Hawaii Precedent? 'Sidewalk Property' Decision Appealed to Supreme Court
Keep The Promise for Better Wages as Goal
HNL Planning Director: "Public, Along With Private Property Rights, Are Our Top Priority"
Video: The PLDC And Property Rights In Hawaii - A Panel Discussion
Sewer Gas Powers Cars
Where is Hawaii Transportation Headed?
Abercrombie Laughs at Teachers: “Be careful what you wish for”
SA: About 20 public school teachers staged a sit-in Saturday at Washington Place to call attention to their lack of a negotiated contract and to underscore how much work they do on personal time.
Many graded papers and tests as they sat along the sidewalk near where Gov. Neil Abercrombie resides.
And some were still bristling from remarks Abercrombie made Feb. 24 at the National Governors Association winter meeting, where the governor said he might have to impose yet another contract on teachers if negotiations fail.
"What angered me so much and I think what angered a lot of teachers is that he said a lot of teachers supported him," said Campbell High School teacher Corey Rosenlee, who organized the "teach-in." "He said, ‘This is a good lesson. Be careful what you wish for because they got me and so now there's an imposed contract.' And then he chuckled."…
Nellwyne Young, a Campbell High counselor, said, "It seems like a personal attack to educators, and we had thought that he was the ‘Education Governor.'"
VIDEO: Abercrombie at Governor’s Conf 1:15 (starts ripping teachers at 1:19:50)
Borreca: Battle fatigue takes over war between gov and HSTA
Feb 27: Abercrombie: “Will Continue to Impose Contract”, Claims Teachers Agreed to Last Best Final Offer
read … Personal Attack
Only Two Schools Meet Instructional Hours Law, So SB238 Will Re-define “instructional”
SA: Several public middle and high schools are "significantly far" from meeting a state mandate to lengthen their school day, education officials told lawmakers last week.
By the start of the 2014-15 school year, 101 secondary schools will need to offer at least 51⁄2 hours of instruction, on average, each day. Only two schools now meet that minimum: Hana High on Maui and Castle High School.
The DOE did not have an updated breakdown of instructional hours at each secondary school but, on average, schools this year are coming up short by about 30 minutes a day, or 100 hours per school year.
"Some are within 5 minutes or 20 minutes a week" of reaching the minimum, Schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi said during a legislative briefing Monday.
"There are some that are a number of hours off a week," she said, acknowledging a difference of as much as 220 hours per year among some secondary schools.
Senate Bill 238, which Tokuda co-sponsored, would allow student advisory time, technology-assisted learning and time spent on project-based assignments to count toward instructional hours at secondary schools.
SB 238 and its companion, House Bill 60, are moving through the Legislature.
read … HSTA Contract Problems
Trade Minimum Wage Hike for Unemployment Tax Freeze?
SA: The House — in House Bill 1028 — would gradually raise the $7.25 hourly wage to $9 by January 2017, starting with a small bump to $7.75 in January. Lawmakers would also extend an increase in the maximum weekly unemployment benefit of 75 percent of the average weekly wage, up from 70 percent, through the end of this year, which would provide extra money for the unemployed.
The Senate — in Senate Bill 331 — would raise the $7.25 hourly wage to $9.25 by January 2016, starting with a jump to $8.25 in January. Senators would also tie the minimum wage to the Honolulu consumer price index beginning in January 2017, meaning the wage could rise annually with the cost of inflation.
The House would use the same bill that increases the minimum wage to avert the scheduled rise in the unemployment insurance tax rate, which is projected to cost businesses on average $150 more per employee, or $66 million.
The Senate — in Senate Bill 1272 — would avert the scheduled rate increase this year and then keep the rate the same in 2014 because of uncertainty over the impact on unemployment in Hawaii due to the federal spending cuts known as sequestration.
SA: Working at minimum wage
read … Trade Off
Greenwood Needs to Speak Up, Name Names in Response to Mitsunaga Allegations
Star-Adv Editorial: To underscore that point, the House Finance Committee last week revived a proposal to strip UH of its oversight of procurement of construction contracts. The prompt for that action came on Wednesday, when Mitsunaga wrote letters to the UH Board of Regents and the UH-Hilo chancellor, Donald Straney, in which the allegations broadened with greater detail.
