BoE School Shutdown Hearings
- » When: Tomorrow, 6:30 p.m.
- » Where: Kalani High School cafeteria
- » School being considered for closure: Queen Liliuokalani Elementary School
- » When: Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.
- » Where: Kaiser High School cafeteria
- » Schools being considered for closure: Kamiloiki or Koko Head elementary schools
- » When: Thursday, 5:30 p.m.
- » Where: Kalakaua Middle School cafeteria
- » Schools being considered for closure: Kalihi and Puuhale elementary schools
» For more information: Go to hawaiidoe.org and click on consolidation studies or call the DOE's Honolulu district office at 733-4952.
REALITY: Rep. Marumoro: $372K is not enough savings to justify closing Liliuokalani School
MORE REALITY: Hawaii DoE: Cost of waste, fraud, and corruption between $191M and $431M per year
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Turnout disappointing for Abercrombie coronation party at Lahainaluna
Abercrombie received an enthusiastic welcome from a crowd of about 300 150 people, including Lahainaluna students who turned out to thank the new governor for pledging his support for the school's boarding program, which was threatened with budget cuts earlier this year. (And he’s going to do it without interrupting the flow of waste, fraud and corruption which permeates the department.)
Several in the crowd said turnout was smaller than expected, possibly because Friday's rainy weather forced the event to move indoors.
"All I can do is hope to truly restore our people's confidence obedience," Abercrombie said. "We're island people, and we'll you’ll all have to paddle if we're I’m going to reach the shore.”
(Forget Polynesia. Visualize a Roman slave ship.)
All in this together? Gaming Industry Lobbyist, Progressive activist screen Abercrombie cabinet picks
Hawaii.gov/gov Only 150 people photos show no crowd: Inauguration Confirmation Ceremony at Lahainaluna High School
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After causing Compact of Free Association problem, Abercrombie appoints immigrant rights activist to head Human Services
Pat McManaman, who spent 12 years as chief executive for Na Loio -- Immigrant Rights and Public Interest Legal Center, was nominated yesterday by Gov. Neil Abercrombie as the state's director of human services.
Since November 2008, McManaman has been deputy executive director the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission.
Hawaii.gov/gov McManaman Appointed Director of Department of Human Services
RELATED: Abercrombie admits responsibility for costing Hawaii millions under Compact of Free Association
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Democrat Borreca: Abercrombie wants to be your Facebook friend
L.P. Neenz Faleafine and her laptop are scrunched under an awning behind the camera stand at the inauguration. The social media director for Neil Abercrombie's successful gubernatorial campaign is celebrating her 40th birthday by feverishly flinging reports and photos of the historic event on the Internet.
"I'm checking the live video stream, checking the chat room, making sure that questions are being answered," Faleafine says. (In other words, paid Abercrombie bloggers are steering online discussions in a way that is favorable to their boss. This is a discredited Obama technique.)
She is directing a team of iPhone-equipped volunteers who are pouring pictures and video into her computer.
"I am the hub," she says, explaining how Hawaii's new governor will now be able to reach out through Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Ustream and YouTube….
(And now the campaign will continue as a form of governance.)
It is envisioned that interested citizens will be able to talk to, and even talk back to, their state government via Facebook.
"We want people to tell us what they think. We just want to know what issues are important to people and watch the trending of issues," Levinson says.
He acknowledges that the Internet is not always the friendliest of places. Outrageous, ill-informed, mean-spirited gossip is flung out in blogs and that sort of thing could find its way into a state of Hawaii website.
(Neenz Faleafine was the Abercrombie campaign worker caught spreading a smear video against Duke Aiona.)
Here is some material which is neither mean spirited nor gossip:
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AP: Democrats take control of Hawaii behind new leader
The combination of Abercrombie and the nation's most one-sided Legislature may result in Democrats being able to pass just about any laws they want….
Before Lingle's term, legislators overrode only one veto since statehood in 1959, when they raised the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16 in 2001 despite Democratic Gov. Ben Cayetano's opposition. During the Lingle years, lawmakers overrode 110 vetoes.
