Dylan Nonaka to Lead Pledge of Allegiance at Republican National Convention in Tampa
Ten Candidates File to Run in Honolulu Council Special Election
Money: 'Philanthropists' to Join Akaka Tribe at CNHA Convention
Governor Nominates Members to Ethics Commission and Paroling Authority
Kawauchi Explains Why She Missed State Election Officials Meeting
Hawaii Electronic Medical Records to Regulate Your Diet?
HTA: Tourism Up Again in July, on Pace for Record Year
Sam Aiona to File for Honolulu City Council, will be Anti-Rail Candidate
CB: Sam Aiona, a former state legislator and active member of the Hawaii Republican Party, will announce Thursday (Aug. 30) his intentions to seek the vacated Honolulu City Council District 6 seat.
Council races are nonpartisan, but Aiona will be perhaps the most prominent Republican in a field that already features well-known Democrats Carol Fukunaga and Jon Yoshimura.
HR: Aiona has already declared his opposition to the rail
read … Only Anti-Rail Candidate
Hirono: Don’t Use Natural Gas, Give Money to Wind Farms Instead
PR: The Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund and Ocean Champions are defending U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono’s call for a national renewable energy standard against attacks from former Gov. Linda Lingle, Hirono’s Republican opponent for U.S. Senate.
Lingle, who like the Democrat Hirono is an advocate for renewable energy, has said Hirono’s national standard is an unnecessary federal mandate that shows the congresswoman’s “fundamental lack of knowledge” about energy policy. Hawaii is among 30 states that have already set renewable energy standards.
The environmental groups not only side with Hirono on a national standard, but they also criticize Lingle for her support for expanded domestic oil and natural gas drilling.
read … Lanai and Molokai must Sacrifice
Lo: 2009 Autonomy Bill Allows MMMC to be Privatized, HGEA Dumped
MN: … one option could be for Banner to lease the hospital and operate it as a nonprofit, Lo said. The local board would work with Banner to provide capital, he added.
According to an announcement of the talks, Banner Health operates 23 acute-care hospitals and health care facilities in seven states - Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming. Earlier this year, Banner was recognized by Thomson Reuters as one of the country's top five large health systems.
Banner's website says the nonprofit health system employs more than 36,000 people; offers physician services, hospice and home care; and provides $110 million in charity care.
Lo said that the Maui region received autonomy from the state under a measure passed by the state Legislature in 2009, but it wasn't clear whether the region could proceed with a partnership with Banner or some other entity without action by lawmakers.
Maui region officials are working on the issue now so that they would be prepared to seek legislation when the Legislature convenes in January, he said.
Lo called the potential partnership an opportunity to "dramatically change the level of health care" in Maui County.
One issue that will need to be examined is how the hospital's public union members would fit in, he said.
"That's certainly going to be a major consideration," he said.
Related: Legislative Report: Convert HHSC to non-profit, dump civil service (full text)
Related: Pressured by Abercrombie Health Exchange, HHSC Considers Privatization
read … Bye Bye HGEA
Doctors Offices to be Built at Kona Airport
WHT: The state would spend more than half a billion dollars in upgrades at Kona International Airport in the next decade, if it constructs all of the projects listed in a recently released draft environmental impact statement.
Included in the plan is a medical transitional facility — office space for Honolulu doctors flying to West Hawaii to see patients.
The cost for that part of the plan wasn’t broken out, but the full build out is expected to cost about $611 million, the draft document said.
The department would either lease land to a medical provider or group to allow that entity to build medical offices, potentially including an area to stabilize patients prior to a flight to Honolulu for emergency treatment, or the DOT would build a facility and rent the space, spokeswoman Caroline Sluyter said.
“Someone saw a need” and proposed the facility, Sluyter added. “The idea was to expedite it.”
A medical building “would minimize time spent in transit for doctors and patients,” the draft document said.
Dr. Ali Bairos, chairman of the West Hawaii Regional Board, which oversees Kona Community and Kohala hospitals, said he was concerned the facility might duplicate services to be offered by a long-planned midcoast medical facility, which is expected to replace Kona Community Hospital. Bairos submitted his concerns during a Feb. 9 public meeting about the plan. (HHSC is going to oppose Certificate of Need?)
read … Fly ‘em in
UNITE HERE Local 5 Dispatches Hundreds to Oppose PLDC
HNN: Hundreds of people showed up at a public hearing regarding proposed rules for the Public Land Development Corporation, formed under a new state law that would allow private development on public land.
