Worst in Nation Hawaii Health Connector Looking for Another $28M
House Speaker mum so far on complaint against Karl Rhoads
Prosecutor: HART & OHA Auditing Firm Victim of 3-year, $500K Embezzlement Scheme
Senate Minority Alternative Budget cuts spending, caps collective bargaining
Hawaii Republican Convention Set for May 2
Ige Nominates Suzanne Case to DLNR, Names Three to School Board
Gallup: Honolulu 2nd Healthiest Community in US
Arakawa Mocks Energy 'Experts'
IM: Alan Arakawa was elected Mayor of Maui County in 2002, 2010 and 2014. At the 2015 Maui Energy Conference he gave the opening keynote speech.
“Last year when I spoke to all of you, oil was still selling for a hundred dollars a barrel. How is it, that I was surrounded by all of you experts, and not one of you, not one, predicted that oil prices would drop by a half? How come?
"On top of that, if you had asked me, or anyone else, outside of the energy industry, who NextEra was, last year, we all would have said, ‘NextEra who?’ What a difference a year makes.”
read ... Lemmings
Ethics complaint: 'Kenoi should be removed from Office'
WHT: A West Hawaii man filed an ethics complaint Monday against Mayor Billy Kenoi and Finance Director Deanna Sako, saying both should be removed from office for his misuse of a county credit card and her complicity in it.
Kapaau resident Lanric Hyland, in his petition, charges that Kenoi violated the county ethics code provision prohibiting county officials and employees from using their official positions “to secure special privileges, consideration, treatment or exemption to themselves or any person beyond which is available to every other person.”
“An inadvertent mistake of using the pCard once a year or so may simply be a forgivable oversight, but $22,000-plus over a period of years simply shows an arrogant and disgusting disregard of the law and of the ‘highest standard of ethical conduct’,” Hyland said, quoting from the ethics code.
Sako should be fired, Hyland said, “as a warning to other county employees to not be willing to look the other way.”
“When a county employee knows of wrongdoing, they must be willing to act in a principled manner to protect the taxpayers and citizens of Hawaii County. It took her months to do this,” Hyland added.
The county Board of Ethics is just one of several investigative agencies looking into Kenoi’s use of the county credit card. He’s said he’ll cooperate with any investigation....
Attorney General Doug Chin said Monday that his office is awaiting a request sent by Hawaii County Prosecutor Mitch Roth, asking his office to look into whether any criminal charges are warranted. Roth has said he wanted the investigation to be more arms-length than being conducted by another county agency such as his office.
Chin said his office could conduct its investigation into allegations of criminal wrongdoing at the same time that the Board of Ethics and the county’s legislative auditor look into any administrative breaches.
“Because this goes back so many years, it raises a good question whether it was just the standard practice or was something exceptional,” Chin said. “Not that the fact that it was standard practice made it OK.”
County Auditor Bonnie Nims made an audit of county pCards one of her first projects when she started working for the county in May. She anticipates it being completed in the next few months, but she said the recent media attention won’t fast-track the process.
read ... Ethics Complaint
Celebrutards asked to Join Telescope Protest, Ige Calls for 'Timeout'
HNN: Professional surfer and former Kauai mayoral candidate Dustin Barca was among those arrested Sunday while conducting peaceful demonstrations at the summit of Mauna Kea....
...activists have been outspoken in their opposition to the project, including actor Jason Momoa, who took to Instagram to ask other Hawaii-based celebrities--including Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Nicole Scherzinger and Kelly Slater--to join protestors atop Mauna Kea.
"Proud to be kanaka maoli," Momoa wrote in an Instagram post. "I will do everything in my mana to protect Mauna Kea."
read ... More arrests
Indictment names companies, fake identities used by PFK Pacific Hawaii's Patrick Oki
PBN: Oki, a certified fraud examiner, forged signatures including "Hide Tanaka," and "Gerald Woodward," and wrote false entries in PKF's books, using companies such as Kamakura Corp., AMC Associates, Asia Market Corp., and Sumitomo, according to the indictment.
All four partners named as the complainants in the indictment left the firm last year. They are Lawrence Chew, Deneen Nakashima,Dwayne Takeno, and Trisha Nomura.
