UH Manoa Celebrates Day Muslims Tricked Hawaii Legislature into Honoring Islam on September 11th
Traffic Expert: Honolulu Ideal for Driverless Vehicles
Survey: Spanish People in Hawaii Among ‘Most Integrated’
Star-Adv: OHA Funds may not be used to Create Fake Indian Tribe
SA: …What happens now is left, correctly, up to the Native Hawaiians. They can opt in by forming a government to be recognized.
The first step would be to ratify organic documents for that government. At least one version of such a constitution, drafted in an ‘aha (constitutional convention) earlier this year, could be the focus of a ratification drive.
Legal challenges to that ‘aha arose. They alleged, among other things, that the convention’s links to OHA, a state agency, violated the U.S. Constitution.
And that underscores the importance of keeping any ratification vote a completely private undertaking. The funds should come in the form of donations from individuals or nongovernmental groups to keep the process above board….
read … Nobody Wants This
Caldwell Could Have Replaced Police Commission Chair 9 Mos Ago—Did Nothing
CB: …Ron Taketa’s term on the Honolulu Police Commission expired nine months ago, yet Mayor Kirk Caldwell has yet to reappoint or replace him.
The question is, why?
The commission has been catapulted into the spotlight for its refusal to address an ongoing criminal probe of Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha over accusations of public corruption and abuse of power.
Under city rules, the police commission is supposed to provide oversight of the Honolulu Police Department, including handling complaints of misconduct. It’s the only entity that can hire or fire a chief.
Taketa, the commission chairman, has become the face of denial regarding the chief. He even refused to acknowledge that Kealoha was under federal investigation despite numerous media reports, including those that named the federal prosecutor in the case….
read … Why Is Ron Taketa Still On The Honolulu Police Commission?
183 Homeless Veterans on Oahu
SA: …Social service outreach workers meet every couple of weeks to review the status of all of the 183 known military veterans who were homeless on Oahu as of August, said Jun Yang, executive director of the city’s office of housing.
The number of homeless veterans on the island has fallen 44 percent since January, when 329 homeless veterans were on the so-called “by-name list” of homeless veterans who are known to social service outreach workers.
In June, the pipeline of newly homeless military veterans was being refilled at a rate of 24 newly homeless vets each month. But that number has since dipped to a statistical average of 21.5 newly homeless veterans each month.
At the same time, the combined efforts to house veterans has resulted in a statistical average of 26.5 veterans finding housing on Oahu each month, French said….
Between January 2015 and June, the combined efforts on Oahu resulted in finding housing for 747 veterans….
read … Ranks of homeless veterans starting to thin
Feds Plan offshore fish farms for Hawaii
Guardian: The US imports about 91% of its seafood, half of which is farmed in aquaculture facilities. Why is the US having a hard time kickstarting its own industry?
Off the coast of San Diego, America’s eighth largest city, commercial fishermen harvest about 1,100 metric tons of seafood from the Pacific every year.
That sounds like a lot. But it isn’t much to Don Kent, who says he can do better with just one fish farm….
“Why are we buying all of our yellowtail from farms in Japan when I could grow them four miles off our coast and lower the carbon footprint and the trade deficit at the same time?” says Kent, president and CEO of Rose Canyon Fisheries, which aims to build the project. “This is done around the world. It’s just not done here.”
But Kent isn’t likely to get approval soon, because the location is all wrong. The government is eager to promote offshore fish farming to alleviate pressure on overfished wild species. But it wants that to happen first in the Gulf of Mexico. The National Marine Fisheries Service adopted its first rules for finfish farming in federal waters for the gulf region in January this year. Next up is the Pacific Islands region around Guam, Hawaii and Samoa, where in August the agency began preparing a report to analyze the environmental impact of aquaculture….
read … The US government wants more offshore fish farms, but no one is biting
Sovereignty Criminal Edmund Silva Appeals to Russia to Support
FT: In Russia, calling for a region to secede from Moscow’s rule is punishable by five years in prison. But on Sunday, separatists hailing everywhere from Puerto Rico to Lebanon gathered at a government-funded conference a stone’s throw from the Kremlin that aims to up-end a global order dominated by the west….
“Here in Hawaii, we have seen signs that the occupying force is losing its legitimacy as the truth becomes known,” said Edmund K. Silva Jr, a fisherman, kung fu instructor and self-proclaimed King of Hawaii.
