Na'i Aupuni: Will OHA Trustees Waste Another $2.3M on Fake Indian Tribe?
Political Fight Over Teachers' Mailboxes
Embedded HECO Lobbyist in Governor Ige’s Office
IM: Robbie Alm works in the Governor's Office as Legal Counsel where he helps screen potential candidates for administrative positions. At the same time Robbie Alm is being paid by Hawaiian Electric Company for "consulting services." ...
Upon his resignation, Mr. Alm entered into an agreement with Hawaiian Electric, under which he would provide certain consulting services for the two-year period beginning September 1, 2013.
Under the agreement, in exchange for consulting services Hawaiian Electric agreed to pay Mr. Alm a consulting retainer equal to his annual base salary in effect on August 30, 2013, paid in two installments....
ILind: What about Robbie Alm?
read ... Embedded HECO Lobbyist in Governor Ige’s Office
Ige Uneasy over Proposed GE Tax Hike, Machida Cannot Verify HART Data
CB: Gov. David Ige shares legislators’ unease over the project’s escalating costs, particularly as the city and HART have been reluctant to share detailed information. State Budget Director Wes Machida told Civil Beat earlier this month that under current circumstances, it would be hard for the Ige administration to support a GET surcharge extension.
Machida said on Friday that while he’s received additional information, he still hasn’t gotten some material shared with the Senate Transportation Committee. Further, he hasn’t had sufficient time to verify the data he has received.
Meanwhile, competing bills to extend the surcharge by five years or 25 years seem to be dividing rather than uniting legislators, who were already loudly demanding details....
read ... Cannot Verify HART
SB284 Frankenstein Bill
SA: What started off this Legislature as a bill "relating to the transient accommodations tax" has supersized into a measure that now proposes to cover the $40 million needed for the Turtle Bay land deal as well as transfer authority for that conservation easement.
Oh, and just for good measure: Legislators also plopped in new language for the state to appraise and study the feasibility of Dole Food Co. acreage on the North Shore for possible land exchange.
That's now all in SB 284, Senate Draft 2, House Draft 1....
read ... Sausage making has Begun
Constitution defied by Caldwell in Appointments?
SA: When city Parks Director Michele Nekota and Design and Construction Director Robert Kroning were nominated to their posts last year, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell waived a Hawaii Constitution requirement that says an appointee to a state or county office should have lived in the state for at least one year.
At that time, administration officials insisted that they had a difficult time finding qualified candidates locally and pointed out that the state law allows for exemptions in such cases.
Questions about the two appointments surfaced after Gov. David Ige withdrew his nominee for state labor director due to the residency requirement earlier this year....
"While it is well documented that finding engineers to work for the city is difficult, I found it considerably more difficult to find an engineer with the strong management and administrative background and proven skills in overseeing large-scale operations that would enable them to meet these highly specialized qualification requirements," Caldwell wrote....
"The five-year parks experience requirement is considered a highly specialized qualification," Deemer said. "We did not find anyone locally who both met this requirement and who interviewed strongly for the position. We were fortunate to convince Toni Robinson (a former Honolulu parks supervisor) to come out of retirement to fill the position. When Ms. Robinson decided to go back to retirement, we were faced with the same difficulty finding a qualified candidate."
read ... Unconstitutional Caldwell
Agriculture Wins Against Anti-GMO Pesticide Hypesters
CB: A controversial measure that would have required monthly disclosure of pesticide use in Hawaii has died in the Legislature, essentially ensuring that the public won’t be able to find out details about what pesticides are being sprayed in the state and where.
Senate Bill 1037 passed the Senate but House Agriculture Committee Chairman Clift Tsuji failed to give it a hearing last week before a key legislative deadline. The measure would have required agricultural companies to submit monthly reports of what pesticides they use and in what amounts.
Advocates for disclosure often point to California as a model for Hawaii to follow, but disclosure here has run up against fierce resistance from members of the local agricultural industry who called the proposed requirements burdensome.
Currently the state collects data on the sales of restricted use pesticides, but not how, when or where they’re applied. On Kauai, seed companies report their monthly pesticide use through the Good Neighbor Program, but that is voluntary and limited only to that county.
Tsuji, a representative from the Big Island, said that he didn’t call a hearing for SB 1037 because he had already considered two similar proposals earlier this session and was concerned about the bill’s broad application to all farmers.
SB 1037, introduced by Sen. Josh Green also from the Big Island, originally targeted only large farms, reflecting (eco terrorists targets of choice and activists desire to stage mass hysteria incidents involving local schools.)