The partners, who formed PKF in 2010 after their former employer, Grant Thornton, left the Hawaii market, alerted law enforcement officials when they discovered that Oki's claimed work-related expenses were personal. The investigation lasted a year before Oki's arrest at Honolulu International Airport.
read ... About OHA and HART's auditor
Carlisle Slams Kaneshiro for Hiring Drunk Prosecutor
HNN: In 2007, while Karamatsu was Vice Speaker of the state House, he was convicted after crashing his car into a concrete median. He pleaded no contest in that case and had his driver's license revoked for six months. The former state lawmaker also helped pass tougher DUI laws.
"I've learned from my mistake, I'm deeply sorry and I'm very fortunate that no one got hurt,” said Karamatsu in 2007.
“Now he's going to have to kinda swallow those words and try to explain why he was in this situation again after going through it once," Bakke said.
And Karamatsu has had other issues recently. Hawaii News Now reported on his involvement with a rave at Kakaako Park last year. An event that about 10-thousand people attended. "While he's working at the prosecutors office, he decided to go out and promote raves, which in case you are not aware of, is something that most law enforcement people aren't happy about," says former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Peter Carlisle.
Carlisle doesn't think Karamatsu should still have a job.
"These is no excuse for this guy being hired by the prosecutor's office in the first place, number two, being maintained in the prosecutor's office, and three, any other alternative than him being immediately fired, not allowed to resign, but fired," says Carlisle.
read ... No Excuse
State Tracking 'Sustainability' Progress Via New Online Dashboard
CB: Hawaii residents are spending more than three times as much on imported fuel than they were a decade ago, state data shows.
But total fossil fuel use and emissions have come down during that same period.
That’s just some of the info you can quickly glean from a new online dashboard that Gov. David Ige’s administration was touting Monday.
read ... Dashboard
Ige to make Nominations by April 8
AP: The Senate must approve departmental directors and some deputies nominated by the governor.
But the Senate voted Monday to extend the deadline for Ige to submit nominees from Monday, April 6 to Wednesday, April 8....
Ige says he expects to fill the majority of the remaining positions in the next two days.
SA: Repeal 1-year hiring restriction
read ... Two Days
Bill to buy Alii Place goes to full Senate as more companies ditch office space
KHON: The state is one step closer to buying a downtown Honolulu building that would put several state offices all under one roof.
The Senate Ways and Means committee approved Monday House Bill 1366, a proposal to buy Alii Place for $90 million.
The state says it could cost more than three times that amount to build new state offices from the ground up.
KHON2 dug deeper into the proposal and learned that about one third of the 25-story building is currently vacant.
Real estate analysts say there’s a reason for the vacancies: there’s a new type of office space that’s trending worldwide.
“Everybody’s doing it. Virtual office is the future,” said real estate analyst Stephany Sofos.
Hawaii’s office market has been struggling for over seven years, and Sofos says it’s going to continue to struggle. “It’s just not the business model for the future,” Sofos explained....
She predicts Hawaii will not see any new high-rise office space built in the future.
“The only people who have big offices are banks, the government, the government and government,” Sofos said.
read ... Stimulus for Office Market?
14.4% of Hawaii Teens Using Long Term Birth Control
SD: More U.S. teens are using long-term forms of birth control that they don't have to remember every day, but these methods are still relatively uncommon, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2013, among teens seeking birth control, 7.1 percent used intrauterine devices (IUDs) or birth control implants , whereas just 0.4 percent of these teens used one of these methods in 2005, the study found. Use of these methods varied widely by state: In 2013, nearly 26 percent of teens seeking birth control in Colorado used IUDs or implants, compared to just 0.7 percent in Mississippi.
Because these methods, known as long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), are the most effective types of birth control for teens, more efforts are needed to increase access to them, the CDC says....
LARC use was highest in the West, with 9.5 percent of teens in that region using these methods, and lowest in the South, with 5.3 percent of teens using these methods. Besides Colorado, other states with high use of LARC included Alaska (19.6 percent), Iowa (16.6 percent) and Hawaii (14.4 percent), while states with low LARC use included West Virginia (2.0 percent) and Indiana (1.5 percent).
read ... Birth Control
J-1: A Cultural Exchange Program or a Ticket to Sweatshop Labor?
