Hawaii GE Tax Takes $8,360 from Family of Four
NATO Loophole: Attack On Hawaii Not Covered By Treaty
City Reports multiple sewer spills in Windward
Gay Power Forces Chin to Apologize for Being Christian
HNN: …An anti-gay a speech (defending the nuclear family) made by Lieutenant Governor Doug Chin more than 20 years ago in church is now being used against him in his race for congress.
(This is gay conversion therapy in reverse. Keep reading.)
"The bible is right, your family is wrong! Is there any shame in that? What's so bad about that? God is right, your family is wrong," said Chin in a recording of a 1995 speech at the Oahu Church of Christ.
The now 51-year-old and father of two apologizes for the recording and says his views have changed.
"I've really grown up a lot since then and I regret if I had any sort of tone. I apologize if I used anything that caused people to feel uncomfortable or overly guilty," said Chin. …
(Translation: We Christians now grovel before our gay rulers.)
State Representative Kaniela Ing is accusing Chin of covering up his true feelings for political gain.
"To see him fighting for this conservative, anti-gay, anti-women values for his whole life, then all of a sudden change his mind, is disingenuous," Ing said.
Ing also points to Chin's church, where less than two years ago, it held a series of seminars about homosexuality in the church and how to convert to Christ. …
(Translation: Make him squirm some more. He has not groveled enough.)
read … Sacrifice your son on our altar
Panic: Police Called as Christians Pass out Bibles in Front of Niu Valley School
Cataluna: …Several parents called police. The school, much to its credit, quickly dispatched faculty, staff and administrators to stand alongside the perimeter of the campus to monitor the interactions, make sure the kids didn’t feel intimidated and to let parents know that the Bible giveaway wasn’t part of the school.
These strangers, regardless of their heartfelt intentions, should not be chatting up sixth-graders on their way to school. We teach our children not to talk to strangers, and these guys show up outside their school and try to strike up a conversation? No. And they try to offer them something out of a bag? No. Some middle-school kids are 6 feet tall with moustaches while some look like babies, but 11- and 12-year-olds still need to check with Mom or Dad before they accept a gift from a stranger. Anyone who disregards the basic safety rules we teach to kids is disrespectful to children, their parents and their school.
And who is to know a stranger’s true intention? A bad guy can just as easily use a bag of Bibles and a friendly smile to gain access to children for terrible things.
DOE director of communications Donalyn Dela Cruz said this group has done this in years past at different schools. The group is not breaking the law by soliciting on a county sidewalk, as it is a public space.
It’s too bad we’ve gotten to the point where guys with Bibles are suspicious, but those men disregarded the very real fears we all have about keeping schools safe and the rules society has about strangers and kids….
Turns out the large man, and the six to eight other men surrounding the middle school entry, were members of the Gideons, the same religious group that puts Bibles in motel rooms….,
(If they had been wearing dresses and passing out info on how to get a sex-change operation, they would have been invited in to address classes and offer one-on-one counselling.)
read … Stop the Christians!
Hirono still undergoing immunotherapy
HNN: …Last May, Hirono was diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer.
Hirono told Hawaii News Now on Tuesday that she is still undergoing immunotherapy -- a type of cutting-edge treatment that uses the body’s own immune system to help fight cancer – but she is feeling strong….
CB: Hirono On Her Cancer Battle: ‘My Voice Remains Strong’
read … Hirono: 'I am definitely running for re-election to the US Senate'
How Honolulu’s New Police Chief Is Shaking Up A Troubled Department
CB: …She champions the use of body-worn cameras, and is hoping to have all patrol officers and traffic cops outfitted with the technology by the fall of 2019. She also wants to start installing dashboard cameras on city-owned patrol vehicles.
With more than 200 vacancies for officers in the department, Ballard said she plans to reduce the hiring process from a year to seven months.
She’s also looking for ways to decrease caseloads and increase the amount of time officers spend on the street and is moving to implement a program called “alternate call servicing” where minor crimes with no apparent suspect can be handled over the phone.
An example, she said, would be if a tourist’s property is lost or stolen and they just need a report filed for insurance purposes. …
Another one of Ballard’s bolder moves — at least in the context of the ongoing federal investigation into her predecessor — has been to reshape the Criminal Intelligence Unit….
Ballard has re-assigned nearly all the officers in the CIU and renamed it the Intelligence Enforcement Unit. She says its officers will now write reports and help other divisions, such as narcotics and vice, to gather information that can be used to take down criminals.
Ballard has also created a firewall between herself and the unit. It will fall under the purview of one of her deputy chiefs….
“When I would walk into headquarters the mood was suspicious and glum,” Sheehan said. “But now the officers are happy. They have a leader with integrity and competency.”
Ballard is a straight-talker, Sheehan said, and has shown a refreshing willingness to be transparent.
