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Thursday, August 13, 2015
August 13, 2015 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 6:50 PM :: 6041 Views

Lawsuit Challenges Kanaiolowalu, Na'i Aupuni, OHA

How transparent is your state's lobbying disclosure?

CIO: State Computers Slow Because Employees Watching Hulu, Netflix all Day

CB: ...Employees have been streaming so much media through state-assigned computers during work hours that Hawaii’s state government has blocked services like NetFlix and Hulu.

Todd Nacapuy, the chief information officer, issued a memo Tuesday to CIOs and IT staff for the executive, legislative and judicial branches, stating that the excessive streaming was “monopolizing a significant portion” of the state’s available bandwidth.

“The state has finite IT resources, and increasing these resources requires an investment, said Nacapuy, who added that using bandwidth for non-state purposes “affects our collective performance” of state business....

YouTube and non-paid Adobe Flash media will remain accessible....

read ... Significant Portion

'Old' HPD Computer System Crashes for Several Days

KHON: The problem started several days ago.

Officers weren’t able to upload their reports and some even opted to handwrite them instead.

The Honolulu Police Department told us the system came back up midday Wednesday and there were no delays in service to the public or transfer of information.

HPD did not say what started the problem but we were told the system is old.

read ... Hawaii Tech

Temp inside Kailua classroom measured 108 degrees

HNN: A Kalaheo High School science teacher has been measuring the hot temperatures in his un-air-conditioned classroom since public school started last month and found it was 108 degrees there Monday afternoon.

This development came not long after Cory Rosenlee, the recently elected head of the teachers' union, said he wanted the Department of Education to consider canceling school on “heat days” -- since more than 90-percent of Hawaii's public schools do not have air conditioning....

The DOE said many public schools are more than 50 years old and their aging electrical systems can't support new air conditioning.  School officials cite one example of a school without proper electrical upgrades that installed air conditioning only to blow a circuit.

The DOE estimates the average high school would spend $15 million installing air conditioning, while the costs for each middle school would be about $10 million and each elementary school would cost roughly $5 million to convert to AC.

DOE officials said the department would lack the money to pay for the massive increases in electricity if it added large numbers of air conditioned classrooms.  DOE spends about $48 million a year in power costs now.

The DOE’s current priority air conditioning list is headed by three schools in Ewa: with Ewa Elementary at the top, Ilima Intermediate second, and Campbell High School third.  The fourth school on the priority list is just a few blocks from Kalaheo: Aikahi Elementary.  There is no timetable for when those four schools would be retrofitted with air conditioning systems.

read ... 108 Degrees

Teachers Union Says No Homework

HNN: A study from the American Journal of Family Therapy found that first graders who were surveyed spent an average of 28-minutes a night on homework.  That's nearly three times what's recommended by the National Education Association.

Parents of kindergartners reported spending 25 minutes a night on assignments.  The NEA says children that young shouldn't have any homework at all.

The study was posted on Hawaii News Now's Facebook page and generated well over 100 comments in a couple hours.

"A child in school can never have too much homework, I'd rather my child be doing a ton of homework than running around getting into trouble," said Nikki Brown.

"I taught middle school for 30+ years and NEVER gave homework. The kids had plenty of time in class to work where I was there to help," wrote Cheri Hoglund Mitton.

read ... Homework

Special Education Is Backsliding in Hawaii, Teachers and Advocates Say

CB: Despite increases in funding and numerous efforts at reform, students with disabilities are falling farther behind their mainstream peers. Some say the downturn started when federal court supervision of the state system ended....

SA: DOE priority is to hire more special-education teachers

read ... Backsliding

Bullying: Homosexual Sues to Impose Gay Agenda on DoE

HTH: Joshua Alameda Franklin, who is openly gay, and his boys, ‘Ale‘a Stevens-Alameda, 10, and Poha Stevens-Alameda, 9, named the Department of Education and multiple individuals, including state schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi and Deputy Superintendent Stephen Schatz, as defendants in the suit filed Aug. 7 in Hilo’s 3rd Circuit Court.

