Abercrombie signs SB1347, gives HECO license to soak Consumers for Green Energy Projects
Should ratepayers pay for Big Wind Studies? Life of the Land Challenges HECO
HIPA Hawaii Military Spending Study Tied to Fundraiser with Military Contractor?
After Rejection by Mayo Clinic, US Senators ask Obama Admin to withdraw Medical Home Regs
National Right to Life: Medical rationing and $555B Medicare cuts in Obamacare Law
Lung Association: Honolulu has America’s Cleanest Air
Abercrombie releases funds for Capital Improvement Projects
Mufi sits down with Tsutsui to plan 2012 Election Strategy?
June is busting out all over – especially politically – and last night Ruth Chris Steakhouse at Restaurant Row seemed to be ground zero.
Former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann was there with state Senate President Shan Tsutsui and political advisors. They met to help him decide the annual question as to which of the many political races he should throw himself into next….
Hannemann and Tsutsui weren’t the only politicians seeking a higher grade of steak and interesting company. Former Gov. Linda Lingle, who may be a GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in 2012, was there with a small group of supporters including House Minority Leader Gene Ward and Senate Minority Leader Sam Slom.
They gathered at Lingle’s invitation to meet 33- year-old Ohio State Treasure and U.S. Senate GOP candidate Josh Mandel. Mandel, a former U.S. Marine who completed two tours in the Middle East and served on the city council in Cleveland and in the state legislature for two terms, has been described as a “young powerhouse” on the rise by the Washington Post. His would likely take on Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, one of the most liberal members of the U.S. Senate….
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From Atomic Monkey
Abercrombie signs bill shutting Consumers out, allowing HECO to Raise Rates at Will
The governor informed the state Senate yesterday that he signed into law Senate Bill 1347, which allows an electric utility company to use an "automatic rate adjustment clause" to meet revenue requirements "when aggregating renewable portfolios."
SB 1347, now Act 69, also requires the Public Utilities Commission to begin to accept filings and applications in paper form and electronically.
The measure was supported by DBEDT, DCCA and Hawaiian Electric Co., and passed easily in both legislative chambers.
But at least one environmental group warns that electric rates can now be raised without consumer intervention.
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HB1000 Would Authorize Unelected Board to tax cellphones
Legislation sitting on the governor’s desk for his consideration will allow a “Enhanced 9-1-1 Board” of 13 members to impose a new tax of an undetermined amount on all electronic communication services, such as pagers and voice over internet communication services where the users pay a monthly fee.
The new charge, should the governor approve HB 1000, will be designated for neighbor island and rural areas that don’t have adequate phone service. However, as anyone knows who follows this legislature, lawmakers can raid special funds at any time for any purpose such as balancing the state budget.
The bill passed unanimously in the House (49-0 with two absent) and with just one Senator, Sam Slom, (R-Hawaii Kai-Diamond Head) voting in opposition.
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Latest Rail Poll Paid for by Rail Contactor
The poll cost $24,000 and was paid for by Parsons Brinckerhoff, which has been contracted by the city to work on the rail project. The poll has a 3.27 percent margin of error.
People were also asked if they expect to ride the rail once it's finished, 45 percent said they expect to use rail while 55 percent said they did not expect to use the train.
Click here to download the complete poll.
CB: Keeping Politics Out of Rail?
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Bill ending GE Tax exemptions raises Legal Questions on Construction Contracts
Hawaii’s businesses already struggling with the impact of a weak economy and high taxes and mandates on their sales of products and services are waiting to hear whether the governor will sign HB 974.
The bill will eliminate state general excise tax exemptions for several of Hawaii’s businesses and business sectors, and thereby increase the cost of doing business in Hawaii and the cost to consumers.
Lawmakers wanted the revenue to balance the state’s budget and cover a $1.3 billion budget shortfall for fiscal years 2012 and 2013.