“Chief Ballard does not operate in secrecy,” Sheehan said. “She’s been very forthcoming about the strengths and weaknesses of the department.”
And that’s just in the first four months….
read … How Honolulu’s New Police Chief Is Shaking Up A Troubled Department
Police Commission could vote on new leaders
SA: Honolulu Police Commission members could decide Wednesday whether to retain embattled Chairman Max Sword as their leader or to elect a new one.
Selection of a new chairman and vice chairman are on Wednesday’s agenda….
read … Police Commission could vote on new leaders
Making OHA accountable is an incredibly challenging task
MN: …The committee passed Action Item RM 18-01, which approved an amendment to the OHA Board of Trustees Executive Policy Manual, which limits the discretion of the budget adjustments made by the CEO from 10 percent of the operating budget to the lesser of $100,000 or 5 percent of each expenditure category….
OHA Chair Colette Machado also is proposing a moratorium on all trustee allowance spending until more stringent guidelines are put in place….
The RM committee has also gone to great lengths in requesting the financial records and other documents of our limited liability corporations for the purpose of an internal audit that OHA is currently conducting. As the Board of Trustees, our mandate and fiduciary duties include our subsidiaries as well. The RM committee requested formally that the managers of the LLCs provide these documents to the Financial Audit Negotiating Committee for the purpose of our internal audit.
As I have explained before, this internal audit will serve to look more in depth at the issues regarding our procurement and contracts. I can also assure you that in light of any misconduct or alarming findings that the audit may discover, the Board of Trustees will take whatever corrective action is necessary.
I wanted to address my trustee allowance contribution to the Mayor Arakawa Community Kokua Fund of $350, or the purchase of two tickets to its fundraiser. The Kokua Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides financial assistance to individuals or groups who are in dire need. Their work is admirable with helping the direct needs of the people and organizations of Maui. I found it worthy to support such an organization that has this kind of impact on our community. I want to assure you that none of the trustee allowances were made to any political candidates….
read … Carmen Hulu Lindsey
Ige Releases $10M to Plan Demolition of Aloha Stadium (another black hole opens)
SA: …State Sen. Glenn Wakai (D, Kalihi, Pearl Harbor) characterizes Gov. David Ige’s recent release of $10 million to the Stadium Special Fund as “… the firing of the starting gun — and the race is on.”
As a “race” it is more of an ultra marathon than a sprint. This phase of the process, which begins with a solicitation of requests for proposals for the commissioning of an environmental impact study and master plan, could take 18 to 24 months, officials have said. Actual completion of a new stadium on the current 98-acre site, if eventually approved, might not come until the facility reaches its 50th birthday — or beyond.
With funds earmarked by the last session of the legislature, the scope of the optimization plan, “… includes studies and related planning work for the demolition of the existing Aloha Stadium and for development and construction of a new stadium facility for the State of Hawaii. Consideration includes mixed use development of the entire Aloha Stadium site,” according to the General Appropriations Act of 2017….
read … Aloha Stadium replacement plan takes giant leap forward+
Hawaii Clean Energy is in the Eye of the Beholder
IM: …Hawaii Revised Statutes allows the following example to count as clean energy: chopping down Amazon rainforest, growing bioenergy crops, mixing with dirtiest coal available thereby maximizing greenhouse gas emissions, making biofuel, flying it by jet to Hawaii, and burning the fuel to generate electricity….
read … Hawai`i Clean Energy is in the Eye of the Beholder
Logic Fails Anti-Agriculture Activist
SA: …After more fake ‘birth defects’ rhetoric from a Kauai anti-GMO activist, lets just skip to the comments….
”The failure of logic here is astounding. If there are external causes of birth defects, let's actually investigate what might be the causes. If pesticides, perhaps it's the pesticides used in the home, to which there is much greater exposure than agricultural chemicals. But perhaps it's food choices, toxic materials of other kinds, drug abuse, disease vectors….”
read … Anti-Agriculture Activist Spouts more Drivel
SB3092: State Public Records Agency Needs A Hard 6-Month Deadline
CB: …we also want the Legislature to pass Senate Bill 3092, which would mandate that OIP take no longer than six months to issue decisions on substantive issues. As the law center report found, 12 states have a six-month deadline for public access questions to be resolved….
read … State Public Records Agency Needs A Hard 6-Month Deadline
The House Finance, Judiciary and Transportation committees Refuse TV Coverage
CB: …if you weren’t at their hearings, you wouldn’t have been able to see what they were doing. None of the oral testimony, none of the questions, none of the decision-making.
That’s because the chairs of these committees — Reps. Sylvia Luke, Scott Nishimoto and Henry Aquino, respectively — refuse to allow their hearings to be broadcast on public-access TV stations such as Olelo….