Franklin, a car salesman at Big Island Honda, filed the suit himself, but says he has been talking with various attorneys about representing his family.

(Translation: This case is so bogus that even an attorney won't take it.)

In late March, the family recorded an approximately eight-minute YouTube video in which they described the bullying they experienced, and the video quickly caught fire. As of Wednesday, it has garnered nearly 57,000 views.  In the video, ‘Ale‘a explains that often he has had to defend his father’s sexuality....

On April 6, then-Hilo-Waiakea Complex Area Superintendent Valerie Takata responded to the video by sending a letter home to parents.

“We are addressing the claims raised in that video and realize the issue of bullying goes beyond our schools,” she wrote.

She said schools can “make every effort” to address bullying, but said the issue also should be addressed by the community.

“School staff can do a great deal to prevent bullying and protect students, but they can’t do it alone,” Takata wrote. “Families, the community and students also have a role to play in preventing bullying at school.”

She included a number of tips on how parents can talk to their children about bullying and respecting diversity.

However, Franklin said, that simply wasn’t enough to address the problem.

“I want to see them doing training for all employees (of the DOE) every year about anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) discrimination and bullying,” he said.

Franklin says he did not state in the civil filing how much money he thinks the DOE should pay, he’d rather let a jury figure that out. But, he said, he would like to be compensated for lost wages because he has had to take time off from work and stay home with his sons, who don’t feel safe at school anymore.

“I can’t send them to school,” he said.... 

read ... Bully

Homosexual Child Molester Finally Gets Jail Term

KGI: Richard Wayne Rita, 61, of Lihue, was sentenced Wednesday to a five-year prison term for failing to comply with sex offender registration requirements.

In 2012, Rita was sentenced to probation for one count of sexual assault in the third degree, a class C felony. As a condition of that sentence, Rita was required to register as a sex offender in Hawaii.

While on probation, Rita was registered at the residential address of a family member but was actually residing at a campsite in Lucy Wright Park in Waimea. Rita was arrested by Kauai police in July 2014 and has been in custody since then.

As part of the sentence handed down by Fifth Circuit Judge Kathleen N.A. Watanabe, Rita’s probation was revoked and he was also sentenced to serve a concurrent five-year prison term in the underlying sexual assault case.

read ... Homosexual Child Molester

More jail space long overdue

MN: The overcrowding crisis at Maui Community Correctional Center begs the question: How long will island politicians allow this problem to fester?

Now, four inmates share a cell designed for two at the nearly 500-inmate Wailuku jail (operational capacity 301). Two sleep on the floor, and one tries to get a night's sleep just inches away from the toilet.

The state Department of Public Safety reportedly first proposed building a new jail at Puunene in 2002. At that time, the estimated price tag was $70 million - half of which would have been paid with federal money. Then, in 2005, the cost of a new prison rose to $120 million. Just a year later the cost mushroomed to $210 million, and in 2009 it was $235 million.

read ... Somewhere to put the homosexual child molesters

‘Shady Characters’ Tell a Spicy History of Hawaii

CB: Ronald Ching, the first and only hit man Hawaii’s long-time investigative reporter James Dooley ever interviewed, was not your average professional killer.

Dooley writes about Ching and many other Hawaii crime and corruption stories, all of which he first brought to light as a news reporter, in his new book “Sunny Skies, Shady Characters: Cops, Killers, and Corruption in the Aloha State.”

Ching wasn’t a loner protecting his anonymity by living quietly and staying in the shadows. In his day job he was a Teamster TV and movie production truck driver who regularly appeared on the set of “Magnum, P.I.” ...

Corruption may be quieter and subtler now, but it continues to exist because the key forces that drove corruption during Dooley’s time are still there.

These enabling threads of corruption include a tolerance of conflicts of interest; the acceptance of the idea that it’s OK to use politics to reward your friends; and, most important of all, the involvement of government agencies that are either complicit or inept....

