriage before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is charging that the three-person federal panel was stacked with judges favorable to same-sex marriage rather than chosen through a neutral process.
Monte Neil Stewart represented both Idaho and Nevada in oral arguments before the court.
“We bring the issue of bias in the selection process to the Circuit’s attention with respect and with a keen awareness that questioning the neutrality of the panel’s selection could hardly be more serious,” Stewart wrote in legal filings with the 9th Circuit, requesting a full 11-judge review of Nevada’s case. “But the sensitivity of raising uncomfortable questions for this circuit must be balanced against the interests of ordinary Nevadans, who deserve a fair hearing before a novel interpretation of constitutional law deprives them of the right to control the meaning of marriage within their State.”
PDF: Nevada Gay Marriage Ruling Issued by Stacked Court (see pg 9)
read ... Bias
While Muslims Chop Heads, Obama Orders Military to Give More Money to his Green Energy Campaign Contributors
SA: "A changing climate will have real impacts on our military and the way it executes its missions," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a foreword in the new Pentagon report. "The military could be called upon more often to support civil authorities, and provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in the face of more frequent and more intense natural disasters."
Coastal installations are vulnerable to rising sea levels and increased flooding, while droughts, wildfires and more extreme temperatures could threaten many training activities, the Pentagon said.
Last year the Defense Department released an Arctic strategy addressing potential security implications from international claims to the resources-rich area that is increasingly accessible with rapidly melting sea ice.
Adm. Samuel Locklear III, head of U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith, said last year that climate change was the biggest long-term security threat in the Pacific region.
Reality: 49% Waste: Inspector General Slams Hawaii Navy Solar Projects
read ... Don't Lose Your Head
Counties Grab for More TAT, Again
HTH: Hawaii’s county officials still are clamoring for a greater share of a tax on short-term lodging that was originally intended to help defray the cost of hosting tourists.
The transient accommodations tax, known as the TAT, is collected as a surcharge on hotels and lodging rentals of less than 180 days. Counties aren’t seeking to increase the tax, just the counties’ share of it.
Last year, the counties split $103 million, with Hawaii County getting $19.2 million of that.
Removing the cap on the TAT, put there by state lawmakers when the state was going through the recession, is one of six priorities the Hawaii State Association of Counties plans to present to the 2015 Legislature.
The counties want the state to return to previous allocations of 44.8 percent of the total collected.
Hawaii County Council will vote on Resolution 545 today, giving a yes or no to each of the six proposals.
All four counties must approve each bill in the HSAC package for it to be sent to the Legislature, which convenes in January....
Other measures would appropriate $1.7 million to the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, appropriate $2.8 million to the Hawaii Health Systems Corp. primary care medical residency program, give victims of family violence additional time to get help and legal protection before the order for a period of separation expires, allow non-resident victims of property crime to testify in criminal proceedings by live two-way video connection rather than having to return to Hawaii to testify, and clarify the distinction between single-family residential use and single-family transient vacation rentals for regulatory purposes.
Totally Related: 2013: Ige's TAT Raid Set Up County GE Tax Hike
read ... Counties Back for TAT Again
IHS housing first contract to serve 115
SA: The city hopes to offer permanent shelter to 115 people under the initial $2 million Housing First contract.
The one-year contract was awarded to the Institute for Human Services on Thursday, and on Monday, Mayor Kirk Caldwell's staff announced the first details to the City Council Intergovernmental Affairs and Human Services Committee.
The contract, which starts Nov. 1, aims at providing a home and social services for 115 chronically homeless individuals, with 40 percent expected to come from Waikiki, 40 percent from downtown Honolulu and 20 percent from West Oahu, Managing Director Ember Shinn said.
Chronically homeless is defined as those who have been without shelter for at least a year and/or are prevented from getting ahead financially due to serious issues such as mental illness, substance abuse and other medical conditions. The national Housing First concept, being adopted loosely by the city, places the priority on providing permanent supportive housing to the chronically homeless and makes tackling the root causes that may have led to homelessness initially a secondary priority.
read ... IHS housing contract to serve 115
Shelter space limited as storm approaches
KITV: If the potential for flooding and wind damage increases with Ana’s approach, emergency shelters may become available at public schools and other locations. However, Kunishige says statewide there’s only enough room to house about 28 percent of Hawaii’s 1.4 million residents. Kauai can shelter 33 percent of its population, Maui County 28 percent, the Big Island 21 percent and Oahu 30 percent.