The GE tax exemption elimination is the single biggest revenue enhancer for the state this session, with the legislation expected to bring the state $400 million.
But there are several legal and business questions related to the legislation, which is set to impact the airlines and shipping industries and the construction sector.
For example, if people have signed a contract for a delivery of goods, but the delivery does not take place until after July 1, 2011 when the law is expected to take effect, would the tax hike apply?
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Hawaii Senate Keeps Public in Dark
But in researching how the Hawaii Legislature handles potential conflicts of interest, Civil Beat made a disturbing discovery.
And that is that the Senate does not produce an online journal chronicling what happens on the floor during the legislative session. This record is important for a number of reasons, including that it reports the times when lawmakers stood up and asked the chair for a ruling on whether a potential conflict of interest meant they couldn't vote on an issue.
The House has one. It's not entirely up-to-date, but when we began our research in the past week or so it was complete up to Day 49 of the 60-day session. As for the "paperless" Senate, it doesn't post its journal online, instead producing bound print volumes long after the session is over that are placed in just a few locations in the state.
In other words, in an era when public information can be made widely available cheaply and easily over the Internet, the Hawaii Senate is making it unnecessarily difficult for the public to learn what it actually did.
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Council, Mayor head for Courtroom Showdown over HART Rail Budget Authority
Through spending restrictions, cuts, user fee increases and tax hikes, City Council members say they have achieved a balanced budget that trims about $7 million from Mayor Peter Carlisle's $1.93 billion proposal for the 2012 fiscal year, which begins next month.
The Council has advanced a capital improvement program budget that adds $19.7 million more to the mayor's $526 million proposal. Members cut back in some areas to add $33 million for repair and maintenance of the city's aging roadways.
Meanwhile, members also are poised to pass the operating and construction project budgets for the to-be-formed Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, which include provisions giving the Council final approval over the semiautonomous board's spending.
Carlisle has threatened to veto the bill setting up the agency's budget, and both sides have said they expect the measure would end up in court.
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VIDEO: Hawaii council passes budget, mayor “outraged” by payment for Retirees health Care
The mayor had originally proposed a $367 million spending plan, but the council cut millions in order to partially fund a deferred payment to gasB 45 – a payment designed to pre-fund future obligations the county has incurred to fund retirement health care in the future – a $20 million expense.
“It was a thousand pound gorilla,” Council Chair Dominic Yagong said of the looming payment.
“I think we’ve dona a pretty good job of addressing that issue,” said South Kona councilwoman and finance committee chair Brenda Ford of the gasB 45 debt. “Are there still problems in the budget as far as I’m concerned, absolutely.”
“I withdrew a lot of amendments…” said Ford, “because Mr. Yagong proposed a 5.6 million across the board reduction, that the mayor’s going to have to deal with. He didn’t deal with that before he sent the budget to us. And this council has now dealt with it.”
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OHA giving away more money to Buy Support from Hawaiians
The program “Granting for Results” offers up to $100,000 in grants to nonprofit organizations for the purpose of achieving various outcomes that are priorities for OHA.
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Clayton Hee revises Financial Disclosure Statements AGAIN, may still be in violation
Senator Clayton Hee has submitted an additional amendment to his financial disclosure statements filed with the State Ethics Commission.
In a May 31, 2011 letter addressed to commission director Les Kondo, Hee refers to “inadvertent omissions previously filed.”
The amendments to be applied to Hee’s disclosure statements for 2006 to 2009 now list his own legislative salary, his wife’s business income, and her 100% ownership of her own business, Lynne Waters Communications.
According to state business registration records, Lynne Waters was also a director of two nonprofits during all or part of the period covered by these reports, Kick Start Karate (headed by Lee Donahue) and Hawaii Alliance for Arts Education. If this is the same Lynne Waters, these positions should have been disclosed by Hee as well.