Nearly 70 people signed up to testify before the PLDC.
Most of those who showed up for Wednesday night's hearing were opposed, including members of UNITE HERE Local 5, the hotel workers union. They lined Beretania Street near the Kalanimoku Building with signs seeking the repeal of the law.
"This hearing is about rules. Nobody's talking about rules. And the reason they're not talking about rules is that this is the first time this bill is actually being heard," said Eric Gill of Local 5.
KHON: Selling state land for revenue generates heated debate
read … Progressives vs Old Boys
Yoshioka Refuses to Restore Bus Service
SA: It would cost $2.5 million to return TheBus service to what it was before the city began imposing cuts earlier this year, but routes could not be restored until March 2013 even if money were available, according to Wayne Yoshioka, director of the city Department of Transportation Services.
Yoshioka told the City Council Budget Committee Wednesday that the city doesn't have the money to restore service, and predicted months of delays even if there was money because Oahu Transit Services has been reducing the number of drivers on its payroll.
OTS, which contracts with the city to operate TheBus, has not been replacing drivers who retire or leave for other reasons, and no longer has a full complement of drivers to staff all of the original routes and bus runs, Yoshioka said.
Yoshioka told the Council the unpopular bus cuts and route changes imposed on June 3 and Aug. 18 were designed to save the city $6 million to $7 million.
Councilman Romy Cachola said the Council has been "battered" by complaints from the public about TheBus cuts, but said Mayor Peter Carlisle's administration seems closed to the idea of restoring service.
read … Council Battered
Ewa Start: The Flaw Underlying all Flaws
HW: Think back. When you first heard that the Rail was starting in ‘Ewa, what was your reaction? Mine was, “That sounds very strange.” Up to that time I supported the Rail project, but I began to ask questions.
I found out simple things, such as that no city had ever started building in an outlying area. When I had conversations with people, even the most avid supporters of Rail usually shook their heads. I couldn’t find anyone except Toru Hamayasu, then the project director, who defended the idea of starting construction in ‘Ewa.
It was in this light that the Rod Haraga story became interesting. Haraga headed the State Transportation Department during the Lingle Administration. Before that, he played a role in developing the Los Angeles Metro. For a period he advised Mayor Mufi Hannemann on transit.
He advised Hannemann not to start the Rail in the countryside. Hannemann said he was going to do it anyway. Haraga asked why. Hannemann is attributed to having said it would be easier. Reputedly, Hannemann told Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi much of the same thing. This story is old news that never made print, but no single piece of history is more to the point. It spells out what is implicit in the Supreme Court decision.
Starting construction in ‘Ewa was the flaw that underlies all the other flaws, the manipulation that underlies all the other manipulations. From the point of view of Hannemann and those who bought in, it was the strategy that would at last build the elevated heavy rail. That is, begin construction along the path of least resistance, where there are no bones and no historic buildings. Keep your head down. Keep planting those giant columns. By the time you get to Honolulu, you will have spent several billion dollars, and nothing can stop you.
VIDEO: Will Honolulu Rail Be Derailed?
CB: Rail Ruling Another Black Eye For Hawaii's Historic Preservation Division
CB: Surf and Turf: An Analogy Between Hawaii Superferry and Honolulu Rail
read … Hawai‘i Supreme Court decision lights up the flaw underlying all the other flaws
Change Orders? FTA to implement new safety standards for rail transit
KHON: U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has sent a letter to the governor of 26 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, regarding new federal regulations the Department plans on proposing to strengthen and increase oversight of public transit safety. President Obama signed the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) bill in July, 2012.
MAP-21 grants FTA the authority to establish and enforce a new comprehensive framework to oversee the safety of public transportation throughout the United States as it pertains to heavy rail, light rail, buses, ferries, and streetcars.
“We are closing a loophole in how transit safety oversight is regulated and enforced that is long overdue,” said Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Administrator Peter Rogoff. “For the first time FTA will be able to establish basic safety standards to better ensure the safety of tens of millions of passengers that ride public transportation each day.”
