Cruz Campaign Announces Hawaii Delegates to Republican National Convention
Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted May 2, 2016
Homosexual Child Molesters: 150 Hawaii Victims Sue
CQ Roll Call: Top 5 Issues in Hawaii
HTA: Visitor Arrivals Set New Record
Ige Didn’t Get Much, but he Did Pay off HSTA
Borreca: …Ige failed to convince legislators to put in motion any serious plan for moving or rebuilding the horribly overcrowded Oahu Community Correctional Center.
The bottom line is that Ige expanded on his nearly 30 years of legislative experience in education and finance, but was unable to move into new areas of planning and development.
The big political win for Ige was securing $100 million in new funding to launch a crash program to cool or air condition 1,000 classrooms by the end of the year.
Besides the obvious benefit for public school students and teachers, it cemented the alliance between Ige and the Hawaii State Teachers Association. HSTA’s early and active support was a key element in Ige’s dark horse win against long-time Democrat Neil Abercrombie in 2014….
read … Ige’s legislative scorecard is turning out pretty good
Ige Helps Unions Kill Off Health Savings Account Plan
Borreca: …One bill that is not moving was a plan supported by Alexander & Baldwin and the Outrigger Enterprises that would have allowed employers to offer a health insurance plan with a very high deductible accompanied by a health savings plan. Although it was opposed by both the unions and various Ige administration executives, the bill, House Bill 2539, was moving through both legislative chambers.
At the last minute, Ige’s Labor Department started emailing union leaders telling them to “Please consider weighing in with Chairs and leadership as they need cover to kill this one,” adding that the bill was not defective but had policy problems.
An accompanying letter from Linda Chu Takayama, state Labor Department director, said her department had “grave concerns” about the bill because the high deductible insurance plan could drive out other insurance plans to the extent that employers would only offer the cheaper plan to workers.
“The potential increase in out-of-pocket maximum would expose employees to significant higher health care costs,” Takayama warned.
By the end of the day last Friday, the bill had failed to move and is likely dead for this session, giving Ige another victory….
read … Keeping Insurance Expensive
Busted Trying to Sneak Jeff Stone a Few Million, Senators Settle for Resolution Instead
CB: Hawaii senators have scheduled a last-minute public hearing Wednesday on a proposed resolution that calls on the Department of Land and Natural Resources to “engage in earnest negotiations” for the state to acquire nearly 8,000 acres in south Kona….
Senators pushed a bill that would have given the DLNR money to negotiate a deal with the land owners — The Resort Group — and take care of the property. It cleared the Senate, and the House passed an amended version, but the two chambers were unable to agree on the final language and the bill died last week….
The Water, Land, and Agriculture Committee, chaired by Sen. Mike Gabbard, is set to hear the proposed resolution at 11 a.m., Wednesday, in conference room 225 at the Capitol….
read … Kona Land Resolution Gets Last-Minute Hearing
Caldwell Cronies on Ethics Commission Retaliate against Totto
KHON: Open-government supporters say the Honolulu Ethics Commission is in shambles.
There are critical staff shortages and a board keeping close watch on its executive director.
On Monday, the ethics board told the man who has headed the Honolulu Ethics Commission for 16 years he’ll have to work side-by-side with a board member to hire key staff.
Critics call it a move to clamp down on an agency that’s supposed to keep county staff walking a straight line.
Longtime commission director and legal counsel Charles Totto is just back from a month-long suspension, with his only investigator just off the job and a key in-house attorney vacancy.
At his agency’s board meeting, another shoe fell: he can’t make hires for those jobs without oversight from the board. It’s a first during his tenure….
May 2, 2016: Honolulu Ethics Commission: And Then There Were None
read … Retaliation
Hanabusa New Excuse for HART Cost Overruns
PBN: …Colleen Hanabusa, the new HART chairwoman, told the crowd: “We can’t make it cheap because we can’t print money, but we can keep everyone appraised.”….
read … Can’t Print Money
Holding Breath: Rail More Like a Roller Coaster, or Climbing Mt Everest
SA: …Officials held a traditional Hawaiian blessing ceremony, and the train’s doors then opened to City Council members, state legislators, U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell and some 150 transportation officials.
“This rail project has been more like a roller coaster,” West Oahu community member and ardent rail supporter Maeda Timson said at the ceremony….
“This has been a long, difficult journey. It’s like climbing (Mount) Everest, and we’re not there yet … and it’s going to be fraught with problems and difficulty,” Caldwell said Monday moments after stepping to the lectern. “But it’s something we’re not going to run from.”
