University of Hawaii: Report Trump Voters to Campus Police
Hawaii House and Senate Democrats Announce Leadership for 2017
HD36: Fukumoto Margin Larger than Ever
Public Hearing on Uber/Lyft rules November 21
New Stadium Slipped into Rail Development Plans
Reliance on Democrats Means Hawaii Hasn’t Been This Short On Congressional Clout In Awhile
CB: “We have a liberal, junior delegation that will be in Congress with a Republican president and a Republican Congress. They’re not going to have a lot of influence.” ….
One thing Hawaii has going for it is its geographical importance to the U.S. military. That means federal dollars should continue to flow, especially if Trump follows through on his promises to boost military spending….
KGI: One Lonely Protester Wants to Force Trump Supporters off Kauai
read … What a bunch of Losers
Telescope: Lawyers Move to Counter Delays, Obstructionism
SA: The combatants in the Thirty Meter Telescope dispute are not only skirmishing at a state hearing in Hilo, but crossing swords at the state Supreme Court.
University of Hawaii-Hilo attorneys filed a motion with the high court Monday to dismiss an appeal by the Mauna Kea Hui petitioners challenging a number of due-process decisions made in the contested-case hearing.
State attorneys filed a similar motion Thursday, saying the appeal is premature and invalid under state law.
In addition, the university is strongly suggesting that the Supreme Court appoint a master to help oversee the contested-case hearing in a move to ensure compliance with the court’s decision ordering the do-over of proceedings….
The new hearing, now in its evidentiary phase, continues at 9 a.m. today at the Grand Naniloa Hotel in Hilo and is expected to last into next month….
Wurdeman is the same attorney who earlier cited scheduling conflicts in withdrawing from representing the Mauna Kea Hui at the hearing….
read … UH, state seek dismissal of telescope opponents’ appeal
Just 42 isle classrooms of planned 1,000 have AC (Are you surprised?)
SA: …The state Department of Education has solicited air-conditioning bids for more than 800 classrooms under the governor’s ambitious goal of cooling 1,000 classrooms by year-end, but only about 40 classrooms so far have been cooled.
The department says 42 classrooms statewide have been air-conditioned, and contracts for another 25 classrooms have been awarded, according to a progress report scheduled to be presented today to the Board of Education. Cooling projects covering 832 classrooms are currently out for bid, and the remaining solicitations to reach 1,000 classrooms are scheduled to go out over the next few months.
Of the 11,806 DOE classrooms across the state, more than 4,400 have air conditioning. Fifty-one schools — or 20 percent of DOE schools — had at least 90 percent of their classrooms air-conditioned as of Nov. 1.
read … Not so Cool
After Cool Schools Debacle, DoE Hits Legislature up for $700M in New Wasteful Spending
CB: We are hopeful that our request for about $700 million in capital improvement projects statewide will address many issues, including overcrowded classrooms and heat abatement.
Remember This? -- Full Text: Contractor Offered Cool Schools at $5990 per Classroom—Was Ignored by DoE
read … Why Some Schools Face Facility Improvement Issues
Varona Village to be Sold After 21 Years of Failure
SA: The City Council on Nov. 2 adopted Resolution 16-276, which authorizes the marketing of the 26-acre property to potential buyers for redevelopment. The resolution calls for issuing a request for proposals soliciting, among other things, a detailed program to allow former plantation workers and their families to buy their homes at affordable rates or other options that allow them to remain at Varona.
Development at Varona would be limited to single-family residential units with no commercial development permitted, according to the resolution.
The process to select a buyer would be sealed, but the Council would need to approve the sale and development agreement. The property has an assessed value of about $1.6 million, which is the recommended minimum sale price….
Varona, one of eight communities in Ewa Villages, was built for Ewa Plantation Co. workers and their families between 1900 and the 1950s. The city acquired Varona and nearby Tenney and Renton villages when Oahu Sugar, Ewa Plantation’s successor, shut down in 1995. The plantation workers were promised by the city that they could stay and rent their homes. While Tenney and Renton have largely been renovated and sold to residents and other buyers, redevelopment efforts at Varona have languished over the years….
read … Long Story of Government Housing Ownership
Homelessness Industry (Again) Complains Honolulu is Forcing Bums to Accept Shelter
SA: A new report puts Honolulu in a “hall of shame” for enacting policies that criminalize homelessness.