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Heavyweight Lobbyists Line up to Defend Schnitzer Steel
Then there’s Schnitzer Steel Hawaii with an unusual number of big guns, including “Red” Morris and John Radcliffe, PR exec Cindy McMillan, John Sabas (married to Jennifer Goto Sabas, Sen. Dan Inouye’s chief of staff), Travis Taylor (former communications advisor to Duke Aiona), and former city council member (remember her?) Rene Mansho.
A quick check on the city’s Docushare system found that Schnitzer is Hawaii’s largest metal recycler, and has been in the middle of the controversy over whether to continue a city subsidy that costs taxpayers a lot of money every year regardless of the profitability of the company.
With so much lobbying muscle at Schnitzer’s disposal, I wondered who was on the other side. They include Jim Banigan, former Schnitzer manager, and Keith Rollman (yes, the same Keith Rollman who became a household name with his Atomic Monkey web site that attacked then candidate Neil Abercrombie).
Rollman testified against the subsidy on behalf of “CleanGreen Advocacy for Hawaii.” Although sounding like an environmental group, CleanGreen lists its partners as Paragon Metals International, Inc., a scrap metal company, and Kokua Renewable Energy, which does not appear in the state’s business registration database.
Paragon is a competitor of Schnitzer and launched an unsuccessful federal lawsuit against Schnitzer back in 2008.
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No Conflict: Lawmaker by Day, Lobbyist by Night
Rep. Joe Souki, a Wailuku Democrat and speaker of the Hawaii House from 1993 to 1998, has for at least the last 18 months worked for the American Chemistry Council, an industry association that speaks for chemical companies. He's represented the organization before the Maui County Council, specifically regarding a bill that would have prohibited the use of disposable polystyrene food service containers by food providers in the County of Maui.
In October 2009, he told the council's Infrastructure Management Committee that replacing styrofoam with a natural sugar-based material called polylactic acid would not solve solid waste problems and would add cost for Maui retailers, according to meeting minutes [pdf].
Souki made clear that he was testifying not as a lawmaker but as a citizen and as a lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council. Later in the same meeting, Councilmember Michael Molina asked a styrofoam manufacturer if council members might be able to visit the company's Oahu production plant when they fly over "to network with our legislators like Mr. Souki."
At the end of the meeting, the bill was deferred indefinitely, which means it's essentially stalled.
Souki's most recent financial disclosure [pdf], filed in 2010, shows Souki earned between $10,000 and $25,000 from the American Chemistry Council in 2009. He told Civil Beat he makes "around $24,000" per year.
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Rod Tam Sentencing next Tuesday
After multiple delays, former City Council member Rod Tam is set to be sentenced one week from today. Last November, Tam pleaded guilty to 26 counts of theft. Prosecutors said he was knowingly reimbursed for more money than he spent.
Read the press release from the Department of the Attorney General about Tam's plea.
RELATED: Ousted Zoning Chair Rod Tam is secret partner in $1 Billion North Shore development hui
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Proposed Laie hotel clears another hurdle
A proposal to build a 223 room hotel in Laie moved closer to securing needed permits when the Honolulu City Council's Zoning Committee voted in favor of the development during a special committee meeting at Kahuku High School Wednesday night.
The full City Council will make its final decision on the project July 6 at Honolulu Hale.
At least 250 people attended Wednesday's Zoning Committee meeting. A majority of those who testified spoke in favor of the project….
CB: Laie Hotel Advances, But Flooding Still A Concern
KITV: Laie Inn Redevelopment Moves Forward
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Lawsuit looms as UH, consultant try to stop data breaches
The university is facing a class-action lawsuit from Philippe Gross and Grande Law Offices over the data breaches. Recently the law office called for university officials to release the report. The university released part of the report Wednesday.
“Until recently, no requests for the consultant’s report had been received other than in the litigation context,” said (Clayton Hee’s wife) Lynne Waters, associate vice president of external affairs and university relations….
Grande said he’s “dismayed” that it took the university so long to release part of the report, and is hopeful to see the report in its entirety soon.