US citizen Louis Marinelli said he was organising a “Calexit” referendum from his home in Ekaterinburg in Russia’s Ural Mountains where he teaches English. He said the vote would see California secede from the US in 2019….
Criminal: Edmund Silva
read … Secessionists gather to swap tips in shadow of the Kremlin
Agreeing on Facts
KE: A recent contentious post prompted a comment from a reader lamenting, “where's the center?” in conversations about GMOs and pesticides.
It's a good question, and one that's certainly relevant as Kauai, and hopefully the rest of Hawaii, begins the process of healing from the social rift and community polarization caused by pesticide/GMO activism.
In responding, one of the first things that came to mind was a recent guest editorial in the Star-Advertiser by Joni Kamiya, who wrote that we need to “start to agree on the facts.”
Yeah, the facts are a really good place to start. So in this and upcoming posts I'm going to be scrutinizing claims and facts….
read … Musings: Agreeing on Facts
How Government Fixes Things
KGI: The tile is being ripped up from the floors of five apartments in a state-owned housing complex, exposing the concrete and leaving some residents with questions about when it will be replaced.
“By law, we’re not mandated to put in flooring, but we do that for aesthetics and we will do it for that project as well,” said Hakim Ouansafi, executive director of Hawaii Public Housing Authority. “Our plan, once we get the funding, is then we can go back and it’s easy to put tile in, or something.”
But it could take a year or more for residents in the Hale Nan Kai O Kea Elderly Housing Project behind Mahelona Hospital in Kapaa to see new flooring in their homes.
“It’s going to be a legislative request and as soon as it’s deemed (worthy of funds), probably next year sometime, we’ll go through the procurement process,” Ouansafi said.
That means contracting companies will have to bid on the project.
Even without waiting on the Legislature, Ouansafi said Hawaii Public Housing Authority has to wait 30 days from the time they ripped up the flooring to make sure no moisture seeps up through the concrete before they could install additional flooring.
Currently, in Carrie Carvalho’s apartment, smooth brown cement is exposed between various floor rugs.
She spent two nights in a hotel while maintenance workers tore out the flooring, which had glue coming up through the cracks, and Hawaii Public Housing Authority paid for everything, including meals and transportation.
Now, while the seeping floor glue and the danger it posed for the 77-year-old kupuna are both gone, Carvalho returned home wondering what happened to her floor.
“I came back to an empty floor and I told them they should just knock out the back wall here and I can pull my car in and park it inside since it’s just a cement floor like a garage,” Carvalho said….
read … Concrete floors, temporary solution
Hawaii Longliners Are Fishing For Ahi Again
CB: For the fourth straight year, fishermen reach their limit early, then buy the chance for more from the Northern Marianas…..
read … Fishing Again
Surprise: Most MDs Don’t Wanna Sell Dope
CB: …I emailed 29 of my internal medicine colleagues the same afternoon that our chief medical officer gave a lecture on how to handle the issue of certifying patients that were allowed to receive medical marijuana from the upcoming dispensaries. Basically, we could each decide based on our own medical expertise.
Within the next week or so, 19 responses arrived. Thirteen of my colleagues said “no,” four said “maybe” and only two said “yes.”
Those who said no were emphatic. They were not interested in participating in the medical marijuana program under any circumstances.
The maybe group said it would depend on what everyone else was doing, and also on the paperwork burden involved. After all, the previous application for both the certifying doctors and patients was overwhelming, which is one reason why so few doctors participated.
read … Most Of My Colleagues Will Just Say No To Medical Pot
Properties lost to illegal foreclosures by Homeowners Associations, lawsuit says
SA: A class-action lawsuit filed in federal court last month alleges that 72 Oahu homeowner associations and two law firms acting as their agents unlawfully foreclosed on 160 homes beginning in September 2010.
The complaint contends the associations and the law firms unlawfully used a swift, nonjudicial foreclosure process intended for use by mortgage lenders, not by homeowners associations, and only when specific language is contained in a mortgage.
Nonjudicial foreclosure is available only when a mortgage contains a “power of sale,” a clause that pre-authorizes the lender to sell the property at public auction, without going to court for authorization, if the borrower defaults.
A public sale is quick and would only require a legal notice published in a newspaper.
The 160 who lost their homes in the nonjudicial foreclosures may be able to recoup the full value, said Honolulu attorney Steven Chung, who represents plaintiffs Benita Brown, Craig and Kristine Connelly, and others….
read … Nonjudicial
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