Virginia Beck, who heads the Public Access Room at the Capitol, confirmed they are the only three committee chairs in the House or Senate who have specifically requested no broadcast coverage. Her office determines what hearings are broadcast based on overall public interest or special requests from lawmakers but defers to the committee chairs.
Last fiscal year, 145 hearings, information briefings and sessions were broadcast. …
A two-hour hearing on bills before the Housing Committee earlier this month cost about $1,150, including pre- and post-production work, according to an invoice from Access Media Services Corp., which the Legislature contracts with to produce its broadcasts….
“The public deserves the right to know what’s going on at the Legislature, as these decisions affect all of us,” said Corie Tanida of Common Cause Hawaii.
“What about our neighbor island friends and family?” she asked….
read … Blackout
Guam veteran says son denied medivac to Hawaii for needed surgery
HNN: …Walter Duenas says his son has been airlifted here twice before with no problems. This time, he says his son’s condition is worse than ever and he can’t understand why he’s being forced to wait.
Duenas says his son Robert has a condition that forces his stomach to get bloated, which requires surgery. In the past he and his son were airlifted to Hawaii for treatment. He is a retired Army veteran, so the arrangements are done through the military.
He says there’s been a change in procedures, so now he and his son have to fly to Okinawa first and wait there until Friday before flying to Hawaii….
read … Guam veteran says son denied medivac to Hawaii for needed surgery
Caldwell Lets Homeless Drug Addicts Take Over Ewa Beach Park
KITV: "I've talked to neighbors and other families, they all just avoid this beach because they don't feel safe….”
One'ula doesn't have crowds of park users but it does have crowds of homeless campers, along with piles of trash, and vandalized vehicles parked in lots….
Over the past three years, the Honolulu City Council approved more than $3 million to fix up the park. Money that could go toward installing security lighting, adding fences and putting in an irrigation system.
But so far, no capitol improvement funds have been spent. Councilwoman Kymberly Pine blames Mayor Kirk Caldwell, "It is a disgrace how the administration has not released funds to improve the area."
She is especially upset because over that same time, tens of millions of dollars have been set aside and used to make additional improvements to Ala Moana Beach Park.
"it is unacceptable to me that we treat other parks and people differently than the people and parks on the west side," added Pine.
The City and County of Honolulu recently fixed up the bathrooms at One'ula, but park users said that led to homeless residents returning once they had some place to go.
"We used to come here all the time, but as the homeless tents started building up, along with the trash and stray dogs, we just didn't feel safe coming here anymore," stated Leslie….
Denver: Homeless Hawaii Man accused of killing mother of 4 had been mentally ill for decades
read … Go West Young Bum!
A Kids Museum Struggles Amidst Homeless Squalor
CB: …Yajima still wants to tell me things — things like these:
- how she keeps a record that includes pictures of feces splattered on the front door, urine in keyholes and a bloody tampon on the steps;
- how she comes into the office before 6 a.m. every day to “scoop up the poop” and hose down the pee so her own staff won’t fear coming to work;
- how graffiti (including use of the F-word) has covered walls and how vandals have tapped into the electrical system to fire up televisions and cell phones;
- how parking and two cattle gates were closed down for three months, making it almost impossible for visitors; and
- how kids have climbed the walls to play with cigarette lighters and to burn things….
read … A Kids Museum Struggles Amidst Homeless Squalor
Kamehameha Schools Threatens to Cut Educational Programs in Effort to Force Support for Settlement, Additional Litigation
HNN: …"Any dollar taken out of our educational mission will have an impact. We're confident in the short term it won't impact existing programs but we will have to make adjustments on programs we wanted to launch that are part of our strategic plan,” said Micah Kane, chairman of Kamehameha School’s board of trustees.
Each year, the school spends more than $350 million to educate more than 6,900 Native Hawaiians at their Kapalama Heights and neighbor island campuses and to reach another 40,000 through charter schools, preschools and adult learning programs.
But the trust is now in the second year of a series of ambitious five-year plans to expand and improved the quality of education for native Hawaiians….
The settlement calls for the first $65 million to be paid this year, with the rest paid over the next two years.
Insurance will pay for some of it, but not all.
Meanwhile, Kamehameha Schools said it will pursue its lawsuit against St. Francis Hospital, where Browne worked as chief of psychiatry.
Attorneys for the survivors say they'll help the school in that legal fight.
"We're going to be doing everything we can help Kamehameha go after St. Francis. Our clients will be available, we'll be available,” said victims’ lawyer Michael Green.
"They're not walking away, St. Francis is not walking away from this."
Meanwhile, St. Francis said it worries that that lawsuit could force it to cut back on its medical mission and outreach programs.
read … Kamehameha Schools: Settlement in sex abuse could impact educational programs
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