KITV: Kaneohe-Bound H-3 Freeway to shut down for 11 hours for Hawaii 5-0 production

read ... Shady Characters

State Energy Office Works Against LNG to Keep Electricity Expensive

PBN: Liquefied natural gas bulk shipments to Hawaii deserves consideration, but only if it supports the state’s renewable energy agenda, the head of the state’s Energy Office told PBN this week in an exclusive interview.

“We’ve said we are open to a consideration of LNG as a bridge only,” Mark Glick, administrator for the state Energy Office, told PBN, pointing out that it has to be limited. “It would only be [used] to displace oil and only to support higher rates of [integrating] renewables and reduce costs.”

Glick reiterated the state’s stance this week on LNG, bulk shipments of which are being proposed for the Islands as a replacement for oil by both Hawaii Gas, the state's only regulated gas utility, and Hawaiian Electric Co.

read ... Keep Electricity Expensive

Obama Forcing Closure of American Samoa's Largest Private Employer

RNZ: American Samoa's largest private sector employer has warned thousands of people could be out of work if there are no fish deliveries to its cannery by next week.

The warning from the fish processing firm StarKist comes following the closure of the high seas to US purse seiners meaning the entire American Samoa fleet has had to fish much further afield and have its catch processed elsewhere.

Flashback: Rep Hastings: Obama's Ocean Zoning Will Shut Down Tuna Fishery

read ... Thanks, Obama

Rich Eco-Hypocrite Busted for Stealing State Conservation Land

HNN: ...Angus Mitchell, son of the late hair styling tycoon Paul Mitchell, is known for his support of conservation efforts in Hawaii.

But the part-time Diamond Head resident finds himself in the cross hairs of his neighbors and the state Land Board over the alleged misuse of public lands.

He's accused of taking 2,000 square feet of state conservation land in the Diamond State Monument and adding it to his own private, gated estate....

Mitchell's 6.5 acre estate at 3703 Poka Place lies on the southeastern side of the monument.

According to the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Mitchell extended his boundary lines, adding ornate landscaping, ponds, waterfalls and retaining walls on the Diamond Head Monument's property.

Mitchell paid the state a $14,000 fine last year and has agreed to dismantle the ponds and waterfalls. He's also seeking an after-the-fact permit on the structures he wants to keep.

That after-the-fact request has created an awkward situation for the DLNR's current chair Suzanne Case, who is the former executive director of the Nature Conservancy of Hawaii.

Back in 2011 when Case headed the Nature Conservancy, Mitchell donated his fathers $6.5 million Kona estate to Case's organization.

Case told Hawaii News Now today that there is no conflict of interest. (LOL!)

read ... Rich Eco-Hypocrites

Anti-GMO? How 3% Manipulate 70%

KE: ...I'm fascinated by the social and environmental implications of the technology, and most especially, the irrationalism of the rabid anti-GMO movement.

As one researcher noted: “They'll think nothing of putting a genetically engineered product directly into their veins, but they won't eat it.”

Because genetic engineering in medicine is going great guns, with no complaints or outcry, but GE agriculture is under attack.

Sitting at dinner with a group of researchers, I relayed some of what's been going on in Hawaii with the anti-GMO movement the past few years — the threats, the intimidation, the harassment, the bullying, the fear-mongering and most of all, the intense disinformation campaign led by people like Gary Hooser and his pals at the Center for Food Safety.

I recounted that I'd been an avid environmentalist — and though that hasn't changed, I've lost all faith in the “green” movement — and opposed to GMOs until I witnesses the ugliness of the anti-GMO movement, and started doing more research into biotech.

They all laughed when I said that people — folks like Felicia Cowden and Shannon Rudolph — were spreading the rumor that I must've suffered a brain injury because they otherwise couldn't fathom how I'd so dramatically shifted my views.

“You mean, they didn't understand you'd educated yourself?” asked one scientist, incredulous.

Yeah, it's a difficult concept to grasp for those who are gripped by ignorance.

