Honolulu 31st Lowest Concentration of Disadvantaged
Police Commission Must Step in, Discipline Kealoha
SA: It's a plain fact that inappropriate testimony by Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha caused a mistrial in a federal case involving his family. What is in question is whether the chief's lapse on the witness stand was inadvertent, or whether he intentionally sabotaged the proceedings.
This matter should not be left to speculation. The Honolulu Police Commission, which just last month reaffirmed Kealoha as head of the nation's 20th-largest police department, must step in now, having missed earlier opportunities to insist that Kealoha be publicly forthcoming about a family dispute that has landed in federal court and spawned a civil lawsuit.
The commission owes it to the people of Honolulu to do its duty and uphold the integrity of HPD by demanding that Kealoha explain his actions, and to stand ready to take disciplinary action if those explanations are not satisfactory....
Puana's public defender, Alexander Silvert, who objected to Kealoha's testimony and was granted a mistrial, insists that Kealoha does know the rules. Silvert asserts that Kealoha intentionally scuttled the trial to protect his wife, whose career may be at stake if she loses the upcoming civil lawsuit. "A not-guilty verdict in this case would have gone a long way in clearing Mr. Puana's name in helping his case against the chief of police's wife, Katherine Kealoha," Silvert told The Associated Press. A new trial in the mailbox case is set for May, while the civil lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial next month.
read ... Police panel must step in
Is the HECO-NextEra Merger a Done Deal?
IM: NextEra Energy is large and is well funded but has also seen more than its share of failed merger attempts....
(Deal after deal has fallen through...The Entergy Merger Failure....The Constellation Energy Merger Failure....)
CB: PUC must decide who will be allowed to intervene in the yearlong process.
read ... Is the HECO-NextEra Merger a Done Deal?
Thanks to Wind, Solar NextEra Pays the Least in Taxes
IM: BusinessWeek published a list of the fifty companies that paid the least in taxes. One of those was FPL with an average tax rate of 1.3 percent over a four-year period:
“By investing in alternative energy over the past two decades …Those investments have also provided tax breaks worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Over the past four years, the Juno Beach (Fla.) company, has paid just $88 million in taxes on earnings of nearly $7 billion.
To ensure those tax rules reach into the future, FPL employs a cadre of well-placed Washington lobbyists. In 2008, the company paid well over $500,000 to five top-drawer firms to make its tax case to Congress, the White House and the U.S. Treasury. FPL spokeswoman Jackie Anderson says the company is merely taking advantage of incentives to develop renewable resources.”
read ... Is the HECO-NextEra Merger a Done Deal?
State, Feds Give Away $21.2M in High Tech Corporate Welfare
UBJ: Based on the results of Blue Startups, HSDC has invested in other accelerators including the GVS Transmedia Accelerator, which focuses on creating digital content, and Energy Excelerator, which focuses on energy startups.
The HI Growth Initiative is a state equity investment program designed to grow an innovation ecosystem and support high-growth businesses and jobs by leveraging private sector capital to invest in "the critical building blocks of an innovation ecosystem: entrepreneur development, research commercialization, and startup investment capital," according to its website.
HSDC was allocated $13.2 million from the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Small Business Credit Initiative for the HI Growth Initiative. In addition, the Hawaii state Legislature appropriated $2 million for the Launch Akamai Venture Accelerator program and $6 million for the HI Growth Initiative. The HSDC was charged with using those funds to create an investment program to attract private capital.
According to a progress report released on Aug. 29, HSDC has invested $1.22 million into Blue Startups and its fund, Blue Ventures, which has been matched by private investment.
read ... Crony Capitalism
Homeless Dude Refuses Shelter for 13 Years
KITV: ...Kai, a Chihuahua, is the reason excuse Dedy (who doesn’t want his last name used) uses to justify why he doesn't go into a shelter -- even after being homeless for 13 years.
"He kind of grew along with me. So we're attached and I can't get rid of him," said Dedy....
read ... Refuses Shelter
Britain to Copy Hope Probation Program
FT: Criminals who break the terms of their probation while serving community orders could be sent to jail for up to a week under proposals for a tougher US-style system of swift justice.
The plans, set out in a report by the right-leaning think-tank Policy Exchange, are based on a probation programme in Hawaii that sets clear conditions for offenders with drug and alcohol problems, including short spells in prison for those who miss appointments with probation officers or fail drugs tests. This has been so successful in reducing reoffending rates that it has now been replicated in 18 states across the US.
read ... Hope Spreading Worldwide
Mental Illness Costs $7M and Cure Still out of Reach
CB: Citizens Against the Maui County Farming Ban, a political action committee financed overwhelmingly by global seed companies Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences, spent more than $7.2 million seeking to convince voters to reject the bill, according to the group’s campaign spending report filed late last week. That’s more than any other campaign in Hawaii history.
read ... Mental Illness is Expensive
Carlisle Confused About 2002
Carlisle: ...An example of such a conflict arose in the prosecution of the Mayor Jeremy Harris Political Campaign For Re-election in 2000. In 2002, the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission investigated the Harris Campaign for campaign spending violations. The commission planned to refer its investigation for prosecutorial evaluation. Since the Campaign Spending Commission is a state office the logical referral would be to the state Department of the Attorney General.
By 2002 Linda Lingle had been elected governor and appointed Mark Bennett as her attorney general. In 2002 Mayor Harris was running for governor challenging Governor Lingle.
Due to the apparent conflict of Governor Lingle’s attorney general prosecuting her political opponent, Mayor Harris, the Mayor Harris Campaign case was referred to the Prosecuting Attorney of the City & County of Honolulu. That was me.
The events that followed appeared to persuade Mayor Harris to withdraw from the race for governor and subsequently to withdraw from the political arena altogether. The 2002 campaign committee and some of its promoters were prosecuted for campaign spending violations.
So it behooves us to keep the prosecutor elected as are the mayor and council members. We should do this despite irrefutable evidence that we have occasionally elected scoundrels, hooligans, the ethically challenged, the unstable, the floridly psychotic and an assorted mass of humanity afflicted with various and significant levels of questionability....
Reality:
read ... Who's editing this stuff?
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