The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty said today many cities have banned living in vehicles, camping in public areas and panhandling.
The center says policies that criminalize homelessness harm communities because they create barriers to employment (of poverty pimps who complain endlessly about) housing and education (while using the homeless as stage props)….
read … Report faults Honolulu for criminalizing homelessness
State to sign contract for tracking pot
SA: The Department of Health selected Florida software vendor BioTrackTHC to install the system in December but has taken almost a year to agree on a contract with the company. The software tracking program must interact with an existing marijuana patient registry system to ensure dispensaries are not exceeding the eight-ounces-per-month restriction on sales to patients.
“We hope to sign it (later this week),” said DOH spokeswoman Janice Okubo….
“The main stumbling block has been our need to renegotiate the contract that we started out with earlier in the year with BioTrack,” Ridley said last week. “We have since done that and we’ve sent them the contract, and we have back assurances from them that they have signed the contract.” ….
The tracking system, which will monitor production and sales of medical cannabis, follows plants as they are grown, processed and sold to make sure no marijuana is used illegally.
In addition, the DOH has received one application for certification from a laboratory that will open on Maui. The company will do business statewide to test cannabis products before they are sold.
read … Tracking
70% of Prescription Opioids Not used by Intended Patient
PR: More than 3.8 billion controlled medications, such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, Valium and Adderall, are dispensed by pharmacies annually in the United States. It has been estimated that only about 30 percent of these drugs are used by the people for whom they were prescribed. The remaining 70 percent represent a large surplus of controlled medications that could be abused or sold to others for abuse.
It’s not surprising, then, that non-medical use of prescription drugs is the second most common form of illicit substance abuse in the country, trailing only marijuana use.
read … Drugs
New Idea: Bars on Windows at State Lunatic Asylum
KHON: We found on the state procurement’s website that a contract has been awarded to install bars over windows of two buildings on the property.
That bid was put out just days after Allen Pitts escaped the state hospital by breaking a window….
“It is unknown whether previous administrators considered this before. The current administrator does not recall this being considered prior to this time.”
read … What a Concept!
Global Cooling Deniers Panic as Trump Ends Global Warming
HNN: As President-Elect Donald Trump puts together his cabinet, environmentalists (tax credit scammers) pick apart his plans for natural resources.
Trump's views on the earth's climate have also resulted in a call to action against him. "He denies climate change is a real threat. He considers (knows) it (is) a hoax," said Sierra Club Director Marti Townsend.
Local scientists and environmentalists worry that view by a president of the United States will result in fewer studies of our climate, and greater use of greenhouse gases (grants and an end to the gratuitous inclusion of ‘global warming’ as a catch-all attention getter for otherwise obscure studies and reports.)
"From a climate point of view, it's a total catastrophe," said (global cooling denier) Chip Fletcher, with the University of Hawaii's School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology.
Greenhouse gases (DO NOT) warm the atmosphere, (THE SUN DOES) which causes ice caps to melt and results in higher ocean levels. Hawaii is (NOT) especially vulnerable to rising seas (because Hawaiian islands are on extinct volcanoes which are still rising out of the sea, but hey, lets just ignore that in the interest of hype).
(BTW: I am still waiting for someone to take me up on my cash offer -- 10% of assessed value for your oceanfront Hawaii real estate.)
read … Cash Flow
Ignore The Working Class At Your Own Peril
CB: America’s working class let out a primal scream last week, and it is echoing everywhere….
Throughout the campaign many of our intellectual leaders heaped contempt on what they called the “uneducated.” By uneducated, they meant people without college educations and advanced degrees.
In other words, most people….
In fact, Wikileaks revealed top Democratic officials to be more closely affiliated with the 1 percent than with the people they sought to govern.
Now we’re all being forced to deal with the aftermath. For us here in Hawaii, a state so closely identified with the Democratic Party, the results are particularly problematic. Some of our biggest problems will take federal funding to fix, and soon we won’t have many allies in the executive branch of the U.S. government.
For Democrats, this was a self-inflicted wound….
Can Trump make a difference? Can he restore good-paying jobs to a country that needs them? It seems implausible, probably impossible. He managed to convince a significant share of the population he could. Only time will tell.
But we do know one thing. What we needed was for Washington insiders to look at us, the American people, and instead it turned out they were only looking at each other.
read … Ignore
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