July 23, 2010 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

Hawaii Daily News Read

Friday, July 23, 2010

July 23, 2010 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 11:08 AM :: 11721 Views

Will rail plan collapse before November?

Supreme Court: Zoning Statutes Are "Environmental" Laws – individuals can now sue to enforce

Hawaii Leads in Wellbeing; West Virginia Ranks Last

Katherine Leonard picked as next Hawaii chief justice (Broken Trust gang losing control of judiciary)

After decades, the Broken Trust gang will finally lose control of the Supreme Court. Moon is mentioned on 25 separate pages of Broken Trust. No wonder the legislature has tried every trick in the book to keep him in office.

HNN: Lingle nominates Katherine Leonard to be Hawaii's first female chief justice

HFP: Katherine Leonard nominated Chief Justice of Supreme Court

SA: Historic pick

“Some Senate sources complained privately when Lingle appointed Leonard to the Intermediate Court of Appeals in 2007 that the civil attorney lacked judicial and criminal law experience. But she did not face tough questioning during the Senate committee hearings, and the Senate unanimously approved her appointment 23-0.”

Honolulu Special Elections To Be Held With Primary Sept. 18

During Thursday’s hearing Carlisle said it would be inappropriate to have councilmen Donovan Dela Cruz and Rod Tam vote on the date for the mayoral special election since both are also candidates for the position.

"It doesn't really pass the stink test,” said Carlisle. “These people should not be voting on it when there is an obvious conflict of interest.”

Both Corporation Counsel and the Honolulu Ethics Commission issued opinions this week that no conflict of interest exists in allowing Dela Cruz and Tam to take part in the vote. However both councilmen eventually recused themselves from the vote.

“Because of political, yes political perceptions that I may have a conflict I have decided to excuse myself from voting for the specific date of the election for mayor,” Tam said during the debate.

Dela Cruz was absent for a vote on a resolution to hold the mayoral election during November’s general election, standing in the back of the Council chamber while the vote took place. He later explained why he walked away.

“I walked out of the vote so I wouldn't have to vote for it,” he said. “Normally in the past in order to recuse yourself you just walked away; that was historical precedent.”

Dela Cruz then recused himself from the vote to hold the mayoral election during the September primary.

Much of the debate on when to hold the special election for mayor was focused on voter turnout.

Councilmen Ikaika Anderson and Lee Donohue said more voters were apt to go to the polls in November, which historically has been the case in Hawaii and across the country

Council chair: criminal probe into Tam's spending "unfortunate"

Honolulu police and the state Attorney General's office are investigating whether Tam should face criminal charges for receiving reimbursements for meals that were not related to council business. The mayoral candidate is in the process of paying the city back the nearly $12,000, plus a $2,000 fine.

Police investigators have called in other councilmembers to question them about the reimbursement process.

"They asked me about procedure, about our forms that we have at the City Council, how were they developed, did we have training, who's responsible for approval," Donovan Dela Cruz, councilmember, said.

"Obviously, it's unfortunate not only for me being a part of this council, but I think for everyone that these types of things happened," Todd Apo, City Council chair, said. "The one positive note on this is that I think it shows that the system works, that the checks and balances exist."

Just ignore this: Ousted Zoning Chair Rod Tam is secret partner in $1 Billion North Shore development hui

GOP fields candidate for Kauai seat: A law invoked that allowed for extra filing time did not apply, Democrats complain

Republicans, taking advantage of a state law that gives political parties extra time to find replacements for candidates who have withdrawn, have found a challenger to (anti-Superferry protester) state Rep. Hermina Morita on Kauai.

Harry Williams, a Kapaa contractor, has completed his paperwork with the state Office of Elections and will face Morita in House District 14 in Hanalei in the November general election.

Elections officials had given state Republicans until yesterday afternoon to find a replacement for David Hamman, who deliberately filed for and withdrew from the House race on Monday to give the GOP more time to field a contender. Hamman is instead running for a state Senate seat vacated last Friday by former state Senate Majority Leader Gary Hooser (D, Kauai-Niihau), who is campaigning for lieutenant governor.

More: Free rides II

Democrat Borreca: In Hawaii, ethnicity plays unspoken (sic) role in politics (Aims at Mufi, nails sovereignty movement)

Borreca dutifully continues the sniping by Abercrombie's media and political supporters against Hannemann over his remarks at the Carpenter’s Union meeting. It ends with this unwitting swipe at Sovereignty Movement:

More than 100 years ago, the political party started by native Hawaiians to restore the nation of Hawaii formed the Home Rule Party with the rallying cry "Nana i ka ili" (Look to the skin).

The Home Rule Party is only remembered with a street named for it in Kalihi, but the peril of basing a campaign around "us" versus "them" remains.

Amusingly, the words “Akaka Bill” appear nowhere in this article.

Healthcare Bill Will Cost Hawaii Taxpayers $204 Million

The state Department of Human Services said a preliminary analysis by a consultant shows its Medicaid cost increases may jump by $204.2 million and could be more depending on what benefit package the federal government mandates as Medicaid benefits are extended to more low-income individuals and families.

