Legislative Maneuver Means PLDC Goes to Secret Conference Committee
Stanley Chang Running for CD1?
VIDEO: HCDA Bulldozes Ancient Hawaiian Trails for Solar Farm
Rush Limbaugh on Akaka Bill: These are the people that asked to join this country and now they're trying to distance themselves
Wind Power Down, Natural Gas Way Up
Tsutsui to Meet Arne Duncan in DC
DoE Launches Leadership Institute for Principals
Abercrombie Names Three to UH Board of Regents
Rhoads Bill: Marijuana Legal for Juveniles, Illegal for Adults
SA: People younger than 18 wouldn't face penalties under a Senate bill headed for a vote by the House that would decriminalize the use of small amounts of marijuana and set a $100 civil fine, Honolulu police say.
Maj. Jerry Inouye,head of HPD's Narcotics and Vice Division, said, "There are no provisions for penalties for juveniles under the age of 18."
Inouye made the comments Tuesday after a draft of Senate Bill 472 approved by the House Judiciary Committee last week was made available. The bill would reduce the maximum fine for possessing less than an ounce (20 grams) of marijuana and would treat the offense as a citation. Currently, possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana is a petty misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.
On Monday the House Judiciary Committee, headed by Rep. Karl Rhoads (D, Chinatown-Iwilei-Kalihi) successfully obtained a procedural change that will result in the bill moving to the House floor for a vote.
(Marijuana makes perfectly good human beings into liberals. Get ‘em while they’re young.)
read … Pot bill exempts those under 18 from penalties
Schatz: Rail Money Could be Delayed due to Budget Impasse
KHON: …the senator also says if the current Congressional budget impasse is not resolved, funding could be delayed.
"Any reduction coming out of this year would be made up for in future years so that the full $1.55 billion that's been committed by the federal government will be provided to the City and County of Honolulu for the rail project," explained Shatz.
The full funding grant for rail has not yet been executed. If the agreement is signed, it will be up to Congress to decide on payments over five-years.
SA: Sequestration might sap rail funding in 2013, Schatz finds
read … No Money
Anti-GMO Mob Attacking Kauai Farm Workers
CB: Farm workers in Kauai have been the unfortunate targets of verbal abuse and intimidation in recent weeks. The trigger has been misinformation spread about the seed company Syngenta and its products….
Groundless charges about the safety of our products misrepresent our company, its work and our people. By targeting an industry that’s good for the residents, economy and environment of Hawaii, misguided individuals are threatening the livelihoods of local workers and creating unnecessary antagonism among the people of our state. Lately, this misinformation has focused on atrazine….
The Kauai Department of Water released its results for testing the Kauai water supply for atrazine on March 12. In its release, the department stated, “. . . there have been no levels of atrazine detected in drinking water since 2005.” On the West Side of Kauai, where we farm, we now have official confirmation that the recent claims against our products have no basis in fact and only serve to unnecessarily generate fear and anxiety among the people of Kauai.
Mob Fuel: Genetically Modified Marijuana
CB: Hawaii Fight Over GMO Labeling Turns Ugly
SA: Senate reconsiders, will hear GMO bill
read … Something that makes sense
Pflueger Beats Tax Rap, Manslaughter Next
SA: A defense handwriting expert testified that the signatures on Pflueger’s tax return and phoney sales agreement for the San Diego property do not match the samples he obtained from the retired car dealer.
Pflueger did not testify in his own trial.
His Beverly Hills, Calif., lawyer Steven Toscher argued that any errors or fraud that benefited Pflueger were committed by others, including Duban, without Pflueger’s knowledge. He said the tax loss from Pflueger failing to report as income his personal expenses paid by the car dealerships is no more than $30,000.
An IRS auditor testified that Pflueger failed to report income of more than $3 million in 2003-2007 and that he owes the federal government, Hawaii and California $1.8 million in taxes.
Four other people charged in 2010 with Pflueger have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
Duban pleaded guilty to preparing the false income tax return that underreported Pflueger’s capital gain on the sale of the San Diego property and to helping Pflueger’s son, Charles Alan Pflueger, who took over running the car dealerships in 2002, prepare a false income tax return that failed to report as income personal expenses the company paid for him.read … Running Down the Clock
CoR Inspires DoE Money Grab
CB: Hawaii Board of Education members at a budget hearing Tuesday urged officials to get a better handle on the millions of dollars that could be chopped from the state’s education budget in July should predicted sequestration cutbacks and preliminary state funding proposals take effect.