CB: The Japanese pastry chef came to Hawaii hoping that her training here would bring her closer to realizing her dream of opening her own bakery.
To make her trip possible, she had to work with layers of contractors in Japan. First, she dealt with a company called Global Associates and its subsidiary, Hawaii Exchange Service. They then put her in touch with their affiliate — a Japanese company called the American Career Opportunity Inc. — to help her go through an English proficiency test and work with a California-based sponsor organization called the ASSE International Student Exchange Programs.
In all, she paid about $8,850 in fees and $1,300 for her medical insurance. And she spent thousands of dollars more to make living arrangements in Hawaii.
By the time she arrived and discovered her restaurant’s working conditions, her savings account had been tapped out. “I felt trapped as I had invested so much time and money to come to work on my J-1 visa,” she wrote in her 2012 affidavit to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “I did not believe I could go home as I would realistically never have another opportunity to come back to the U.S.”
But going back to work for the restaurant wasn’t much of a choice for her, either. Luckily, a network of friends, victims’ advocates and pro bono attorneys came to her rescue and got her in touch with officials at the U.S. State and Labor departments.
read ... Sweatshop Labor
Lawmakers want cap on interest rate for payday loans
HNN: They said payday lender's compound interest rates can reach 459 percent. "We've heard stories of people who are paying as much as $1,000 in fees on a loan that was originally only $300," said Scott Morishige of PHOCUSED....
The Hawaii Appleseed Center said borrowers get hooked when they take out loans to pay off other loans. Lawmakers want to cap the interest on deferred deposit transactions at 36 percent....
17 states have capped the payday loan interest rate at 36 percent.
read ... Payday Loans
Feds Push Preschool for Hawaii
KHON: According to a report released Tuesday from the U.S. Department of Education, 60 percent of approximately four million 4-year-olds nationwide are not enrolled in publicly funded preschool programs, including state preschool programs, Head Start and programs serving children with disabilities.
In Hawaii, that number balloons to 87 percent.
Of the total 17,536 4-year-olds in the state, none of them are enrolled in state preschool, nine percent are enrolled in federal Head Start programs, and four percent are enrolled in special education preschool services.
The remaining 15,176 4-year-olds are not enrolled in a publicly funded program, making up the 87 percent.
A Matter of Equity: Preschool in America highlights the need for an Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that expands access to high-quality early learning opportunities and makes the law preschool through 12th grade, rather than K-12.
read ... Preschool
HSTA Opposes Phony 'Pay Raise' Resolutions
CB: The resolutions were passed by the House Labor and Public Employment Committee, but were never scheduled to be heard by the House Education Committee — partly because of HSTA comments, said Rep. Takashi Ohno, vice chair of the committee. He also said that passing the resolutions could set a precedent for the Legislature to intervene in salary negotiations with public employees.
The teachers’ union offered written testimony on HCR 90 and 92, stating that the resolutions would infringe on the union’s collective bargaining rights. The HSTA is negotiating with the state, the Department of Education and the Board of Education to increase salaries for the last two years of the current contract period.
HSTA Vice President Joan Lewis said her greatest concern was that the resolutions might raise teachers’ expectations. Since resolutions are not enforceable by law, there’s no guarantee that the state would allocate funding to increase teachers’ salaries.
Lewis said that the resolutions were “groundbreaking” and hopes lawmakers will continue to discuss increasing teachers’ pay. But they may not realize how much it would cost to increase teachers’ salaries and pay them overtime, she said.
read ... Talk is free, contracts cost
HSTA Dissidents "Eliminate Educator Effectiveness"
BIVN: Candidates for the Hawai’i State Teachers Association have been announced by the Hawai’i Teachers for Change Caucus. The HSTA election is scheduled to be held between April 13 and April 24 and will take place both through electronic and mailed ballots.
The three Hawai’i Teacher for Change Caucus nominees include Corey Rosenlee, Justin Hughey, and Dr. Amy Perruso.