CB: Big Wind Fuels a Torrent of Big Questions

What makes it especially complicated is that each party is responsible for obtaining the necessary permits, environmental impact studies and approval from the Public Utilities Commission for their individual project components. So what happens, for example, if the undersea cable isn't approved, but the wind farms are? There would be no channel of distribution, and it’s far too much power to integrate into the small-capacity grids on Lanai and Molokai. Or what if the cable is approved, but one of the wind farms gets derailed? Or what if everything else progresses as planned, but problems arise integrating the power into Oahu’s grid?

The project reveals the complex challenge of making the shift from an oil-dependent society to one based on sustainable energy, while respecting and protecting the unique environmental and cultural characteristics of the islands.

(Yup. Omidyar—an interested party—is merely questioning whether he and his billionaire profiteer cronies—will rally be able to get this through the thicket of regulations they seek to uphold against the rest of us.)

REALITY: Furloughs: Advertiser sides with “sustainability” billionaires

MORE REALITY: Wind Energy's Ghosts

Unemployment Extension Benefits 10,000 In Hawaii

It's estimated about 10,000 people statewide will benefit from the extension immediately and a little more than 2,000 more every month.

Imada-Iboshi said the extension won't effect the state's unemployment fund which is going broke and will require a federal loan to stay solvent.

"It does not effect the trust fund at all," said Imada-Iboshi. "This is additional federal funds that will go directly towards the extension."

Congressional Republicans opposed the extension because it would add $34 billion to the national debt that has hit $13 trillion.

Lahaina News: Economist Paul Brewbaker: Maui's economic expansion has begun

AP: US Rep. Hirono supports bill extending jobless benefits; Djou votes no

Union workers arrested during Hyatt protest

Management says workers got contracted raises during the recession and that management envisions better wages and benefits in the coming round.

They say they are at issue are work rules and who is willing to do what.

"Who can touch a bag, who can touch a door, bellmen, doormen, who can cook what. There's lots of work rules that get in the way of providing good service," said David Lewin, Hyatt Regency Waikiki.

Local 5 has about 500 workers at the Hyatt Regency.

About half of them have worked there over 20 years.

Contracts expired at the end of June.

Michael Savage Cannibal Comments Criticized (he’s too skinny)

I loved Hawaii I lived there many many years, it's an interesting all syllables. But you don't know about that are they going to be independent very soon. I don't know how they're going to make a living, they're going to kick the white man out then what they going to have cannibalism again, oops sorry," said Savage during Monday's show.

"My only annoyance with the Savage clip was the stupidity," said Puakea Nogelmeier, an Associate Professor of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawaii where he has taught for 25 years. "His understanding of history is so poor that he thinks Hawaiians were cannibals or the whole history was always race based we need to present better histories."

AUDIO: http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201007200049 (plus comments from a bunch of progressives trying to score a drive-by hit)

Pentagon Faces Intensifying Pressures to Trim Budget

Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that he would be looking first at tax increases and changes in Social Security and Medicare to lower the deficit, and that there was “no way” Congress would make major cuts in the military while more than 100,000 troops were still at war. But once most of them return, “I’m pretty certain cuts are coming — in defense and the whole budget,” he said.

Retaliation: Kapa‘a man ‘traumatized’ after 3 KPD officers deliver warning for trespassing

James “Kimo” Rosen, a resident of elderly rental apartments on the makai end of the Samuel Mahelona Memorial Hospital campus, said he and the officers videotaped each other during the visit, and he refused to sign the written warning.

He and other residents young and old have used an unimproved trail across state Department of Land and Natural Resources property from the southeasterly corner of the Mahelona campus leading down to Kawaihau Road near the Kuhio Highway intersection as an alternative route to downtown Kapa‘a.

That traditional access now sports DLNR “No Trespassing” signs, with Rosen saying a personal rift between him and KPD Lt. Michael Contrades led to the posting of the signs.

Contrades has been spearheading a project to convert a building on the Mahelona campus into a Kaua‘i Police Activities League youth center, the building smack between Rosen’s apartment and the trailhead.

Rosen said he complained and sent photos to DLNR officials of debris blocking the trailhead. The DLNR subsequently instructed police to remove the debris. Then Contrades sent three KPD officers to Rosen’s home on the county’s first furlough Friday to give him the written trespassing warning, Rosen said.

Hawaii Co Council seeks Kohala consolidation reconsideration

The resolution was introduced in early July, shortly before Department of Education Interim Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi changed her original recommendation to the BOE calling for the consolidation of the Kohala High, Middle and Elementary schools to "no consolidation should take place at this time."
The BOE will likely make its decision on the matter during an Aug. 19 meeting in Hilo, Hoffmann said.

Sovereignty Activists visit Grover Cleveland birthplace

The money was raised during the borough’s first Presidential Luau held Thursday, April 29, at the First Presbyterian Church at Caldwell.

The luau coincided with Hawaiian Sovereignty Restoration Day, a Hawaiian national holiday since 1843, remembering the end of a short British occupation of Hawaii.

The event also recognized a proclamation delivered by President Grover Cleveland declaring that “April 30 [of every year] be set aside as a day of solemn fasting, and prayer for the injustice to me [President Grover Cleveland] and my great good sister [Queen Liliuokalani] for her speedy return to the throne.”

The borough arranged the luau to honor a group of native Hawaiians making their fifth annual pilgrimage to the birthplace of President Grover Cleveland.

LINK>>>Complete debunk of Grover Cleveland Sovereignty hoax

NY Sun, 1894: Origin of Hoax