Another researcher told of the poll that asked people whether food with DNA should be labeled, and 70 percent said yes. When asked if GMOs should be labeled, the figure went up to 73 percent. So only about 3% of the population is rabidly anti-GMO, but they're manipulating the ignorance of the masses because of course all food contains DNA....

CB:  Waikiki march has become the kahua (foundation) on which the next generation of warriors will stand upon.

read ... 3% Manipulate 70%

Crime up Everywhere Around Kakaako Tent City

HNN: Restaurant 53 By the Sea sits on the fringe of Kakaako's growing homeless camp. Trespassing by homeless people has increased.  There have been thefts. So the restaurant hired overnight security.

"The only trouble that we are really concerned about is the safety of the employees and the guests, so when we're in operations they do come and they harass not just the employees but the guests that are here as well," manager Tony Castilo said.

Honolulu police statistics show that compared to January 2013, calls for assistance from cops in the district that includes Kakaako has gone up by 45 percent.

Crime has also crossed to the mauka side of the area, affecting Highway Inn and its neighbors.

"Our management company here which represents Kamehameha Schools did put out a bulletin letting all the tenants know there has been increased vandalisms and break-in's with cars," owner Monica Toguchi said.

A security guard is now stationed on the ground floor of the building that houses the Department of Public Safety.  DPS wanted a guard for years but got emergency funding to hire one immediately because of escalating confrontations employees were having with homeless people....

"I know Ward Warehouse also has had similar situations with vandalism, assaults, car break-in's," Toguchi said.  "We advise our staff to go in pairs and not park in areas that might be unsafe for them."

read ... Predators

Med Students Terrified Because HGEA Taking over Security at JABSOM

KITV: Adding to the concerns, a law that allowed the John A. Burns Medical School and Cancer Center to hire private security for the last seven years expired in June. But the state doesn't have enough guards to take over immediately.

It will need at least a dozen to staff the high-security 24-7 Biolabs and the other campus buildings. However, the school says that's still three to five guards short of what it is used to.

The security guard in white is a from private firm. The guard in blue is a member of the state's largest public union. Expect to see both on campus during this transition period.

In an effort to try to keep everyone safe, the security guards have been offering escorts for students and staff in the early morning or late evening hours.

"That is available, but sometimes it can take a while before they can get you out of the parking lot,' said Lim.

A big fear is being accosted by the homeless people, so students are glad UH guards began offering door-to-door service.

"They would actually come into the parking lot and get you right by your car. That is an improvement, but it really indicates an increased concern,” said Lim.

It's not clear at this point how long it will take before the security services are completely taken over by state workers. Lim plans to meet with the new security team Thursday to talk over their concerns during this transition period.

read ... Terror

Wide cost disparity revealed as Hawaii law enforcement agencies replace guns

KHON: HPD is phasing out its Smith and Wesson guns for Glocks at a cost of $818,000 for 2,000 guns, or $409 per gun. That’s the same price per gun that Kauai paid for 20 Glocks.

“I don’t know much about Glocks, maybe that’s just what they cost, but there’s nothing wrong with doing some market research and finding out hey, if we buy in bulk, why don’t we get a discount?” said Sarah Allen, the state’s chief procurement officer.

Contrast that per-gun price with the gun swap happening for the sheriffs’ guns.

The state awarded a $300,000 contract to replace DPS’ Smith and Wessons with two different models of Sig Sauer. It will also be getting a credit of about $160,000 for trading in its old guns.

The out-of-pocket total for 750 weapons comes down to about $178 each.

Related: Honolulu Police Department to Destroy Guns Worth $500,000

read ... Disparity

Hawaii District Court seeks new federal Magistrate Judge

HNN: The selection panel chair is Bert Sakuda, who is joined by attorneys Paul Alston, Erika Lewis Amatore, Joachim Cox, Patricia McHenry, Michael Nakano, and Lynn Panagakos, and by non-lawyer community members Craig Howes and Pono Shim.

Application forms are available on the website of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii and must be mailed to the panel, postmarked no later than September 15, 2015, addressed to:

read ... Need a Job?

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