CB: Managing Pesticide Drift: Farmers Get It
KE: Musings: Disclosure is Dead
read ... Fierce Opposition
Bill to Help Cops Develop Body-Worn Camera Programs
CB: Several members of Congress think body cameras on police will help both cops and the people they are sworn to protect.
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) last week introduced the Police Creating Accountability by Making Effective Recording Available (Police CAMERA) Act of 2015.
read ... Body Cams
Make Live Videoconference Testimony a Reality For Neighbor Islands
CB: Both the House and Senate had introduced bills which addressed some of these concerns, but neither measure survived the session. HB1054, introduced by Rep. Nicole Lowen, called for a pilot project to utilize existing equipment in Hawaii County to enable audio or live video testimony at the Capitol, while Sen. Lorraine Inouye’s SB523 proposed to convene a statewide fair access commission to implement telecommunications for live testimony for all neighbor islands.
read ... Videoconference
OHA Makes Little Progress Bringing Land Trusts Together
PBN: His “Top Five” are the Office of Hawaiian Affairs; Queen Liliuokalani Trust; The Queen’s Medical Center, Health Systems and Land Co.; Department of Hawaiian Home Lands; and Kamehameha Schools.
Together, they have more than 8,500 employees and $1.2 billion in annual spending. That would place them among Hawaii’s largest companies.
We asked Apo if he has made any progress in getting the Top Five together.
“It’s a tortoise; it moves slowly,” he said of the process. “But all five have agreed to meet quarterly. We threw out the idea of an economic impact study — part of the formal process. We would ask how we can do economic planning that creates structural changes to improve the quality of life for Hawaiians.”
read ... Tortoise
Can Hawaii Public Officials Use Private Email Accounts for Work?
CB: According to the Department of Accounting and General Services, there’s no policy that forbids Hawaii government employees from using personal email accounts – like Gmail or Yahoo! – for official government business. But if a private email account is used for work, those emails can become public records that may need to be saved or potentially released through public records requests.
Civil Beat checked with more than a dozen officials at a number of state agencies and Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s office and found that officials generally don’t know what the policy is. And they don’t know whether employees are using personal email for public business or how to go about retrieving those emails if they are.
read ... Ready for Hillary?
HSTA and DOE agree on TRO blocking latest ethics ruling
ILind: The Hawaii Labor Relations Board has approved an agreement between the Department of Education and the Hawaii State Teachers Association to defer enforcement of a recent ethics ruling barring candidates for union office from distributing their campaign materials through school mailboxes, according to the attorney representing the union....
read ... HSTA and DOE agree on TRO blocking latest ethics ruling
547 sex offenders not registered with State
KITV: Hawaii has nearly 3,000 convicted sex offenders. However, the state doesn't know where 547 of the criminals are....
read ... Perverts on the Loose
Kauai population increases cited for uptick in the number of gun permits
AP: According to the state Attorney General's firearm registration report, which was released recently, there were 1,741 applications processed by the Kauai Police Department last year. That was slightly up from the year before, when there were 1,713 applications in 2013.
Officials approved 1,563 of the permits, registering 3,807 firearms. That also outpaced 2013, when 3,651 firearms were registered.
While it was the lowest of all the state counties, Kauai processed 80 percent more applications than officials had anticipated for the year.
While reasons for requesting an application aren't required, sport seems to be the main draw.
"It appears that hunting is by far the No. 1 reason," Blane said, adding that other reasons provided also include collecting and personal protection....
Long arms accounted for 28,620, or 59.2 percent of firearms registered statewide in 2014. Rifles and shotguns comprised 22,548, or 46.7 percent, and 6,072, or 12.6 percent of total registrations. The remaining 19,704, or 40.8 percent, of firearms registered were handguns.
After applicants submit the proper documents for a long arm to the Kauai Police Department, there is a 14-day waiting period. KPD will conduct criminal and mental health clearance checks. Multiple long guns can be registered under one long gun permit, and permits are valid for all long guns purchases for one year....
read ... Gun Permits
Maui Property Tax System Needs Overhaul
MN: With the Maui County Council budget discussions beginning March 31, the Committee for More Equitable Taxation poses a question: Will the Maui County Council ever fund a comprehensive study to overhaul the shortsighted and unfair Maui County property tax system? The study was proposed by the Maui County Council in 1991. After waiting 24 years, the study is long overdue and more important than ever.
read ... Overhaul?
Does Iran Have Secret Nukes in North Korea?
DB: Washington’s nuclear deal with Tehran depends on aggressive inspections inside Iran. But the mullahs may well have a secret program outside their borders....
read ... Secret Nukes in N Korea
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