April 4, 2009 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

Hawaii Daily News Read

Saturday, April 4, 2009

April 4, 2009 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 9:29 AM :: 9493 Views

N. Korea set for launch

Spy satellites trained high-resolution cameras on a coastal launch pad for a launch the North earlier advised international authorities would take place sometime between today and Wednesday from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. Hawaii time.

Hawaii Lawmakers Consider New Sales Tax (this is where they've been aiming all along)

Sen. Donna Kim is proposing to give the counties the option to raise a brand new sales tax. That would be on top of the existing 4.5 percent excise tax paid by Oahu residents and 4 percent by neighbor islanders.

Kim said she thinks the counties should have the right to raise their own sales tax up to 1 percent

Hawaii governor urges pay cuts for herself, lawmakers, judges

Linda Smith, Gov. Linda Lingle's senior policy adviser, told the Senate Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Judiciary and Government Operations Committee the pay cuts should be in addition to a pay freeze through 2011 that would save the state $4.1 million.

Oshiro apologizes for deleting disability board

State House Finance Chairman Marcus Oshiro apologized "for getting anyone upset" when the House deleted $1.4 million in funding for the Disability and Communication Access Board.

After receiving e-mails, calls and faxes and meeting the board supporters, Oshiro said he is working with the Senate Ways and Means Committee to find money to restore the board's funding.

"In our first pass on the budget, we felt the American Disability Act requirements were already embedded into the standard of practice in architectural and engineering firms in town, so we thought there may have been some duplication," said Oshiro (D, Wahiawa-Poamoho).

Finance Committee members learned the disability board provides services not only to the public, but to state and county agencies, Oshiro said. "They review all plans, and they don't extract from that any fee or service charge."

Hawaii drug gang dispute linked to Chinatown murder

At the time of the shooting, Peneueta and the two men accused of killing him — Iosefa M. Pasene, 21, and Zorro R. Rye, 24 — were the subject of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigation into allegations that they smuggled cocaine and crack into Honolulu from the San Francisco Bay Area. All three have prior county and federal drug convictions and hail from San Francisco.

Pasene and Rye were indicted Thursday on charges of murdering the 35-year-old Peneueta at 4:10 a.m. on March 28 near the intersection of River and Pauahi streets.

Zippy's lays off 47 workers on Maui amid recession

Zippy's has laid off 47 workers in Kahului less than a year after it opened its first Maui restaurant in August, the Maui News reported Thursday.

SB: Instructions to Democrats,"Place Stevens' cloud over Bush prosecutors"

(That way Obama could fire them all and get rid of Fitzgerald before Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich roll over....)

Gang Cesspool violation hamper home financing

Four years after an Environmental Protection Agency deadline mandating the replacement of large capacity cesspools and two years after residents of one West Hawaii subdivision began what they believed were negotiations for county sewer hookups, some Kilohana homeowners are installing individual cesspools.
Pat Olivares and her husband decided to stop waiting for county help they believed was on the way after they attempted to refinance their home last month. The bank denied their application.
"Everyone on a gang cesspool is prohibited from selling, transferring, buying or refinancing their property," Olivares said bank representatives told her. "This property is not eligible for collateral."