Charter Amendment: Honolulu Council Grabs for Control of Rail Funds
House Candidate Kaniela Ing Threatened with Expulsion from UH
Pollster Claims Debate Performance Boosts Hirono 3%
Applicants Wanted for Ethics and Campaign Spending Commissions
GALLUP: R 52% 0 45%...
Cayetano: Hannemann Learned Nothing from ‘Ass Kicking’
HR: "Hannemann's overwhelming defeat by Neil Abercrombie in 2010 and ass kicking by Tulsi Gabbard in the 2012 primary shows he has a long way to go before the public forgets and forgives his disgraceful past actions. When it comes to dirty campaigns, Hannemann has no peer." – Ben Cayetano
read … Ass Kicking
Hawaii Tribune-Herald Endorses Lingle, Hapai
HTH: The decision about which candidate should fill this Senate seat — being vacated by longtime Sen. Daniel Akaka — is not to be taken lightly. It is one of the most powerful positions in Hawaii, and it requires a serious, battle-tested candidate. That candidate is former Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican.
Rep. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat, has attempted to portray Lingle as a rubber-stamp for the GOP’s national agenda. We don’t buy it. During her eight years in office, Lingle demonstrated her ability to work with both sides of the aisle. She is a moderate who will do what’s right for Hawaii.
The Tribune-Herald endorses Lingle.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE — District 3 The Tribune-Herald endorses Republican Marlene Hapai.
PR: U.S. Senate 101 (reprise)
read … Endorsements
Star-Adv Endorses Sam Slom
SA: Hawaii's Legislature became the nation's most lopsided in 2010, and no other state comes close to its single-Republican Senate. The onus is on the GOP to come up with candidates who can overcome the clout of incumbent Democrats and provide influence.
Of the 11 Senate seats up for grabs in the general election, voters will need to gauge the views of incumbents against potential effectiveness of challengers in bringing home the bacon.
District 9 (Hawaii Kai, Aina Haina, Kahala): Incumbent Sam Slom, the Senate's sole Republican, has been a voice of fiscal and social conservatism since his election in 1996. He has been president and executive director of Small Business Hawaii since 1983.
"Conservatives — and conservative Republicans in particular — have always placed a great deal of emphasis on the individual and what an individual can do," he said after the 2010 election. "So whether it's five of us or two of or one of us, it's not irrelevant to the fact that more than 45 percent of the people (in Hawaii) chose Republican candidates and they need a voice."
… Slom is a necessary conservative advocate and should retain his seat.
read … Sam Slom
Lauren Cheape is the choice for Hawaii’s future
WT: Running as a Republican in Hawaii’s 45th house district (Mililani, Schofield, Kunia) Cheape is an absolute must-elect on her state’s ballot. As a sixth generation Hawaii farmer, she is highly knowledgeable and personally acquainted with the unique agricultural challenges and broad spectrum of environmental issues that only someone who has been working knee deep in manure for the last twenty five years could possibly understand.
read … Lauren Cheape
Hirono Pals Around with Barney Frank
CB: She's not a leader. She doesn't tell the truth. She has no record and no ideas. She's pals with Barney Frank. She skips a lot of votes in the U.S. Congress — except for the ones where she voted for military cuts and against free trade with South Korea. She doesn't understand things like the Compact of Free Association.
CB: Inouye Stumps for Carmona In Arizona
read … Lingle and Hirono, On The Attack
Attack on Free Speech: Cayetano to File Libel and Slander Lawsuit Against Pacific Resource Partnership, Carpenters Union
HR: The lawsuit will be filed against Pacific Resource Partnership, its Executive Director John White, its Board members, the Carpenters’ Union, which directs Pacific Resource Partnership’s actions, and Pacific Resource Partners’ advertising agency, as well as defendants who have so far kept their identities secret.
Pacific Resource Partnership, which also goes by PRP Hawaii, said in its advertisements that Cayetano was soft on crime when he was governor of Hawaii, that he cut government employees and services, and that he took hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions.
The mayor’s race is non-partisan but Cayetano is a Democrat, and PRP Hawaii has also tried to undermine Cayetano’s support from his own party by claiming he is closely with Tea Party activists and Republicans and is not endorsed by Hawaii’s senior senator, Daniel Inouye….
(This is an attack on free speech.)
read … Libel?
All About the Charter Amendments on Your 2012 Hawaii Ballot
Sen Sam Slom: A number of people have called, emailed, or asked me in person, "what about those two state constitutional amendments and two city charter proposals on my ballot?” These four important proposals have received little attention in the media, and many people already have filled out their absentee ballots in advance of the November 6 election without understanding the proposed changes
read … Charter Amendments
Historic Preservation Division -- No Longer Just Warm Bodies?
SA: A state agency responsible for protecting Hawaii's historic and cultural sites, including construction sites where Hawaiian burials are found, is declaring success fixing serious deficiencies the federal government flagged two years ago amid chronic struggles to properly carry out its mission.
The State Historic Preservation Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources recently submitted a final report to the National Park Service, saying it has addressed problems and instituted plans that merit removing it from federal monitoring and ending the threat of it losing critical grant money.