Rosenlee is running for the HSTA President. Rosenlee was the organizer of “Work to the Rule,” when former Governor Abercrombie imposed two contracts on teachers. Recently, the nationally certified social studies teacher from Campbell High School helped focus public attention on “negative” classroom learning conditions. Rosenlee is leading the fight for air conditioning in classrooms in Hawai’i.
MN: Hawaiʻi Teachers for Change Caucus Platform: "Eliminate the Educator Effectiveness System"
read ... Change?
National Liberal Group Upset at Hawaii's Failure to Implement Massive Tax Hike for Long Term Care
CB: Executive Director of Jobs with Justice Sarita Gupta was in Honolulu recently to talk about Caring Across Generations, a campaign to empower families and communities to meet the challenges that lie ahead with what has been called the “silver tsunami.” ...
The rest of the nation, Gupta said, is watching what Hawaii is doing. This state is apparently ahead of others in proposing legislation that could help address the economic and social challenges of long-term care. Given Hawaii’s demographics, the early death of Senate Bill 727 and House Bill 1253, which would have helped (raised taxes to) fund long-term care, is especially disappointing.
read ... National Liberals Miffed
Complete Debunk of Anti-GMO 'Food Babe'
ILind: I usually shy away from direct full-on attacks, but I couldn’t help enjoying this Gawker piece, “The ‘Food Babe’ Blogger Is Full of Shit.”
It’s a frontal attack on Vani Hari, AKA the Food Babe, by an author who describes herself as “an analytical chemist with a background in forensics and toxicology.”
This will give you a quick taste of the article’s approach.
Reading Hari’s site, it’s rare to come across a single scientific fact. Between her egregious abuse of the word “toxin” anytime there’s a chemical she can’t pronounce and asserting that everyone who disagrees with her is a paid shill, it’s hard to pinpoint her biggest sin.
A number of specific rebuttals to claims of the Food Babe are included, but there’s also an attempt to describe the essentially misleading way the Food Babe’s arguments are framed.
Hari uses this tricky technique again and again. If I told you that a chemical that’s used as a disinfectant, used in industrial laboratory for hydrolysis reactions, and can create a nasty chemical burn is also a common ingredient in salad dressing, would you panic? Be suspicious that the industries were poisoning your children? Think it might cause cancer? Sign a petition to have it removed?
What if I told you I was talking about vinegar, otherwise known as acetic acid?
MN: GMO vote: Every citizen deserves his day in court
read ... “Science Babe” blasts “Food Babe” and it’s a good read
Maui PD Officer sentenced for endangering her son in Drunk Driving Crash
MN: The charge resulted from a crash at about 5:30 p.m. June 17 while Kealoha was driving her Ford Escape up Baldwin Avenue toward Makawao and hit a guardrail near Rainbow Park, according to court records. She and her son, who was in the back seat of the vehicle, weren't injured in the crash. The vehicle had to be towed.
Before the crash, a couple of witnesses who saw Kealoha believed she was drunk and offered to give her and her son a ride or call someone for her, said Deputy Prosecutor Ryan Teshima.
He said Kealoha drove off. Another driver who was following Kealoha saw her vehicle swerving on the roadway before crashing into the guardrail, Teshima said.
read ... Another one
DoE will reopen Keonepoko Elementary for next school year
NR: The status of the Puna Lava Flow that threatened Pahoa town has been downgraded from "warning" to "watch." The Department will work with unions and other organizations to reopen Keonepoko Elementary, which was closed in October 2014 due to the lava threat.
read ... News Release
Rep Tupola Works With HPD to Open Leeward Emergency Access Roads
HNN: Paakea Road in Lualualei runs through Hakimo Road and connects to Lualualei Naval Road. Part of the road has been blocked off since anyone can remember.
"I've lived here my whole life, 19 years of my life, this is the first time I ever saw it open," said West Oahu resident Aurora Peneku.
State House Representative Andria Tupola has been trying to open the access roads during emergencies since she has been in office.
"I had been working with HPD for awhile to make sure that when we had accidents that lasts more than two hours, where people are stuck on Farrington Highway, that we open the back access roads to alleviate pressure and congestion on Farrington Highway," Tupola said.