MAP-21 requires, among other things, that FTA update the existing State Safety Oversight (SSO) program to ensure that rail transit systems are meeting common-sense safety requirements. The law also requires that FTA adopt important new safety provisions for bus-only operators. FTA will implement the new law in consultation with the transit community and the U.S. Department of Transportation Transit Rail Advisory Committee for Safety, which has been working since September of 2010 to help guide this effort.
read … Change Orders?
Honolulu’s July unemployment rate drops to 5.7%
PBN: Honolulu’s unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent in July compared to the same month a year ago, according to a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
read … 5.7%
$40M Given to 362 Hawaii Homeowners
SA: Relief has begun to arrive for many Hawaii homeowners threatened by foreclosure under a settlement between the five largest U.S. mortgage lenders and the state and federal government.
Some $40 million in mortgage debt obligations were alleviated for 362 Hawaii homeowners between March and June, according to an initial progress report released Wednesday by the federal Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight.
The reported relief represents just a leading, and relatively small, edge of what should be a large wave of financial help for homeowners statewide struggling with mortgage payments.
Five lenders — Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and GMAC Mortgage parent Ally Financial Inc. — agreed to a historic
$25 billion national relief package in February to settle foreclosure abuse allegations brought by the federal government and 49 state attorneys general.
read … Homeowners
State senators to probe Stevie Wonder blunder, Point Fingers at Everyone Except Freitas
HNN: The State Senate's Special Committee on Accountability will hold hearings late next month into the University of Hawaii's Stevie Wonder concert fiasco, asking UH officials to testify in public about their actions.
The hearings will be held the third or fourth week of September, Kim said.
The Senate plans to call top UH officials to testify, including President M.R.C. Greenwood, UH Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple, Board of Regents Chairman Eric Martinson and former Athletics Director Jim Donovan. (Notice who is not on this list?)
State Senate President Shan Tsutsui sent this memo Wednesday afternoon to all 25 senators, approving the briefing: "Pursuant to Senate Rule 20, I hereby appoint a Special Committee on Accountability to conduct an informational briefing or briefings, as may be necessary, to review the oversight, accountability, and transparency of the operational and financial management of the University of Hawaii System, including but not limited to the University of Hawaii at Manoa Athletics Department."
Besides Kim and Tokuda, the committee will include State Senators Les Ihara, Jr., Ronald Kouchi and Sam Slom. Since the accountability committee is not a standing senate committee, the senate president assigns its members.
When UH officials appear before state senators, it will be the first time they've answered questions in-depth and in public about the Wonder blunder and the events that followed. Previously, UH officials have spoken during brief 20-minute news conferences and through written statements like news releases, emails and web page postings.
It's not unusual for witnesses who appear before Kim's special committees to take questions for an hour or more, as she and other senators ask them to explain actions and compare officials' testimony to documents, reports, letters and other written material.
read … State senators to probe Stevie Wonder blunder
Crowley Campaigns in Hilo
HTH: Crowley has been in the media spotlight before for his fight to overturn the state’s indoor smoking ban, and he can also be seen regularly along roadsides on Oahu holding “Remember 9/11” signs.
He is also a co-writer of the Hawaiian sovereignty song, “Hawaii 78.”
Crowley said he hasn’t received any financial support from the state party.
“I ain’t got nothing,” he said Wednesday. “All I got is my friends, family and signs.”
Though he faces another uphill battle, Crowley said he thinks his stances on the issues will set himself apart from Gabbard, who is also a former state legislator and Iraq War vet.
He follows many positions of the Tea Party movement, including deep cuts to government agencies to eliminate the deficit while preserving the military.
“What we have to do is like going on a diet,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “In a long-range plan we will cut the size of government. That’s what we have to do.”
He said government can do with a lot less spending and proposes a 25 percent cut to most agencies over a five-year span.
Crowley said he also wants to lead by example, and would donate half his salary to the Wounded Warriors Project if elected.
“I don’t need $179,000 to represent my district,” he said.
Crowley said he also opposes gay marriage, would vote to repeal health care reform and supports Hawaiian sovereignty,
On welfare, he said government should encourage people to get back to work and more aid should come from churches and family.
