Hawaii: Worst Taxpayer ROI in USA
$30K Per Resident: Hawaii Worst OPEB Liability in USA
Lahaina Injection Wells: Is WOTUS Just too Complicated to Enforce?
Revolving Door: Caldwell Hires Another Reporter to Spin News
Fat Leonard Scandal Went to Top of PACOM
SAS: …When the Pentagon last chose a new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it was rattled by a last-minute surprise: A corrupt defense contractor known as “Fat Leonard” confided to federal agents that he had an unsavory past with one of the finalists to become the nation’s top military officer.
Leonard Glenn Francis, a maritime tycoon who recently had pleaded guilty to bribing Navy officers, told authorities in early 2015 that he had paid for opulent dinners and other favors for Adm. Samuel Locklear, then-commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific, according to previously undisclosed documents and six people familiar with the case.
Francis also shared with investigators several photographs of him drinking and socializing with Locklear, who was one of four contenders to head the Joint Chiefs. Some photos were from a banquet in Singapore that Francis had hosted for the admiral and other Navy officers that featured prostitutes as entertainment, according to the documents and people familiar with the case….
Now retired, Locklear is the highest-ranking officer known to have been investigated in what has become the worst corruption scandal in Navy history….
Francis later told federal agents that as the dinner was winding down, he escorted Locklear to a hotel room, according to two of the people familiar with the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly about it.
Waiting inside, on a king-size bed, was a Chinese prostitute whom the contractor had hired and selected for the admiral….
read … Fat Leonard
Consensus: Everybody Buying or Building in Kakaako is a Global Warming Denier
SA: …Scientists from the University of Hawaii tell us that portions of Kakaako and adjoining areas will be under water some of the time — perhaps all of the time — 50 years from now, yet all the developers seem to have their heads stuck in the sand (or is that water?).
Are they planning to have their investments amortized in 50 years or are they already looking at water taxis and gondolas as ways for the residents to get around? ….
(Answer: They don’t believe that sea level rise is real. That is why they are building/buying condos in Kakaako.)
read … Global Cooling
Short-term rentals: Appleseed study uses misinformation and poor methodology
SA: …A recent report released by Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice relies on questionable methodology and misinformation to draw false and exaggerated conclusions. Unfortunately, this inflammatory approach does little to foster a constructive conversation about creating common sense and enforceable short-term rental laws in the islands….
SA: Appleseed: Proliferation of vacation rentals burdens renters, communities
read … Short-term rentals: Appleseed study uses misinformation and poor methodology
Kanaka Rangers: It’s Time To Move Forward With Hawaiian Homesteads
CB: …On the lower slopes of Mauna Kea, more than 56,000 acres of land held in trust for Native Hawaiians serve as a gateway to the heavens.
The road to the top slices through these wild, empty pastures, ushering an untold number of visitors to a place where, according to Hawaiian spirituality, the gods dwell at the juncture of sky and summit. You can’t get to the mountain’s iconic, 32,000-foot peak without crossing this acreage set aside for the rehabilitation of Hawaii’s indigenous people following a century of colonization.
Due to a scarcity of funding and decades of mismanagement, Native Hawaiians have been mostly absent from these 97-year-old trust lands. But last Monday, a few new tenants moved in.
Frustrated by the slow pace at which Hawaiian beneficiaries are being awarded homestead leases under a state law, a group of about two dozen beneficiaries and their supporters erected a wooden shanty, hooked up a generator and assembled a makeshift kitchen. Battling whipping winds and bitter cold, they have maintained a seamless, around-the-clock presence along the summit access road ever since….
In 2009, DHHL — the historically land-rich but cash-poor state body given stewardship of the land trust as a condition of Hawaii’s statehood — developed the Aina Mauna Legacy Program, which divides Mauna Kea’s trust lands into distinct uses for forest, pasture and homesteads.
But the Kanaka Rangers say the plan, which calls for the restoration of the natural and cultural resources, hasn’t bred any tangible progress. They say this is especially true of the HHCA’s primary purpose, which is to provide the Hawaiian people with residential, pastoral and ranching homesteads….
The community-led ranger program is inspired by the “Country Needs People” campaign adopted by aboriginal Australians. Australia’s ranger program draws on the long-held cultural and traditional responsibilities of aboriginals to protect and manage their natural resources.
In a nod to the Australian program, the so-called Kanaka Rangers have adopted this slogan: “Aina Needs Kanaka.”
They say their initiative is unrelated to protests against the Thirty Meter Telescope….
read … Kanaka Rangers: It’s Time To Move Forward With Hawaiian Homesteads
GQ: The Real Story of the Hawaiian Missile Crisis
GQ: …Vern Miyagi has two cell phones, personal and work, and both are chirping and skittering on the table at once. This cannot be good, if only because the racket is interrupting Vern's quiet Saturday morning. He's at his house in Hawaii Kai, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper and, now, reaching for his phones….
read … GQ: The Real Story of the Hawaiian Missile Crisis
How Defense Attorney Uncovered Kealoha Corruption
CB: …“The system isn’t really geared up to operate based on the assumption that sworn law enforcement officers are going to participate in something like this. So why would the U.S. Attorney’s Office have assumed that there were any real problems with the case?”
He said federal officials were told “a pack of lies” by people who are ordinarily accepted as being credible, people who are just like them — police and prosecutors.
That might be why they didn’t do their due diligence when it came to following up on exactly what type of mailbox Puana allegedly stole. It was that fact that really started sounding the alarm for Wolff and his office. But for law enforcement it was barely a blip.
Even Silvert sees how easy it would be to brush the case aside.
There’s often “blind faith” between law enforcement agencies that they can trust one another. That’s what makes this case all the more shocking, he said. According to the allegations, it was a concerted effort by one law enforcement agency to deceive another.
That’s why Silvert didn’t feel comfortable taking his evidence to the U.S. Attorney’s Office before trial. He didn’t think the prosecutors would believe him….
read … How ‘Blind Faith’ Led To Hawaii’s Biggest Police Corruption Scandal
Recidivism; 63% of Criminals Do it Again When they Get a second Chance
SA: …The report is being prepared for the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism to help lawmakers evaluate whether a training and mentoring program for qualified prison inmates would succeed.
In 2016 Hawaii had a recidivism rate of about 63 percent, according to a study by the Attorney General’s Office. Garcia-Santiago, who is an associate professor of sociology, said part of the reason for that high rate is that inmates lack the skills to succeed in society.
The plan is to give inmates the tools they need to find “meaningful” employment after they are released and to help reduce recidivism and incarceration, according to an interim report to the Legislature….
read … Second Chance
Accused Pedophile Beat the Rap Again and Again
SA: …This is not Nolen’s first brush with the law in Honolulu.
Police arrested him in December 2015 for misdemeanor assault. The case was transferred to state Circuit Court after Nolen requested a jury trial. Circuit Judge Christine Kuriyama dismissed the case in August 2016 because she was unable to schedule a trial within the required six months.
Nolen has had other cases against him dismissed because the prosecutor wasn’t ready on the scheduled trial dates. One was for possessing an open liquor container in public in August 2015, another for trespassing on public school grounds overnight in June 2015 and for a December 2013 harassment charge.
He has been found guilty in two other cases, for trespassing on the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus in January 2015 and for entering a public park after it was closed in August 2012.
read … Accused attempted kidnapper, pedophile set to appear at court
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