The first part of the report states that two underlying issues contributed to the university’s data breaches:
- A significant under-investment in information security resources.
- An attempt to operationally manage information security as a fully decentralized activity.
The report suggests that the university develop a well-funded, universitywide information security program that is centrally managed and operates in collaboration with the many decentralized units throughout the system.
In the most recent data breach, revealed in November, a former faculty member at the West Oahu campus inadvertently uploaded to the Internet personal information of more than 40,000 students.
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HPD gains first female deputy chief
Veteran police officer Marie McCauley was named one of two deputy police chiefs Wednesday, the first woman to ascend to the second-highest rank in the Honolulu Police Department.
McCauley, a 30-year veteran of the department, was assigned by Chief Louis Kealoha to head field operations.
Also named deputy chief was Dave Kajihiro, a 27-year veteran who will lead administrative operations.
McCauley and Kajihiro were sworn in by Circuit Judge Ed Kubo.
They replace deputy chiefs Randy Macadangdang and Delbert Tatsuyama.
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New Hawaii Law Offers Gold Star Family License Plates to Families of Fallen Soldiers
Mary Jo Brostrom sat in the first row in the Governor’s Executive Chambers, smiling but with a tiny glimmer of tears in her eyes at the mention of her son, 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom, who was killed on July 13, 2008 in a firefight in Waran, Afghanistan.
She was there on Tuesday, May 31, with her family and four other families to witness to the signing of a new law that creates the Gold Star Family license plate for parents, spouses, children and siblings of soldiers who died during military service.
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US House to Celebrate Kamehameha Day June 11
The House on Tuesday evening approved a resolution allowing space to be used in the Capitol Visitor's Center to be used to commemorate King Kamehameha's birthday. The resolution, S.Con.Res. 16, was non-controversial and was approved under a suspension of House rules.
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Investigators Discover Manufacturing Facility in Hawaii
But at Island Slipper, among a handful of Hawaii companies that are keeping fashion manufacturing at home, owner John Carpenter is demonstrating how it's possible to compete on his own terms by creating handmade products associated with quality and luxury.
In the mid-1980s there were still a half dozen slipper manufacturers in Hawaii. Members of the Motonaga clan, at the time owners of Island Slipper and 40-year veterans of the business, were ready to call it quits. Although there was third-generation interest in carrying on the business founded by Takizo and Misao Motonaga, the couple's sons quashed that. They'd seen the flood of cheap imports coming in from China, saw the toll it was taking on the business and had no reason to believe anyone could reverse that trend.
At the same time, Carpenter, working for a competing slipper manufacturer, was looking for an opportunity to test his ideas.
"I knew everybody in the industry, and Island Slipper, to me, was the one that presented the best opportunity. They had an upscale brand with sales and distribution on the mainland," he said.
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TV Executives Admit in Taped Interviews That Hollywood Pushes a Liberal Agenda
Some of TV’s top executives from the past four decades may have gotten more than they bargained for when they agreed to be interviewed for a politically charged book that was released Tuesday, because video of their controversial remarks will soon be hitting the Internet.
The book makes the case that TV industry executives, writers and producers use their clout to advance a liberal political agenda. The author bases his thesis on, among other things, 39 taped interviews that he’ll roll out piecemeal during the next three weeks.
The Hollywood Reporter obtained several of the not-yet-released clips, embedded below. Each contains a snippet of an interview, usually some historical footage of the TV shows the interviewee was responsible for and, naturally, a plea to purchase the book, “Primetime Propaganda” by Ben Shapiro and published by Broad Side, an imprint of HarperCollins.
In one video, Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman says that when she cast Candace Gingrich-Jones, half-sister of Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as the minister of a lesbian wedding, “There was a bit of ‘fuck you’ in it to the right wing.”
Kauffman also acknowledges she “put together a staff of mostly liberal people,” which is another major point of Shapiro’s book: that conservatives aren’t welcome in Hollywood.
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