Crowley noted he was on welfare for a few years while raising his three children by himself but strove to get off government assistance.
He called Medicare a “Ponzi scheme” and said he supports tort reform to lower medical costs.
Overall, Crowley said his own life experiences of raising a family and living on meager means gives him a perspective on spending needed in Congress.
read … Kawika Crowley
Court Ruling Awaited in HD6 Kona Election Challenge
WHT: The court has not ruled on the remaining election challenge, filed by the second-place finisher in a four-way race for the state House District 6 Democratic primary for the open Kailua-Kona seat. Kalei Akaka, the 29-year-old granddaughter of U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, had 1,022 votes in the primary, just 45 fewer than the winner, Nicole Lowen. The winner faces Republican candidate Roy Ebert in the Nov. 6 general election.
Akaka claims any ballots after the polls were supposed to close at the statutory 6 p.m. closing shouldn’t have been counted. Gov. Neil Abercrombie, in a proclamation, had extended the poll hours by 90 minutes for Hawaii Island after learning many polling places opened late.
Two of the five precincts in District 6 opened late, according to a state Office of Elections report. In both of those polling places, Kahakai Elementary School and Kona Palisades Community Center, Akaka came in second in voting on primary election day, first in early walk-in votes and second in mail-in absentee votes. She came in second or third in two of the other polling places, and first in all three methods of voting at Kealakehe High School, according to the state precinct reports.
Akaka’s attorney, Charles Khim of Honolulu, is unfazed by the dismissal of the other three cases.
“I feel we’ve got a much stronger case,” Khim said.
Khim cites a successful state Supreme Court challenge of a 1968 election as setting precedent for Akaka’s challenge. In that case, Akizaki v. Fong, the challengers cited absentee ballots that were counted even though they were postmarked after the deadline. The court invalidated the election for two candidates in the 15th state House District and called on the governor to hold a new election.
“We’re not trying to impugn the governor. He tried to do what he thought he should do in good faith,” Khim said. “But (the proclamation) allowed them to count 46 or more people who were not entitled to vote.”
read … New Election?
State Legal Notices Recognize Kuleana Water Rights
MN: Legal notices published Wednesday in The Maui News and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser listing people, churches, and commercial and other entities with claims to kuleana water rights in the Na Wai Eha surface water management area are part of a "historic" effort by the state water commission to recognize those appurtenant rights.
"This is the first time in its history that the commission is formally going to permanently recognize kuleana rights," said Isaac Moriwake, an Earthjustice attorney, Wednesday.
He represented Hui o Na Wai Eha and Maui Tomorrow, which along with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, earlier this month claimed a major victory for appurtenant or kuleana water rights in the Hawaii Supreme Court. Moriwake and his clients got the high court to vacate a state Commission on Water Resource Management decision in a dispute over mauka diversions of the surface water of Na Wai Eha, or the four great waters of Central Maui - Waihee, Waiehu, Waikapu and Iao streams.
Currently, surface water is diverted from the four West Maui Mountain streams for Central Maui sugar cultivation and domestic use, and Native Hawaiian and environmental groups are seeking to have more water returned to streams to revive the natural habitat and to allow for taro cultivation.
The publication of those with claims to kuleana water was not directly related to the Hawaii Supreme Court ruling Aug. 15. However, as part of the process of recognizing kuleana water rights, water commission officials will be estimating how much water was historically used by landowners.
read … Kuleana Rights
Government Propaganda Station Pitches for More Money
NPR Chair: First off, let's make it clear that this is not about NPR. Congress does not fund NPR, as was suggested in a recent headline in this section ("Should Congress pull the plug on funding National Public Radio?" Star-Advertiser, Aug. 27). Congress makes an annual appropriation to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — currently this appropriation stands at about $440 million — and the CPB then passes a quarter of this along to public radio in the form of grants to local stations (75 percent goes to public television stations).
read … Other People’s Money
Injustice seen in handling of trustee appointment
MN: The Office of Hawaiian Affairs Maui trustee appointed position has stirred up controversial conversation among our community people. The consensus is: not pono.