Some members said they fear the massive cuts — and the lack of concrete contingency plans — could severely stymie progress the state Department of Education has made on its Strategic Plan and other reform initiatives.
“We’re really trying to transform the Department of Education to . . . make it more efficient,” BOE Budget Committee Chair Wesley Lo told Civil Beat. “The problem is, when you don’t have adequate resources, you have to keep on changing your path, and that becomes counterproductive at times.”
Meantime, the state budget being proposed by the House reflects nearly $19 million less for the DOE next fiscal year than requested in Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s two-year budget plan. The reductions would amount to more than $43.5 million for the 2014 fiscal year.
The House version of the state budget bill — House Bill 200, which was approved earlier this month — reflects cutbacks in general fund appropriations and additional funding for the state’s plan to buy laptops and iPads for every student. It would also cut funding for Hawaiian Language test development in the 2014 fiscal year.
HB 200 would also cut more than 190 permanent and temporary DOE positions next fiscal year.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee heard the budget bill Tuesday and is expected to amend it in response to Hawaii’s brighter-than-anticipated fiscal forecast and the slew of testimony submitted this week by department heads and other state officials.
SA: Department of Education sees its budget request trimmed by about $64 million
read … Mo Money
UH Manoa Faculty Jealous of New Librarian Pay
SA: University of Hawaii at Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple is defending the decision to set the proposed salary for Manoa's incoming head librarian at $195,000….
State Rep. K. Mark Takai (D, Newtown-Pearl City), a member of the House Education Committee and a longtime critic of executive salaries at UH, said the proposed salary for Herold is "ridiculous."
Takai added that the high salary "creates a very challenging morale situation" at a time when faculty members, including UH librarians, are being asked to do more with less….
But in testimony on the bill earlier this session, UH Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Linda Johnsrud said UH "competes to attract and acquire personnel with demonstrated competence and experience."
She also said 33 UH employees earn twice than the governor's pay or more; 13 are researchers or professors.
The governor's official salary is $123,486, but he actually earns $117,312 after a 5 percent pay cut in 2009.
Among the faculty members sounding off about Herold's salary is Monica Ghosh, a 22-year veteran of UH-Manoa's Hamilton Library.
Ghosh, a South Asia studies librarian and head of the Asia collection at Hamilton, said she heard about the proposed salary in the same week that she was turned down for a $3,000 pay increase request. She earns "under $80,000," she said.
"I'm happy for people who negotiate higher salaries, but I think what is happening is the gap between administrative salaries and faculty is just getting wider and wider," Ghosh said.
UH-Manoa librarians earn from $57,500 to $117,000 annually. The median salary for librarian V, the highest rank, is $90,800 at UH-Manoa, according to the faculty union.
read … UH's new chief librarian is due for big pay raise
State Departments urge Senate to Fund Vacant Positions
AP: Heads of Hawaii state departments are urging lawmakers to reverse the state House's decision to cut more than 900 vacant positions from department budgets.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee is meeting Tuesday to hear testimony about the House's $23.25 billion biennial budget draft, which falls about $590 million short of Gov. Neil Abercrombie's request.
The House proposal adds funding for various positions and programs at state departments but removes funding for hundreds of positions that have been vacant for two years or more.
Lawmakers are facing backlash from state department heads who say the cuts are indiscriminate and harmful.
"You are always going to see a certain percentage of vacancies in each department," Barbara Krieg, director of Department of Human Resources Development, told senators on Tuesday.
read … Headed for Conference Committee
Shapiro: Hanohano Endangers Support for Hawaiian Sovereignty
Shapiro: Hawaiians can't accomplish their goals without support from others in the community, the majority of whom want to show respect for Hawaii's host culture and fairly resolve grievances over past wrongs.
Support for Hawaiian sovereignty is nearly universal in local halls of government. It's the closest thing to a motherhood issue we have.
Much of the community and political support is based on assurances that "foreigners" would be as welcome in a new sovereign Hawaiian nation as they were in the old Hawaiian kingdom.
See how fast community support evaporates if other groups get the idea they'd be reviled because of their race and start calling their legislators to complain.
See if respect holds up for the host culture if leaders like Hanohano turn it in a crude and racist direction.
read … Motherhood Issue
Honolulu Ethics: Three Investigators Oversee Massive Criminal Organization
CB: Caldwell’s budget seeks to increase funding for the Honolulu Ethics Commission by about $80,000. That isn’t a lot of money in a $2 billion spending plan, but if approved would be enough for the three-person agency to hire another investigator.