The report says SHPD (pronounced ship-D), which suffers from a rather negative public image, has executed a turnaround and become a stronger organization with a better corporate culture and a bigger and more productive staff capable of handling agency tasks and challenges that include protecting historic sites and properties such as fishponds, heiau, unmarked Native Hawaiian graves, buildings and homes.
Two high-profile court cases in the past two months haven't reflected well on SHPD procedures.
In one case, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that SHPD was wrong to let the city's rail development project begin construction on a phase in one area before archeological survey work was complete for all other phases.
The other case involves a decision by SHPD allowing Kawaiaha‘o Church to avoid an archeological survey before starting construction on a multipurpose building under an exemption for graveyards. Hawaii's Intermediate Court of Appeals granted an injunction against excavation work at the church and said it is likely that it will rule that SHPD violated its own procedures by approving the project without requiring a survey.
"The most important thing is we have really good staff — not just warm bodies, the right people in the right positions," Aiu said. "We have a lot more stability than we used to have, even though the numbers haven't changed that much."
read … SHPD
Legislative interference threatens long-term viability of UH
Larry Geller: Instead of placing blame, it would be far more productive for the Legislature and other concerned individuals to offer assistance to UH with an aim to strengthening its internal governance so that a similar incident is less likely to happen in the future. The university has structural management issues that go far deeper than current or future leadership can likely deal with. What might help would be a makeover by organization development professionals.
While a university does not operate exactly like a corporation, it is possible to put in place structures of management that enable the organization to avoid compounding problems that inevitably occur. The operation of the UH with its many inter-departmental communications problems and uncertain boundaries of responsibility is characteristic of the so-called "garbage-can" model of organization. This needs to be replaced.
If the special committee convenes again, it would be refreshing — and a service to present and future UH graduates and to the state economy — if the committee would replace its current star-chamber tactics with a sincere offer to help.
Link: Garbage Can Model
read … Viability
Hawaiian Civic Club Kicks Reporters Out, Discusses Legalized Gambling, PLDC
CB: On the other hand, Civil Beat, which has the only full-time correspondent for a Hawaii news organization in Washington, D.C., on Friday was asked to leave a policy discussion about proposed gambling on Native Hawaiian land as well as the controversial Public Land Development Corporation created by the Hawaii Legislature last year….
The gambling proposal was among the resolutions discussed Friday and Saturday. So too were a pair of resolutions dealing with the PLDC: one urging the Legislature to repeal the law that created the agency, and one urging the PLDC itself to enact administrative rules that would neutralize some of the more troubling components of the law that give the agency wide latitude to disregard some environmental laws in the interest of economic growth.
It's not immediately clear how any of those resolutions fared. On Friday, some attendees of the Economic Development committee objected to allowing a Civil beat reporter in the room.
The most vocal was Pohai Ryan, who raised her hand in objection and said only that "This is Hawaiian Civic Club" and that the media didn't belong. Ryan serves as one of 25 senators in the Hawaii Legislature, and was among those who voted in favor of creating the much-criticized PLDC. Ryan lost in the Democratic primary in August to former Department of Land and Natural Resources Director Laura Thielen and will no longer be in office if a repeal of the law is considered in 2013.
read … Gambling With the Future
Hawaii Solar Installations Double Every Year, Orphans in Future
CB: After Hawaii’s first NEM law—which allowed homeowners and businesses to receive full retail credit for the power they produced—went into effect July 1, 2001, adoption putt-putted along in a decidedly incremental fashion.
For the first 6.5 years, from mid-2001 through 2007, a total of 386 NEM systems were installed across the state. In 2008 alone, 565 systems 1 went in and from 2009-2010, 3,399 systems2 were installed. By the end of last year, a total of 9,625 NEM systems3 were sitting on people’s roofs and on ground-mounted arrays across the state producing solar electricity from the sun. And right now any PV integrator worth their sea salt is likely doing record business this year as 2012 looks to be another big banner year over 2011, which was a banner year over 2010, which was a banner year over 2009.
In the first six months of this year alone, an additional 4,519 NEM systems went in across HECO, MECO and HELCO territories.4 Given the anticipation of the usual end-of-the-year rush, more like madness, to get systems installed and placed in service by the December 31 tax credit deadline, the total number of NEM systems installed in 2012 will be close to, if not higher than, the figure for all of the NEM systems installed during the previous 10.5 years….
Utility grid saturation issues and a probable reduction to state tax credit caps, perhaps taking place as early as this January, will likely lead to a cresting of the NEM wave in 2013 or 2014. This will lead to a consolidation in the PV industry as the market contracts, leaving not a small number of all those systems being sold now effectively orphaned.
read … Doubles
Soft on Crime: 10 Convictions, Charged with 12 Rapes
HTH: 48-year-old Reynaldo “Rey” Paragas Fernandez of Paauhau was indicted for 12 counts of third degree sex assault.
The indictment indicates that Paragas allegedly compelled the victim, an underage girl born in 1996, into sexual contact at least a dozen times between June 1, 2009 and May 7, 2010. The alleged victim was younger than 14 when the purported abuse started.
According to court records, Paragas has been convicted of 10 prior criminal charges….
read … Two indicted in sex assault cases
QUICK HITS: