Senate sets day to consider Recktenwald appointment
The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled for Wednesday its hearing on Gov. Linda Lingle's appointment of Associate Justice Mark Recktenwald as chief justice.
The full Senate is scheduled to vote on the appointment on Sept. 2.
ALSO: Name in the News—Hugh Jones
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Property tax quadruples for needy families in Kalihi (Thanks for the $13,000 tax bill, Mufi)
KALIHI (HawaiiNewsNow) – Slapped with a monster tax hike, Kalihi families are in shock, opening their mail to find their real property tax bills have skyrocketed up to $13,000.
And they're not living in mansions. Many of those hit with the tax hike are the needy and the elderly.
For years, Rosita Macabeo's tiny house has cost her about $2400 a year in property tax.
This year's bill is $11,225. That's up nearly 470%. Why the hike?
In the 70's, Kalihi was re-zoned from Residential, to Industrial/Commercial.
But Cachola says past Mayors continued to charge families the residential rate.
Cachola says the Hannemann Administration decided to enforce the “proper” rate.
SA: Tax jump alarms Kalihi residents
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Mufi’s Friday the 13th Attack
"It doesn't make you feel good if you think this is what it takes to win us over," says one long-time local Democrat.
Local-boy politics is not exclusive to Hawaii elections, but folks in Hawaii can understand how dangerous it is to divide people by ancestry and origin.
A former executive in the administrations of Govs. John Waihee and George Ariyoshi says the glossy, heavy-stock mailer was raising the ire of voters all over town.
"There were two older folks in front of me at McDonald's talking about it. One was saying 'What's wrong with UH? It was good enough for us.' And the other says, 'Why does he always have to brag?'" my friend reported.
The Republicans seized on it.
Dylan Nonaka, GOP executive director, went on television to say, "Mufi Hannemann has made a career of personally attacking and tearing down his opponents."
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Hannemann’s Claims Don’t Match His Record
Hannemann trumpeted his spending record as Mayor of Honolulu as his “greatest accomplishment,” claiming that his administration left the city in a better financial situation than he found it in. “At the end of the day, it’s about watching your money,” Hannemann stated.
The actual numbers hardly match up with Mr. Hannemann’s glowing self-assessment, however. Indeed, the ex-Mayor’s bold assertions are particularly shocking given the recent emergency furloughs the city has enacted in order to make ends meet.
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Mufi’s fake “Brown Guy”?
I was skimming through them and came across this comment by somebody going by the alias of publius808, a localization of the name associated with the Federalist Papers :
A white rich guy, from a line of white rich guys telling us brown people that we need to be color blind. Are you serious? Count the number of CEO’s in Hawaii and people who control wealth or any socioeconomic indicator and you’ll quickly see that Hawaii is rife with institutionalized racism. White people historically used and abused brown people in Hawaii for their own economic gain. When a brown guy says he can feel other brown people’s pain, he means it, right down to his grandparents and parents before him who either slaved in a plantation or were overthrown by white folk.
If this is the same publius808 who has posted on my blog — and the substance and tone suggest it may be — it’s somebody who has posted from the same IP address as a city hall employee I know can’t be counted among “us brown people” unless he’s been spending a lot of time at the beach.
RELATED: AtomicMonkey responds: “Some of us work for the City…we proudly stand by description of Abercrombie as ‘flailing gasbag’”
"Bob Wiesel is a pseudonym that has a long history in Honolulu and been passed around quite a bit. I am one of many Bob Wiesels...collectively we amount to a poor man's Publius." -- Keith Rollman
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SA on HD32 Race: 4 making initial run at elective office
Lei Sharsh, Randy Swindell and Danny Villaruz are Democrats vying to fill the seat being vacated by Republican state Rep. Lynn Finnegan, who is running for lieutenant governor.
The winner of the Sept. 18 primary will face Republican Aaron Johanson, a former aide to Finnegan.
(After the next 13 paragraphs--entirely about the Democrats--in the last two, Johanson gets this little mention… )
Education tops Johanson's priorities, "particularly because this district covers three school complexes," he said. He favors an appointed school board, which he said would hold government accountable.
He opposes increases to the general excise tax, saying government needs to live within its budget. "I'm of the school of thought, the more you want to encourage something, the more you incentivize it."
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Caldwell get it wrong on Hawaii Constitution, Nuclear Power
does Hawaii really have an amendment banning nuclear power?
Not quite.
Section 8, Article XI in the Hawaii Constitution says: "No nuclear fission power plant shall be constructed or radioactive material disposed of in the State without the prior approval by a two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature." The provision was added during the 1978 Constitutional Convention.
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Council sets fine for haste with big trash
Putting bulky waste out on the sidewalk too early could result in a fine of up to $250 under a bill passed Wednesday by the City Council.
But Tim Steinberger, head of the city Department of Environmental Services, said the law likely will not be enforced until June.
That is because the bill stipulates the ordinance will not take effect until Jan. 1, and it will take about six months from then to establish rules, Steinberger said. The city is barred from starting the rule-making process, which will include public hearings, until the law takes effect, he said. (Wow.)
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Lights Out: Birds Trump Friday Night Football
Games once heralded as Friday night pau hana community gatherings will now be held Saturday afternoons, and the community outcry highlights that Kauai's ballfields are merely the latest battleground in a struggle between the rituals of modern life and the desire to protect the environment, the plants and animals that make Hawaii special.
KGI: KIUC to spend $11M on bird plan
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Political underdog John Carroll complains he is being ignored
Carroll says it is seems "fundamentally unfair" to use campaign contributions as the sole criteria for a candidate's viability.
He had about $6,200 in his campaign treasury at the end of June, compared to Aiona's $719,000.
RELATED: A threat from the Carroll Campaign
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