The allocation, however, is still a far cry from doubling the commission’s $280,000 budget, a request the agency’s top administrator asked for in January to “fight against public corruption.”
“Certainly what we’ve been allocated by the administration and what the City Council is reviewing is a big step in the right direction,” Honolulu Ethics Commission Executive Director Chuck Totto said of the $80,000 bump.
Totto said there's been a "bottleneck" because there are too few investigators to do preliminary work and see if evidence warrants moving forward.
Totto has two employees to help him oversee a city workforce of 8,500. He has an attorney who can investigate cases and a legal clerk. The three of them work in a cramped office space in the Standard Financial Plaza on King Street. File cabinets are full and cardboard boxes are stacked to the ceiling.
The workload is heavy. The Ethics Commission has seen its cases increase by 233 percent in the past five years. In Fiscal Year 2012, the commission investigated 70 complaints. This year that number is expected to eclipse 100 with even more cases — 165 — anticipated in 2014.
Those investigations are in addition to the hundreds of requests for advice the ethics commission receives each year.
A new training program is one reason for the expected increase in complaints, Totto said.
read … Watching the Mob
Occupy Honolulu protesters plan City Hall sleepover
KHON: Occupy Honolulu is holding a 24-hour sleepover to protest several bills being considered on Wednesday.
Their message: to tell the city to stop criminalizing houselessness give free reign to the homelessness industry.
In response, Mayor Kirk Caldwell has marked off an area in front of Honolulu Hale as a free speech zone.
read … Tent City
Hawaii's Rising Truancy Problem Leaves Lawmakers Scrambling
CB: “We view truancy and runaway as a gateway crime,” state Office of Youth Services Executive Director David Hipp said. “If you’re not in school and get hungry, for instance, you’re likely to steal and it becomes a downward spiral.”
He is particularly concerned by Hawaii’s abnormally high number of status offenses — acts that would not be criminal if they were committed by an adult.
There were 78,709 status offense arrests from 2000 to 2010, with almost a quarter of those for truancy, and nearly two-thirds for running away from home, according to Department of Human Services statistics.
Over the past decade, roughly half of all juvenile arrests were status offenses. Nationally, status offenses generally comprise about 10 percent of those arrests, Hipp said.
“The evidence is overwhelming that once you get into the system, the likelihood of recidivism increases and the chances of becoming a productive adult go way down,” he said….
House Bill 237, which stalled in the Finance Committee last month, would have appropriated funds to the Department of Education for two new alternative schools — one in the Leeward district and one in Honolulu….
Five percent of students across the nation drop out of school each year, and most of these students begin as truants, House Bill 190 says…. The bill proposes establishing a working group to study the methods to prevent or control truancy in elementary schools, including the creation of a community truancy board…. After clearing the House, HB 190 now rests in the hands of Senate Education Chair Jill Tokuda, who has yet to schedule a hearing for it….
Senate Bill 391 would create a two-year pilot program, which the Office of Youth Services would coordinate, to create a network of safe places where kids could obtain advice and get services.
read … Truancy
Online travel companies ordered to pay state $70M in penalties due to unpaid General Excise Tax
KHON: On Jan. 11, a judge granted summary judgment in favor of the State of Hawaii against online travel companies including Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Orbitz, Travelocity, and Priceline, ruling that the General Excise Tax applies to the sales of Hawaii hotel rooms by online travel companies.
On Monday, a judge signed off on $70 million in penalties for the companies, in addition to the $158 million in taxes the companies owe.
The state says with the court’s ruling, Hawaii should collect $20 million a year in taxes.
read … Tax Bill
Payment Protection: Credit card companies call Hawaii AG’s petition for appeal weak
LJ: A group of credit card issuers say Hawaii Attorney General David Louie has no grounds to file an interlocutory appeal with a federal appeals court, calling the attorney general’s arguments “piecemeal.”
In January, a federal judge granted a motion by Louie, allowing him to file a proposed appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
read … Law Journal
Anti-Geothermal bill evolves
HTH: Legislation seeking to change regulations regarding geothermal development remains alive though it’s not quite the same bill with which lawmakers started.
House Bill 106 initially sought to repeal Act 97, legislation adopted last year that eliminated geothermal subzones, a land use designation first created when the state began pursuing geothermal development but since seen as too burdensome by state land managers.
Critics of the act, who believe geothermal development should be restricted to designated areas, say it removed too many regulations for tapping into the state’s underground heat sources, including a county permitting process.
