Unemployment insurance mess back to haunt us
Under the Big Top
Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted January 15, 2022
Before UH Hired Him -- Graham Got $12.8M Buyout from Arizona State U
HNN: … Hawaii State Sen. Glenn Wakai (D) said the resignation wouldn’t have happened without the senate’s fiery hearing with UH on Friday, Jan. 7….
Graham was already paid out a reported $12.8 million by his previous employer Arizona State University to go away, despite Graham being one of the most successful coaches in ASU football’s history.
“I think it comes down to personalities, it comes down to your ability to ingratiate yourself to the community around the program, and that’s where there was a disconnect,” said Kanoa Leahey, Spectrum Sports’ play-by-play announcer. ”I don’t think you can argue with the resume. I don’t think anybody would even argue with the football X’s and O’s know-how.”
As UH looks toward making a new hire, Sen. Wakai said that Athletic Director David Matlin should be given a mulligan — a second chance…
read … UH Manoa can’t repeat mistakes after former head football coach resigns
Big Pile of Your Money: Legislature Prepares to Light Bonfire
CB: … The Legislature has money available for almost any policy initiative imaginable, and every member of the House and Senate is up for reelection….Craft describes Hawaii’s business and government leaders as “lethargic,” and “comfortable.” The pandemic was a shock, but “they’re still hanging on to that comfort zone,”….
SA: Legislative session opening with hopes for Hawaii’s working families
SA: Meet the 2022 Hawaii State Legislature
read … Hawaii Legislature 2022: Smart Spending Could Help Big Problems
What did Kealoha have on Caldwell?
Borreca:… A total of $12.8 million may be a lot to get rid of a football coach who had a new job coaching for the University of Hawaii, but for a police chief under federal investigation, Honolulu could be just as kind, giving Kealoha a quarter of a million dollars. Probably more important, the city officials did so without asking questions.
At the time the Honolulu City Council started grumbling and hand-wringing, did it start passing resolutions demanding an investigation, writing ordinances barring the city from paying Kealoha, and calling the Honolulu Police Commission before the Council to ask what was going on? No, no and no….
Ken Lawson, a faculty specialist at the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law and co-director of the Hawaii Innocence Project, is questioning why the police commission and the council didn’t act five years ago. In a telephone interview, Lawson said that “when you look at this, based on my experience doing criminal cases,” he suspects that federal prosecutors are not stopping with the arrests of the current City Hall trio.
“Just reading the indictment, you can see there was an effort to keep the settlement from going to a Council vote. Why were they so desperate? What did Louis Kealoha have on someone to do this?” Lawson asked….
ILind: Professional backgrounds of three Honolulu officials indicted this week for conspiracy
read … Kealoha investigation snares three former top Honolulu officials, but will it end there?
How did handcuffs become Honolulu’s new jewelry craze?
Shapiro: He considered himself a hands-on mayor, and Amemiya and Leong were among his closest aides, fueling speculation about his knowledge of the transaction.
Caldwell refused to put Amemiya on leave after he received a federal target letter, and Councilman Calvin Say later hired Amemiya as an aide to boost his city pension despite the likely pending indictment….
read … How did handcuffs become Honolulu’s new jewelry craze?
Miske Lawyers Ask Hawaii Supreme Court to block sealing of old case and gag order issued by state judge
ILind: … Mike Miske’s attorneys asked Magistrate Judge Kenneth Mansfield for permission to file a set of documents under seal. The documents, which if sealed would not be available to the public, are intended to support Miske’s motion asking to receive unredacted documents in discovery, a pre-trial process in which evidence gathered by prosecutors in the case is disclosed to a defendant’s attorneys.
When I checked the docket, I found Judge Mansfield had given an opportunity for other defendants in the Miske case, or any member of the public, to object to keeping the documents secret.
And I then found that the Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest had indeed filed a motion in opposition before the deadline set by Mansfield’s order.
That took me over to the Civil Beat Law Center’s website, which includes a list of its cases, most of which have challenged secrecy in public agencies and both state and federal courts….
read … Hawaii Supreme Court asked to block sealing of old case and gag order issued by state judge
Water at Aliamanu Military Reservation was 3 times state’s safe limit
SA: … A water sample collected following a flushing operation at the Aliamanu Military Reservation, home to military families, detected petroleum hydrocarbons that were more than three times the state’s acceptable limit.
The flushing was being conducted as part of the Navy’s effort to clean jet fuel from its water system that serves about 93,000 Oahu residents in neighborhoods in and around Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
The sample was collected by the Navy on Dec. 26, about a month after petroleum polluted the Navy’s Red Hill drinking water well and began showing up in residents’ faucets. Test results detected total petroleum hydrocarbons at 620 parts per billion. The Hawaii Department of Health has set the acceptable limit at 200 parts per billion for the ongoing emergency response. Total petroleum hydrocarbons is a term used to describe several hundred chemical compounds that derive from crude oil….
read … Water at Aliamanu Military Reservation was 3 times state’s safe limit
Living costs, lack of housing hurt medical recruiting locally
MN: … Maui Health CEO calls it ‘most challenging era’ in 40 years ….
read … Living costs, lack of housing hurt medical recruiting locally
More Homeless Mayhem: State librarian asks for $1M security boost against COVID pandemic crime wave
KHON: … She said some staff and patrons were verbally abused, people have pulled knives inside, destroyed laptops, staff cars have been keyed or their tires have been slashed.
“We’ve had stabbings outside of our libraries, we’ve had like a librarian coming into work with feces smeared on the door,” Aldrich said to the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Thursday, Jan. 13. “We’ve had staff who were attacked from behind, we had an attempted kidnapping at a parking lot and one of our libraries.”
Aldrich said 11 libraries, in particular, have had security issues in the last year. These libraries include the following: the Hawaii State Library in Honolulu, Ewa Beach, Kapolei, Liliha, McCully, Waikiki, Library for the blind and print disabled (next to Waikiki), Wahiawa, Kahului, Hilo and Kailua-Kona.
She asked the legislature for $1 million to improve current security and add surveillance systems too. …
read … State librarian asks for $1M security boost against COVID pandemic crime wave
Chinatown: 100 Homeless Drug Addicts Arrested
KHON: … To help, tourism leaders and Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm are hoping to bring the Weed and Seed program to Waikiki in 2022. It aims to connect the community with law enforcement to handle concerns. However, weeding out crime in Chinatown is the priority.
“It can be a violent, dangerous place and particularly has been in the past,” said Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm. “Aala Park is the same way.” …
“More than 100 chronically homeless people have been arrested in Chinatown in the last five months. We’re trying to get them assessed at OCCC when they get arrested for a felony drug possession and then get them into a treatment program,” said Alm….
read … City, state officials work to prioritize cleaning up continuous crime across Oahu
Caltech Submillimeter Observatory on track to be removed later this year
HTH: … The Board of Land and Natural Resources on Friday approved a land use application for the decommissioning of a Maunakea observatory.
The California Institute of Technology applied for a Conservation District Use Application for the removal of its Caltech Submillimeter Observatory from the summit. The removal scheduled to be completed by winter.
The observatory is the first of three summit observatories scheduled for decommissioning in exchange for the planned construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope. CSO ceased operations in 2015.
According to a preliminary schedule within the CDUA, Caltech intends to begin deconstruction of the observatory this summer, which will include all above-ground facilities, the filling in of its foundation, and the restoration of the environment to its preconstruction condition “to fullest extent possible.”…
read … Caltech Submillimeter Observatory on track to be removed later this year
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