For example, in the letter and in testimony before the state Senate, Mitsunaga alleged that Minaai allowed contractor AC Kobayashi to change a project so the firm could realize greater profits.
Meanwhile the state's attorney general will be investigating the case, as univer- sity officials have requested. The lawmakers decided to keep their options open on tightening the reins on UH as that investigation progresses — a wise decision — by reviving the bill.
Considering how long various university administrations worked and waited for autonomy in administering its own construction projects, this is a momentous development that surely worries the current president, M.R.C. Greenwood.
So it's puzzling that Greenwood has not taken a more public stance in the effort to allay public concerns about the continuing controversies.
"Until the investigation is complete, we anticipate having no further comments," read the written statement that was released.
While it's prudent to withhold comment on the case, Greenwood needs to be more front and center as the face of UH, instead of leaving that to impersonal dispatches issued through a communications team. She has a leadership role to play in telling the public how the university intends to reform its operations.
Clues: Kobayashi and Greenwood are Inouye cronies. Inouye is dead. Mitsunaga is an Abercrombie crony. Do the math.
Shapiro: Regents claim Kerry-given right by draining UH's wallet
read … One Good Revelation Deserves Another
Crossover: Hawaii lawmakers to vote on hundreds of bills
AP: The Hawaii Legislature is anticipating a marathon of votes this week as state lawmakers race to meet Thursday's first crossover deadline.
The deadline means that each chamber must pass and send bills to the other chamber by Thursday or the measures will be off the table.
Senate Clerk Carol Taniguchi says the Senate will vote on about 300 bills between Tuesday and Thursday. There will be no floor session on Monday because the Legislature will be on recess.
Tuesday's Senate agenda includes a bill to protect celebrity privacy, known as the Steven Tyler Act….
The Senate will also consider Tuesday a highly debated proposal to develop public school lands. The bill, known as the 21st Century Schools bill, seeks to increase government revenue to support school facilities by partnering with private companies to develop public school land.
The Senate has sent just 36 measures to the House so far, while the House has already transferred more than 140 bills to the Senate.
read … Crossover
Followers of Eco Religion March in Haleiwa, Call for Total Ban on GMOs, Destruction of 2000 Agriculture Jobs
KITV: Protesters who gathered together came armed with signs, some with messages that said, 'stop planting seeds of destruction.' They are fighting for a future of Hawaii without GMO testing and farming.
(If you thought they ‘just’ want labeling, now the true agenda is revealed.)
"Instead of being left in the dark and deceived about this they will know that their food has been genetically modified," said protester Courtney Bruch. (Labeling wanted so believers can be manipulated to boycott on behalf of organic profiteers.)
"It's solely control of the food supply, and all the seeds in the world are now being co-opted by these chemical companies," said protester Melissa Yee. (No, they’re not. This statement is pure blithering nonsense.)
"The nutritional value is not there, the pesticide use does not help the land or the food itself," said protester James Macey. (Moron. GMO crops need less pesticide, not more.)
Bottom Line: Walter Ritte still wants to be paid off by Monsanto and for some reason, they refuse to pay him.
Your Bottom Line: Politically correct simps like to humor themselves that they are on the ‘right side of history.’ That they would be with the few, heroically standing against the mob of ignorant superstitious fanatics trying to burn Galileo as a ‘heretic’. Well, that moment is now. And if you are anti-GMO you are on the wrong side.
Hooser: Full labeling of GMO products is a must
KHON: GMO protestors voiced their concerns in Haleiwa
Reality: The Deadly Opposition to Genetically Modified Food, Must Read: Leading Activist Apologizes For Starting Anti-GMO Movement, The Future of Fraud
read … Easy Mob to Assemble
SB937: 10% More Local Food = 2300 Jobs
“The research shows that replacing 10 percent of current food imports with locally grown food will create a total of 2,300 jobs,” The bill says. “The legislature thus funds that increasing the amount of locally grown food by as little as 10 percent could keep hundreds of millions of dollars circulating within Hawaii’s economy, stimulate growth, and create thousands of new jobs. Such diversification would help make Hawaii’s economy more resilient to worldwide events.”