The House Committee on Water and Land replaced HB 106 last month with another geothermal bill. The new version also would re-establish the geothermal resource permit process for counties but would not reinstate the subzones….
It also would require a “buffer zone” between new geothermal development and other lands, and assessments for new projects that include environmental and social impacts, and the development’s compatibility with nearby land uses….
In his written testimony, DLNR Chair William Aila said that removal of subzones “reduced a layer of state regulation concerning geothermal development.”
“Eliminating geothermal subzone designation requirements streamlined a portion of the regulatory process and could encourage developers who are ready and willing to help Hawaii meet its clean energy goals,” he said.
Aila also wrote the department is supportive of restoring the counties’ authority to issue geothermal resource permits, which the act removed.
read … Working to Keep Electricity Expensive
Film tax credit advances
HTH: Proposed changes to the state’s film industry credit program would create a media infrastructure credit to allow moviemakers to build studios and other production-support services — but only on Maui and West Oahu.
Oahu Sen. David Ige introduced SB 463, which initially proposed increasing the film tax credit from 15 to 20 percent for Oahu projects and from 20 to 25 percent for projects on other islands along with the infrastructure tax credit. That credit would be applied to the production company’s tax liability after other tax credits are applied, according to a committee report. The bill also aims to remove the $8 million credit per production.
The measure crossed over to the House, where the Economic Development and Business Committee voted Tuesday to amend it with HB 799, which also addresses media production credits. That bill doesn’t offer the media infrastructure credit, but it does broaden the credit to allow a workforce development training program for film production.
read … Giveaway to Billionaires
UH System to Load Athletic Debt on UH Manoa
SA: Chancellor Tom Apple would be required to offer a timetable for retiring the athletic department's $11.3 million accumulated net deficit and be held directly accountable for athletic oversight, according to proposals scheduled to go before the University of Hawaii Board of Regents on Thursday.
The department has run at a seven-figure net deficit since 2003 and, with the current budget expected to be approximately $2 million in the red, regents have been told the figure could surpass $13 million by the end of the current fiscal year, which concludes June 30.
read … Maybe he should hold a Fundraising Concert
Legislators Ignore SB692 to Restrain Pickup Bed Passengers
SA: Senate Bill 692, proposed by Sens. Will Espero and Mike Gabbard but ignored in the current legislative session, which would forbid passengers on Oahu from sitting in a pickup's bed except in an emergency or in parades, caravans or exhibitions. That is a serious proposal that should be considered next year.
read … Not a Priority
SB642: Cigars Can Be Displayed, Cigarettes Cannot
CA: Senate Bill 642, first introduced in January, called for cigarettes and tobacco products, including premium cigars, to be stored for sale behind a counter in certain establishments. Display bans such as this already exist in Canada, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing a similar law, but one that would be far more controversial due to the precedence it could set in the United States.
Last Friday, though, lawmakers in Hawaii amended SB 642 to exclude premium cigars. It now only pertains to cigarettes and some other tobacco products.
read … On Display
Sequester Puts 200 People on the Road
SA: The Navy said Monday that beginning immediately, operating hours were changing at gyms, libraries and arts centers, while cable television was canceled in common areas such as lounges and offices.
The water taxi service for military members and families between Iroquois Point housing and the Pearl Harbor Navy base has been canceled. An official said 150 to 200 people used the service daily.
read … Sequester
Woman at center of spy allegations not Arrested
AP: The 27-year-old Chinese woman at the center of spying allegations hanging over her boyfriend, a defense contractor in Hawaii, is not in custody.
Her identity and whereabouts haven't been released, and U.S. authorities also haven't said whether they believe she is working for the Chinese government. She lives in the United States as a student on a J-1 visa, according to an affidavit the FBI filed this week by the FBI in U.S. District Court in Honolulu.
"While she is not charged in the criminal complaint, the government is aware of her location and is continuing the investigation to determine the role of all involved," said a Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
SA: Arrested man's neighbors 'cannot believe' spying rap
read … Enigma
Tulsi Gabbard Appears in Reality TV Show
TH: The show, which follows a fictional congressional campaign and stars “West Wing” alum Melissa Fitzgerald, was shown as part of the D.C. Environmental Film Festival.
Gabbard is one of several real-life politicians with a cameo in the series.
The congresswoman, who was all smiles Saturday, praised the Capitol Hill-focused show in a statement ahead of the screening, saying, “While many political dramas aim to capture the reality of public life, ‘Chasing The Hill’ hits the mark.”
LINK: Chasing the Hill
PR: Chasing
read … Reality?
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