Hawaiian Civic Club Money Secretly Funneled into Fake Indian Tribe
Maui Says Aloha to Island’s Last Sugar Cane Producer
EPA Finds No Widespread Water Pollution From Fracking
Hawaii Retroactive Tax Hikes Every Year
Ige: I Spent the $1B Surplus in July (Negotiating Position #1)
SA: Gov. David Ige’s administration has made a series of closed-door presentations to the public worker unions in recent months warning that the state’s record-setting $1 billion budget surplus is essentially spent, a message apparently meant to tamp down expectations as the unions negotiate for new contracts and raises.
According to the presentations made to the unions by the state Department of Budget & Finance, the state closed the books on the last fiscal year on June 30 with a $1.027 billion general treasury budget surplus, but immediately drained those funds by spending $1.311 billion in July.
That PowerPoint presentation, which was obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, also warns Hawaii is due for a recession. It argues the state has experienced an economic downturn every decade since the 1930s, and the presentation sketches out some possible impacts to the state treasury if a recession were to hit in 2018.
The Ige administration initially proposed that at least two public worker unions accept no raises for the next two years — the Hawaii Fire Fighters Association and the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly — but one union official said the state’s alarming budget claims during contract negotiations this year have been greeted with “disbelief.”
UHPA Executive Director Kris Hanselman said the union views the state’s budget presentation as “sleight of hand.” ….
read … No money left for pay raises, unions warned
Ige: More Spending on Failed Cool Classrooms Program (Negotiating Position #2)
SA: Gov. David Ige says he again wants to invest a large portion of next year’s state budget in public education through funding that would be dispersed at the school level.
Education also takes priority when it comes to facilities in the governor’s proposed budget, which will include money for new schools and classroom-cooling efforts.
“It’s very clear to me that public education drives our economy, and so clearly the investment in education will be the biggest part of this budget … in terms of additional appropriations,” Ige said last week in an interview at the state Capitol.
Related: Full Text: Contractor Offered Cool Schools at $5990 per Classroom—Was Ignored by DoE
read … Message to HSTA--Pay Hike or Cool Classrooms?
Cataluna: Kealoha Should Retire
SA: …what about the officers who go to work every day under the dark cloud hovering over the boss? When Kealoha was first named chief, he had widespread support in the department. Now, cops are making pixelated allegations about him on the evening news.
In military families, kids know that if they get in trouble, it reflects on everyone in the home. The active-duty member of the family could possibly lose a promotion because, as they say, if you can’t control your family, you can’t command your troops.
The Kealohas may very well have their vindication, but how long will it take and what will it cost in terms of public confidence and the burden it puts on every member of the police force?
Enough already. This fight should be fought in private and the police department should be led by a chief who can focus all his energy on fighting crime, not defending his honor. Kealoha should retire and then focus on working to clear his name….
ILind: Civil lawsuit poses additional problems for police chief and wife
read … Retire
Suicide: Top Lobbyist Joins Push to Kill off Expensive Patients
KHON: John Radcliffe has long been one of the islands’ top lobbyists….
Background: Meet the Insurance Executive Behind Assisted Suicide in Hawaii
read … We can talk them into it
HIDOT Bungling Delays Highway Project Another 14 Months
WHT: …Impacts to historic sites caused by construction along Queen Kaahumanu Highway were the result of a failure to account for right-turn lanes associated with the project.
Though those connections to side roads were included in the Hawaii Department of Transportation’s grading plan, they weren’t included in a project map that accompanied the “area of potential effect,” a term referring to the area in which the “character or use” of historic properties could be altered by construction projects, according to the department, HDOT.
Work on the project, which widens Queen Kaahumanu Highway between Kealakehe Parkway and Keahole Airport Road, broke ground in September 2015. It followed Phase 1, which widened the road from Henry Street to Kealakehe Parkway and finished in 2007.
Initially, HDOT announced in a press release that Phase 2 was expected to finish in September 2017 and cost about $90 million.
Work on the project though has since been delayed, with HDOT now saying it’ll take about 14 months longer than expected, pushing the expected completion date to November 2018.
Last month, the department said the halt in work was the result of breaches at two historical trails.
What You’re Paying For: HIDOT Fails to Answer -- $78K Administrative Cost Per Mile
read … HIDOT Administrative Costs
UH: Global Cooling Deniers Panicked over Trump Cabinet Picks
Borreca: Here’s the good news from the embryonic federal administration of Donald Trump: the newly named members are nearly 100 percent in agreement on the vital issue of climate change and global warming….
The University of Hawaii’s Chip Fletcher is associate dean for academic affairs of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). He is one of Hawaii’s leading experts on hyping climate change and nonexistent sea level rise to score grant money, and Trump’s election set off alarms.
“Climate scientists watched in some degree of horror as he won,” Fletcher said in an interview. (Remember ‘ocean acidification’? That was going to be a real money spinner and now all hope is lost.)
“In my mind the negatives are materializing faster than I imagined.” … (Next Stop: Golden parachute.)
Of course among scientists the evidence (cooked up by the studies written to justify more grants) of both global warming and its human-caused reasons are obvious (profitable); even NASA (mission drift) has come out to say there is compelling evidence of a human-caused climate change. (Now they will be relegated to flying to the Moon and Mars and boring stuff like that.)….
The expectation is that within six months, projects on sustainability, energy research and climate science will be in a downward trend.
These new fears come after a tiny bright spot in climate news due to a 0.6 percent decrease in carbon emissions, which are partially responsible for global warming; Fletcher said it is because of work done by both President Barack Obama and China to limit new pollution sources. (Actually it is because of the natural gas produced by fracking, which these phonies protest against relentlessly.)
Reality: Crichton: Environmentalism is a religion
read … No More Grant Money, LOL!
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