Caldwell, Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Executive Director Dan Grabauskas and other rail leaders are holding their breath that the five-year rail tax extension passed earlier this year will generate enough revenue to complete the project. The project has already gone over budget once and faces more cost increases amid a hot construction market and problems with utility line clearances along the elevated guideway.
Already, some island leaders such as City Council Chairman Ernie Martin and even HART board members have suggested they consider stopping the line at Middle Street instead of Ala Moana Center if the funding’s not there….
Both Caldwell and former Mayor Mufi Hannemann, under whom Caldwell served as the city’s managing director, have suggested reforming the state’s 10 percent administrative skim of the rail general excise tax surcharge to direct more money directly to the project if necessary.
Hannemann, who played a forceful role in launching the rail project, also attended Monday’s ceremony. He said it’s key for the city to start operating rail on an interim basis as soon as possible — even if that’s just to Aloha Stadium — so that local residents might get used to it and eventually embrace rail as a transit option. …
read … Angst
Honolulu Charter proposal bars lobbyists’ gifts
PBN: …The proposal, introduced by commission member Donna Ikeda, would also add language barring an elected or appointed official or any other employee of the city from soliciting or accepting any gifts from nonlobbyists as well if it is “intended as a reward for any official action.”
Currently, the law states no city employee can receive gifts totaling more than $200 from a single donor, or less than that if it can be “reasonably inferred” that such gifts were meant to influence the employee’s actions.
Despite some testy exchanges at a meeting Friday, Charter Commission members and Chuck Totto, the Ethics Commission executive director and chief legal adviser, said the amendment, if approved by the electorate, should make it easier for the public to understand the law regarding gifts.
The commission won’t complete its work until summer, and any proposed amendment could be nixed or changed up to that point. But Friday’s vote received unanimous approval from the members present, so it’s likely the question will be put before Oahu voters in November in the form of a charter amendment question.
David Rae, Charter Commission chairman, recused himself from the discussion and ensuing vote on gift laws. A retired executive of the the James Campbell Co., Rae was identified by former Councilman Romy Cachola as a lobbyist from whom Council members received meals, actions for which Rae was interviewed by the Ethics Commission. Cachola was later fined.
Rae said the Ethics Commission advised him it would be OK to take part in the ethics discussions but felt it best to recuse himself anyway….
read … Lobby
Clean Energy signs LNG contract in Hawaii
NR: Clean Energy Fuels Corp., has announced that it has secured a contract to provide liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Hawaii Gas, the State of Hawaii’s only franchised gas utility. The agreement is consistent with the state’s intent to reduce its reliance on imported crude oil, using a cleaner and more economical fuel.
“Hawaii Gas has been serving the state for over a hundred years and is committed to providing our customers with quality and reliable gas service,” said Thomas Young, Hawaii Gas’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. “With Clean Energy LNG, we will be able to diversify our gas supply using a clean fuel improving our reliability and maintaining the quality of service our customers know us for.” …
read … Clean Energy
High Cost of Doing Business: Marijuana Dealer Expects to Lose Money for Years
The medical marijuana industry has largely remained cash-based on the Mainland, and Hawaii banks have said they will not be engaged with the new medical marijuana businesses. The U.S. Department of Justice's Cole Memorandum provides forgiveness for financial institutions who engage with the new businesses, as long as they are legal in their state jurisdictions, but the Hawaii banking community has yet to "feel comfortable" with it, Floyd says.
“It’s a bigger issue for those on the Neighbor Islands because we need to pay taxes,” Floyd said. “There are concerns about how, without a banking facility, you pay taxes on Oahu, when the sales are on the Big Island.”
When asked how the company will proceed without banking operations, Floyd says Hawaiian Ethos has various plans and will still be able to operate.
“It is burdensome to do it without having a banking facility, and without people being able to use credit cards to purchase the medicine,” she said. “But we've got a couple of things in the works, and we're hopeful the Legislature and the banks in town will come to realize that this is a market that needs to be supported.”
Hawaiian Ethos has secured more than $5 million to launch the business through investments and loan commitments. Floyd says she expects it to take about three years before any profit is made.
read … Oligopoly
Anti-GMO Activists Can’t Figure out how to become Fake Farmers
KE: A friend sent me this Facebook thread with the comment, "bet you lunch you can't read it without laughing out loud." ….
read … Musings: Gimme, Gimme
Now that Cronies are in Charge of Selling Marijuana, The debate shifts to decriminalization
SA: …Thirteen years after Hawaii legalized medical marijuana, the state is finally forging ahead with licensing marijuana dispensaries, issuing licenses to eight applicants on Friday. As it has in other states, that policy shift could usher in a new era of social norms.