Other potential people who were considered to be appointed declined because it was mandated that the appointee would not be eligible for the general election process. Is this fair to them?
read … Injustice seen in handling of trustee appointment
Kawaiahao Church Unearths Nearly 600 Burials
HNN: An excavation team has found nearly 600 sets of remains in the very spot where the historic Kawaiahao Church plans to build a multi-purpose center.
And Hawaiian activists say it's one of the largest burial discoveries in state history.
Hawaii News Now has obtained an email from the church's consultants that shows that they have unearthed as many as 579 remains at the site of the church's proposed $17.5 million center.
Moses Haia, executive director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., said he believes that many are ancient Hawaiian burials.
"Given the information you have, it's alarming, troubling. It's hard to comprehend," Haia said.
Church officials told the state that most of the burials were found in coffins and are not of pre-contact Hawaiians. In a statement released today, William Haole, chairman of the church's board of trustees had this to say:
"Kawaiahao Church is following the procedures set forth by the Department of Health and the State Historic Preservation Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources and in accordance with the direction of the court."
Dana Naone Hall, former chair of the Maui-Lanai Island Burial Council, unsuccessfully sued Kawaiahao Church over its handling of the remains.
Hall, who is appealing the decision, says the Kawaiahao discovery is the largest since the burials discovered at Honokahua on Maui back in the late 1980s.
About 2,000 ancient Hawaiian remains were discovered at the Maui site and the protests over the handling of the iwi later resulted in the passage of the state's landmark burial law.
read … Kawaiahao Church Unearths Nearly 600 Burials
Kauai County Loses, Finds $1M, ‘No Smoking Gun’
KGI: “There is no money missing,” was the mantra in Council Chair Jay Furfaro’s presentation to the rest of his colleagues at the Kaua‘i County Council meeting Wednesday, when the council’s Committee of the Whole unanimously approved two bills to address an imbalance in the budget for Fiscal Year 2013, which started July 1.
While the money may not have been missing, it wasn’t there when at the end of June the county Finance Department staff tried to transfer almost $1 million from one account to another to balance the county’s operational budget for FY 2013.
Bill 2441 reinstates certain Capital Improvement Projects in the budget. Bill 2442 revises the surplus and appropriations in the general, bond and sewer funds, which will pay for those CIPs and patch a hole in the operational budget caused by the reinstatement of these CIPs.
The problem occurred on both sides of the scale.
On one hand, there wasn’t enough money in the budget due to the administration encumbering, rightfully and legally, $952,392 in previously approved funds for certain CIPs before the end of the last fiscal year, compounded by either an oversight from the council or a lack of communication from the administration.
On May 23, the council had balanced the operational budget for the current fiscal year by utilizing the funds from those CIP projects, apparently based on information from the administration that they would not use such funds, although some council members differ on that, and the administration, despite admitting in a press release to “errors,” would not say which were those errors.
On the other hand, there was more money than expected in the budget, but the surplus was only identified almost three weeks into the current fiscal year.
On May 8, preliminary calculations for Other Post Employment Benefits and for the Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund came in higher than the final and actual calculations, released July 19, after the current fiscal year started. The first calculation was at 31.1 percent, while the actual figure was 25.5 percent. This added an additional $2.52 million to the county’s finances.
“There is no smoking gun, there is no culprit that I see in any of this,” Councilman Tim Bynum said.
read … Nothing to see here, just move along
Ex-prison guard pleads guilty to taking money to smuggle cigarettes
SA: A former state prison guard pleaded guilty in federal court this morning to accepting money from an inmate and the inmate’s wife last year to smuggle cigarettes into Halawa Correctional Facility.
John Joseph Kalei Hall, 37, faces a maximum 20-year prison term when he is sentenced next March.
read … One of Many
State AG Grabs $2.7M from Pharmaceutical Company
HNN: As part of the largest multi-state settlement with a pharmaceutical company, the Office of Consumer Protection says Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. will pay Hawaii nearly $2.7 million in settlement claims.
Hawaii joined 35 other states and the District of Columbia in reaching the record $180 million settlement.
In a suit filed Thursday by the Office of Consumer Protection, the State alleged that Janssen improperly marketed the antipsychotic drugs Risperdal, Risperdal Consta, Risperdal M-Tab and Invega.
read … Filling the General Fund
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