University of Hawaii political science professor Neal Milner predicted dissent between Democrats over cuts in government and tax increases as they try to balance the state's budget in the legislative session starting Jan. 19….
Republicans are calling for vigilance, and they question how Abercrombie can fulfill campaign hopes to eliminate government worker furloughs, create an early childhood office and start a state energy authority without raising taxes.
"You cannot honestly promise to expand and fully fund government programs and end public worker furloughs without raising taxes on Hawaii's families and small businesses," Hawaii Republican Party Executive Director Dylan Nonaka said in a statement. "We will hold the governor accountable."
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Tops in nation, Hawaii gets $318 per capita in earmarks
(Earmarks must be banned if Hawaii is ever to be free and democratic.) All told, nine of the top 10 per-capita earmark states are represented by members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, including Hawaii and Mississippi, notes a report from Taxpayers for Common Sense. The 10th is represented by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who continues to defend the practice.
TOP 10 STATES, PER CAPITA EARMARKS
State, Per capita
- Hawaii, $318
- North Dakota, $234
- West Virginia, $174
- Vermont, $161
- Mississippi, $142
- Alaska, $140
- Montana, $125
- South Dakota, $112
- Rhode Island, $79
- Nevada, $79
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SA: Strip $70M funds from HTA to fix parks
The Legislature has neglected to provide even miniscule funding to maintain state parks and harbors in need of improvement. Deterioration has worsened over the past two decades, and the Lingle administration in its final week produced a comprehensive remedy that Gov. Neil Abercrombie should act on without delay to fix recreational facilities.
In August, candidate Abercrombie told Rotarians on the Big Island that he had a plan to take the entire $70 million that the Hawaii Tourism Authority receives yearly from transient accommodations -- hotel room tax revenues -- and use it to improve parks and other facilities, according to West Hawaii Today.
"I could put that together in 30 days and get people working," he said, a rapid action if legislative approval is needed.
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Fundraiser to memorialize Hawaii's fallen police heroes
More than a thousand folks gathered at the Sheraton Waikiki to help raise a million dollars to build and maintain a memorial to honor state and federal officers who lost their lives in the line of duty.
The idea came from Joan Aiu after her daughter's father was killed in a search and rescue mission. "When this is built I think its going to help not only my family but other families finally find closure," she said.
Honolulu Police chief Louis Kealoha says, "This is the only state that doesn't have a law enforcement memorial."
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FBI lauds Hawaii Youth Challenge Academy
The Hawaii Youth Challenge Academy, the local chapter of the National Guard Youth Challenge Program, was awarded the 2010 FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award. The award recognizes the achievements of individuals and organizations who make extraordinary contributions to crime and violence prevention, as well as education, in our communities.
The Hawaii academy works to intervene and reclaim the lives of high school dropouts, providing graduates skills they need to succeed. Since it began in 1994, more than 2,578 cadets have graduated from the program. More than 2,200 have earned their high school degrees.
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Inmates visit family via ministry
The Prison Ministry team at Makiki Christian Church tries to ease the hardship by arranging for families to see and talk to inmates once a month via teleconferences, and giving them a bit of nurturing during the visit….
Volunteers at Makiki and other churches throughout Hawaii are part of the worldwide Good News Jail and Prison Ministry, which assists the state Department of Public Safety in arranging the teleconferences for more than 1,800 male prisoners in Arizona, according to Dennis Yokota, senior chaplain. On Oahu, Nuuanu Congregational Church, New Hope Christian Fellowship (Sand Island) and the First Assembly of God also host teleconferences, he said.
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Enviros launch effort to ban opihi picking
Opihi are getting some extra attention these days. An ongoing program initiated by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) of Hawaii has created a coalition of community members, scientists, nonprofits and state and federal resource managers to look after the little limpets.