To address such concerns, SB 937 seeks the creation of a statewide initiative to enhance food self-sufficiency for Hawaii, while establishing a new branch of the Department of Agriculture and a task force to identify and set goals for that initiative. It also seeks funding appropriations to support the initiative.
The Senate Committee on Ways and Means recommended the measure’s passage on Wednesday, with the approval of Big Island Sens. Gil Kahele, D-Hilo, and Russell Ruderman, D-Puna, Ka‘u.
Senate Bill 524, which also received Kahele’s and Ruderman’s support upon passing through the Ways and Means committee on Feb. 21, seeks to do much the same thing. It requests appropriations aimed at launching a program charged with increasing demand while at the same time boosting access to locally grown foods. The program would, among other things, work to expand marketing campaigns promoting benefits of local foods, encourage public institutions like schools to purchase locally grown food, improve agricultural infrastructure, and expand workforce development services for the agriculture industry.
read … Chasing Illusions
KITV: Do you think Rep. Faye Hanohano's apology for racial slurs was enough?
Yes. - 7% (114 votes)
No. - 91% (1407 votes)
Undecided. - 2% (26 votes)
Total Votes: 1,547
ML&P Bailout: A measure aims to conserve coastal property and provide a financial boost to Maui Land
SA: A bill at the Legislature that proposes purchasing 270 acres above Honolua Bay in West Maui passed the full House on a unanimous vote Thursday and is now on its way to the Senate for consideration.
The measure, House Bill 1424, represents the second initiative by lawmakers this year to buy land from a resort owner and developer.
In recent weeks three Senate committees passed a bill that calls for appropriating up to $50 million to buy undeveloped portions of Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu to block a $1.2 billion development plan that would add 1,375 hotel and condominium units largely concentrated along the mostly undeveloped North Shore coastline.
The Turtle Bay bill, Senate Bill 894, has drawn a contentious mix of public support and opposition, and only squeaked by the Ways and Means Committee on a 7-5 vote Wednesday where five yes votes were made with reservations…. (Clue: It’s a bailout, too.)
A draft of that plan called for putting Lipoa Point into a preservation district, but Maui Land argued that such a change would devalue its property and thus jeopardize an asset backing its pension obligation, according to testimony from Maui County Council Chairwoman Gladys Baisa. As a result, all or nearly all of the land was left out of the county’s new preservation district.
More than 1,600 Maui Land retirees, most former pineapple workers, could have their pensions threatened if the property is devalued, Baisa said. The company, which shut down pineapple operations in 2009, had only 17 employees at the end of last year.
In addition to the pension concerns, those in favor of the state buying the land say it would prevent development.
Although the Lipoa Point parcel is in the state’s agriculture and conservation districts, some preservationists fear that up to 20 homes could be developed on the site under lax state and county rules governing development on agriculture land.
That perceived threat of development has led to much passion and emphasis being directed to support a state purchase. (Passionate for the bailout)
Best Comments: “$20-$30 million is a very very very significant amount of money to put into an asset that will earn you very very very very little…. How about shoring up our own state retirement system?”
read … Bailout
Veterans Court Launched
SA: "How are you?" Kubo asked the 45-year-old former soldier who broke into a Frito-Lay facility to steal copper wire, according to court records.
"Different person this week," said the man, who wore a camouflage jacket. "It's the clean life."
That was a good thing, because three weeks before, the man had said he was sick and couldn't come to veterans treatment court, a new specialized court in Hawaii for military offenders.
Kubo said he had issued a bench warrant for his arrest.
When word reached the man, "he sobered up and then he came in voluntarily and said, ‘You know, I was using (drugs). I was dirty that day,'" Kubo said after the court session was over. "Because he manned up, I gave him a scolding away from the others and then I said, ‘OK, you are back on the program.'"
There were other slips, too, the judge said.
But Kubo noted in court that the onetime soldier, a cocaine and ice user, had more recently tested negative for drugs and that he was going to be admitted to U.S. Vets, a housing and services program.
Related: Hanabusa, Souza Oppose Kubo Nomination
read … Drug Court
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