Tourists in Waikiki and elsewhere will likely be asked to shelter in place, or evacuate to higher floors should it become necessary. The Hawaii Convention Center serves as a command center for the tourism industry through the Hawaii Tourism Authority, but it's also an emergency shelter of last resort. That means it'll open its door to tourists and locals only if it's absolutely necessary.
read ... Shelter space limited as storm approaches
After Shutting Water Bottler, Kauai County Allows Reopening
KGI: On Sept. 30, the County of Kauai Planning Department sent a letter to the Koloa-based water bottling and distribution company ordering it to immediately cease and desist all activities. At that time, Planning said Kauai Springs’ continued operation contradicted a recent ruling by the Hawaii Supreme Court, and that failing to shut down could result in fines of up to $10,000 per day and criminal prosecution.
Satterfield said he had no choice but to comply.
“We stopped business on the 30th and have lost all our accounts,” he said.
Less than two weeks later, on Oct. 9, however, the County of Kauai Planning Department suspended its cease and desist order for one month in order to “afford (Kauai Springs) the unfettered opportunity for due process before the Planning Commission.” ...
Thomas said the Supreme Court ruling was long and complex, but that his reading of it was that it did not order Kauai Springs to shut down.
“It sounds like they have taken a second look at the order from the Supreme Court and agree with us,” he said of the Planning Department.
As of Tuesday morning, neither Thomas not Satterfield was aware of the Oct. 9 letter suspending the cease and desist order. The letter was sent only to Thomas, who said he was out of town and unable to receive it.
After losing nearly all his accounts, Satterfield called the letter “too little, too late.”
“They told me to shut down on the 30th, so we did,” he said. “And now this?”
Satterfield said the situation has been hard on his family and confusing, and that to regain accounts that took 12 years to secure would be next to impossible. However, he plans to try.
Backstory: OHA Trustees claim ownership of your drinking water, Bottled Water Battle: A Decade of OHA Harassment Continues
read ... OHA Harassment of Small Business
Video shows alleged police beating inside Chinatown business
KHON: New video has surfaced that shows a Honolulu police officer allegedly beating two men during a gambling raid in Chinatown.
Sources tell us that that the police department and the FBI are investigating the incident.
It reportedly happened last month inside an establishment on Hopaka Street that has now been shuttered.
Witnesses say police officers, including the Special Services Division or SWAT, raided the place because it was suspected as an illegal gambling hall.
Multiple sources say one of the officers beat up two men inside. The officer allegedly kicked one man in the face, smashed a chair and hit one of the men in the head.
Sources say three officers are being investigated for the incident — one for allegedly beating the suspects and two officers for just standing by.
read ... HPD Beating?
HPD: No Policy Changes on Domestic Violence
KHON: Kealoha says the focus is not to change the department’s policies, but ensure that existing policies are followed by supervisors and officers.
“So we’re providing them with extra training to re-emphasize how important it is that when you get sent to one of these cases, and our employees are involved, that they follow the protocols,” he said. “Education is ongoing, so we always have to reemphasize this, and we do domestic violence training every year.”
Kealoha added that the department also plans to stress “the accountability of our first line supervisors, to emphasize the importance of following these protocols.”
read ... HPD Training
Hawaii students get gift cards to participate in sex education program
HR: The University of Hawaii Center on Disability Studies gives gift cards to middle school students who participate in a controversial sex education program.
The gift cards, valued at between $10 and $20 each, are issued to 11, 12 and 13-year-olds who participate in Pono Choices. About $52,200 of a $5 million U.S. Office of Adolescent Health grant were used to buy the cards.
read ... Sex Education
Honolulu Residents 100% Honest
F: Since 2010, my company Honest Tea has conducted a social experiment in several cities across the U.S. to determine how honest people are when they think no one is watching.
Here’s the scenario: it’s a hot summer day, and on your walk through town you come upon racks of bottles of iced tea. There is a sign that reads “$1 per bottle, Honor system” and a clear plastic box with a slot with a few dollars in it. There are no visible store personnel or cameras.
Do you pay a dollar, or help yourself to a free drink?
Over the course of four weeks this past July and August, we conducted this social experiment in 62 cities around the country, covering all 50 states and Washington, D.C. More than 10,000 people participated. We had undercover employees stationed nearby observing each interaction and taking notes....
People in Honolulu, Hawaii are especially honest. They generated a 100% honesty score for the two years we’ve visited the city.
read ... Honest
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