The project, known as the Opihi Monitoring Partnership (OMP), came into being in 2008 with a gathering of a dozen people on Kahoolawe. “There were lots of questions and concerns about opihi,” says Emily Fielding, TNC’s Maui marine program coordinator and the convener of the group. Some partners wondered how to judge if their conservation efforts were paying off….
2006: Legislature tries to ban commercial sales of Opihi
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Enviros seek 2000’ buffer zone along 175 miles of Big Island coast
Hecht provides the following information:
Hawaii Island proposed 98-mile, 2,000-foot coastline buffer zone on all state owned land
Bill to provide a coastline buffer zone to protect the 175-mile long Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail and to preserve the coastline on the Island of Hawaii by establishing a 2,000-foot coastline conservation easement for 98.4 miles of state-owned lands (see Map below)
A 2,000-foot conservation easement coastline buffer zone will help to protect and link numerous cultural sites on Hawaii Island:
(When they get to Punaluu, Kau, they will buy up everything except the Hanoa property, then allow convicted drug dealer Ralph Palikapu Dedman’s mis-named Kau Preservation, Inc to build a “school” with lots of housing for “teachers and students”. The housing will look a lot like a hotel.)
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Kauai Judge: Hapa Trail belongs to state
LIHU‘E — Fifth Circuit Judge Randal Valenciano on Tuesday ruled the state owns the historic Hapa Trail on the South Shore.
For years the county had claimed ownership, even to the point of approving a controversial breach of the trail to allow access to a residential subdivision in Po‘ipu. (Clue: NOT a Grove Farm development.)
While the case of citizens suing the county and other entities claiming that allowance of access was illegal appears to be out of court for now, attorneys on both sides of the dispute are still at odds over what Valenciano’s rulings actually mean.
Deputy County Attorney Ian Jung said Valenciano dismissed the lawsuit, Theodore K. Blake versus the County of Kaua‘i Planning Commission et al. But David Kimo Frankel, staff attorney of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation representing Koloa resident Blake, said he isn’t sure if he needs to appeal Valenciano’s decision because he’s not sure the judge actually dismissed the lawsuit.
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Charges trail city towing contractor: An investigation and complaints fail to prevent contract renewals
The situation surrounding Stoneridge's contract became so bad in 2005 and 2006 that Boisse Correa, then the police chief, urged Mayor Mufi Hannemann to terminate the agreement, a recommendation that the city's own purchasing administrator at the time supported.
Correa cited the history of complaints against Stoneridge, numerous lawsuits, breach-of-contract issues and frequent reports by consumers of stereo components, engine parts and other personal property disappearing from their vehicles while at a Stoneridge lot.
Despite the controversy that has engulfed the contract from the beginning, the city said it was prevented from re-bidding it because of a Stoneridge legal challenge that took seven years to resolve. The city finally prevailed in May when the Hawaii Supreme Court declined to hear the company's appeal, effectively ending the litigation. (Hawaii Judiciary doing its job for seven years protecting the crony company.)
SA: Firm pays judgments months after rulings
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Documentary on Alaska statehood to premiere Sunday
The grand themes of Alaska's quest unfold in the documentary, dating back to territorial governor Ernest Gruening -- one of the first champions of statehood.
“The wealth of Alaska was being drained off, and next to nothing was staying there for its needs,” Gruening said in public remarks.
Larry Goldin, the producer of “Statehood,” says his documentary is really about the triumph over special interests and partisanship. “Alaskans need to understand that the oil wealth we have today -- in particular, the Permanent Fund Dividend checks -- would not be coming if those people hadn't fought for statehood,” Goldin said.
(Whereas in Hawaii, special interests continue to rule under Statehood and land revenues go to them instead of going to the people.)
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NYT: Samuel P. King, Judge and Critic of Hawaiian Charity, Dies at 94
Samuel P. King, a federal judge who mobilized the power of the pen to topple overseers of one of the nation’s wealthiest charities, a 19th-century trust set up by Hawaiian royalty to educate the kingdom’s natives, died Tuesday in Honolulu. He was 94.
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