The two incidents happened shortly before 2:00 p.m. but Tupola said the access road didn't open until around 4:00 p.m. Tupola says it would have been opened much sooner, but the key to the access road was on the wrong side of the traffic jam in Kapolei. She says been trying to work with HPD and the city so this won't happen again.
"Unfortunately I wish somebody would have done this years ago and had a good procedure with HPD so it's just like clockwork. When something happens, we all move into place and we execute. But today was actually the first time that the Department of Emergency Management, HPD and I were working to try to get it open to get everyone with the right information so that they would know how to use the access road," Tupola said.
There are no plans to open these access roads permanently. But Tupola hopes the next time there is a traffic emergency, the response will be much faster.
KITV: Should gated part of Paakea Road be opened during emergencies?
read ... Tupola
Kauai Council to Consider 'Homestay' Vacation Rental Ordinance
KE: The draft bill proposed by the Planning Department seeks to establish a process to permit homestays/B&Bs in the commercial, resort and residential districts around the island. The meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m., Tuesday, April 14 rooms 2A & 2B of the Moikeha building.
read ... B&Bs
Native Hawaiian Population Began Growing with Territory, Statehood
TF: ...historians and demographers agree that the devastation of the population was swift and dramatic. Historical accounts by missionaries and other Westerners who first arrived in the 1820s frequently predicted the complete eradication of the Hawaiian race from the planet by the early 20th century. Indeed, by 1920, the Native Hawaiian population had dwindled to just under 24,000, according to the U.S. Census.
But there’s a turnaround to this story. For the past several decades, since the 1980s, the Native Hawaiian population in the state and across the country has been surging, and growth is projected to continue....
read ... Surge
Borreca: Sea Level Rise will Drown us all or something
SA: The UH report from the UH Hawaii Sea Level Center explains that the sea level rise will continue, and the results are not good.
Reality: Sea Level? Oahu Rising Two Feet Every 1000 Years
read ... Some Nonsense
Poll 75% of Hawaii Suckered by Al Gore
ICN: Nationally, 63 percent of Americans agree that the climate is changing. A majority think so in every state—even in West Virginia (54 percent) and Wyoming (55 percent), both big coal producers. The highest percentage (75 percent) is in Hawaii. In the District of Columbia, 81 percent agree. (There are only 75 counties in the country where more than half the people don't think climate change is real.)
read ... Suckers
Tax freedom getting later
MN: ...According to taxfoundation.org, Tax Freedom Day is basically the day the country has earned enough money to pay its tax bill for the year.
This year's update follows.
In 2015, Tax Freedom Day is April 24 - three days later than last year. Last year's Tax Freedom Day, by the way, was three days later than it was in 2013.
According to the Tax Foundation, we citizens are going to pay $3.28 trillion in federal taxes and another $1.57 trillion in state and local taxes in 2015. The foundation says we'll spend more on taxes than on food, clothing and housing - combined!
We're going to shell out 31 percent of national income on taxes.
read ... Tax freedom getting later
'Extinct' Hawaii Shearwater Found Alive in Japan
SA: The Bryan’s shearwater was only discovered four years ago, when scientists examined two nearly 50-year-old museum samples originally collected in Hawaii and the Midway Atoll. Previously thought to be a little shearwater (P. assimilis), DNA testing revealed the sample to be a previously unknown species. But even the revelation of the new species didn’t answer questions about where the tiny birds bred or if they even still existed.
A few more clues emerged in 2012. With the genetic and morphological descriptions of Bryan’s shearwaters in hand, scientists reexamined six previously unidentified birds found in the Ogasawara archipelago (also known as the Bonin Islands) between 1997 and 2011. Even though the five of the six carcasses had been heavily munched on by invasive rats, researchers were able to identify them as the newly discovered species.
But no new sightings came after 2011. Had rats wiped this species out before we even knew it existed?
Now we know. This February a team from the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI) in Japan visited Higashijima in the Ogasawara archipelago. After hearing a high-pitched chirp, they started combing through the island’s three hectares of grass and shrubs.
read ... Extinct not
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