Back in 1973, Oregon was the first state to decriminalize small amounts of cannabis for recreational use. Four decades later, Oregon voters said yes to legalizing marijuana, as Colorado and Washington had already done in 2012. Twenty states and Washington, D.C., have decriminalized marijuana possession.
It’s unclear whether Hawaii will go that route. But already, at least a few policymakers believe the notion of decriminalizing personal use of marijuana — as well as other illicit drugs — and focusing more on treatment, is worthy of study and serious discussion.
“At first glance it comes off as a pretty radical idea” — the idea of decriminalizing personal drug use, said state Rep. Jarrett Keohokalole (D-Kaneohe, Kahaluu, Waiahole), but “things become ripe for discussion based on circumstances.” In Hawaii, drug use often is an underlying factor that feeds the nation’s highest per-capita rate of homelessness, underscoring the need to move the discussion toward treatment rather than imprisonment, he said.
It was Keohokalole who introduced House Concurrent Resolution 127, adopted Thursday, which asks the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) to study decriminalizing drug possession for personal use in Hawaii. The final version of the resolution limited the study to marijuana and other harmful drugs — excluding dangerous drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine. The resolution asks for an LRB report before the start of the 2017 legislative session.
HCR 127 references a 2009 Cato Institute study that reviewed drug decriminalization policies in Portugal, where drug use has declined and resources have shifted to treatment rather than incarceration….
read … Decriminalization
Mentally Disabled Girl Raped in Hawaii School’s Unisex Bathroom
AP: A jury has found that Hawaii's public school system failed to protect a special education student who says she was raped by a classmate. But the verdict Monday also says the state Department of Education and a special education teacher at Waianae High School didn't act recklessly or intentionally.
Jurors deliberated over two days in a lawsuit filed by Mariana Harris' mother saying the girl, now 19, was raped by a boy from her special education class in a unisex bathroom in 2013. The AP doesn't usually identify sex assault victims unless they choose to go public. Harris and her mother say they want to help other victims.
The jury awarded $810,000 in damages.
PBN: Obama Orders Employers to Let Men in Ladies Dresses into Ladies Bathroom
read … Raped
Targeting Your Children: Trannies Wanna Play Dress-up at School Graduation
CB: As graduation approaches for local high school students, transgender advocates are pushing the Hawaii Department of Education for policies to prevent incidents such as one last year in which a transgender student at Kahuku High School said she wasn’t allowed to participate in her graduation ceremony.
Transgender figures such as fashion designer Ari South, soccer and film star Jaiyah Saelua and educator and community leader Hina Wong-Kalu said they will deliver a petition Tuesday morning to the department asking it to establish clear policies protecting transgender students from discrimination, and guaranteeing all students respect and safety regardless of their gender identity of expression. The effort was organized by the Kumu Hina Project, a community educational campaign for gender diversity and inclusion based on Hawaiian values….
read … Targeting your children
Communist Acquitted Killer and Billionaire’s Pet Senator to Address UH Manoa Grads
SA: U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Angela Davis, an activist and professor, will be the keynote speakers at two University of Hawaii-Manoa commencement ceremonies May 14….
read … Communist Billionaires Pet
Authorities struggle to curb drag racing at historic Ewa Field
SA: A portion of Marine Corps Air Station Ewa, a key Dec. 7, 1941, battle site, was placed on the Hawaii Register of Historic Places in November and will soon be on the National Register.
However, groups of car-racing enthusiasts sometimes descend on the battlefield, which is hidden behind overgrown kiawe, to spin their tires on wartime history — in this case a concrete airplane warm-up ramp that bears the scars of Japanese strafing and is at the heart of preservation efforts, said Ewa Beach historian John Bond.
“It’s been going off and on for years,” said Bond of the racing, which he calls “sacrilegious and not appropriate.”
The car drivers trespass on the site where aircraft were destroyed and Marine Corps defenders died, Bond said. They also like to drag-race on Ewa Field runways, he said.
“They like the warm-up ramp because they see the flagpole and they go screaming over to there and do doughnuts around it,” Bond said. “I’ve got tons of pictures of all the burnouts out there. And they’ve never worn off — even after all the rains. It remains in the concrete for years.” ….
SA: It’s a drag what drag racers doing
read … Desecration
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