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Hirono, Schatz Cast Decisive Votes as Senate Passes Trillion Dollar Tax Hike
Governor Releases $26.2 Million for Education Facilities Statewide
Senate Budget Bill to Fund 900 Vacant Positions, Abercrombie Preschool Scheme
SA: Gov. Neil Abercrombie's preschool proposal will likely be getting a boost from the state Senate Ways and Means Committee.
Committee Chairman David Ige said Friday that the committee, which is in the process of mulling over its version of the state budget, plans to fund the proposed early childhood program. He said senators are still debating exactly how much to set aside…. the state House budget draft didn't include any funding for the proposal.
House Finance Committee Chairwoman Sylvia Luke said previously that the committee chose not to fund any proposals that are still being debated. The House budget proposal fell about $590 million short of Abercrombie's request.
The House draft also removed funding for more than 900 vacant positions in state departments.
Ige told The Associated Press that the Senate committee won't include those cuts in its budget proposal….
Ige says the committee is aiming to publish its budget draft by April 1. (Perfect timing.) He said he expects it to be somewhere between the House's $23.25 billion proposal and Abercrombie's $23.8 billion request.
CB: KSBE Early Education Rally Expected to Draw Hundreds Saturday
read … State Senate committee plans bigger budget
University of Hawaii President 348 Days of Travel and Vacation in Four Years
HR: MRC Greenwood has traveled for nearly one year out of her four-year tenure as University of Hawaii President, according to records obtained from the University administration. (see MRC Greenwood's travel records)
Between June 2009 and February 2013, Greenwood was out of state for 238 days and traveling between islands for 68 days. She also took 42 days of vacation.
“It is vital to the university's national and international reputation for the president, in many ways the face of the University, to be active external to the campus,” said University spokeswoman Lynne Waters. “The benefits of this investment of time and energy may not be measurable in the short run, but they certainly will in the long run.”
The University of Hawaii Foundation covered the vast majority of the travel costs, more than $133,000. Other organizations and associations of which Greenwood is a member paid between $500 and $7,000 for her to travel to conferences and events in the mainland. The University itself sponsored just over $6,200 for travel related costs, mainly for Greenwood to visit neighbor island campuses or attend regent meetings.
State Rep. K. Mark Takai, a University of Hawaii graduate and former editor of the student newspaper Ka Leo, said Greenwood’s extensive travel is “clearly a concern.”….
Former Regent Kitty Lagareta said she believes Greenwood is an effective president who should be expected to travel extensively….
We Told You So: >>> MRC Greenwood and the $871 million dollar secret, MRC Greenwood and "A Powerful Coterie of larcenous. . . ." (UH's next system President?)
read … Travel
Report: UH Professors Have 33% Fewer Students, Work 39% Fewer Hours Than Average
SA: Nearly 20 percent of undergraduate courses at UH-Manoa have fewer than 10 students, says a new University of Hawaii report prepared as part of a push to find long-term opportunities for bringing down the cost of educating students.
The report found:
- Just 24 percent of undergraduate courses at UH-Manoa have more than 25 students, and that figure has remained relatively steady since 2005. At UH-Hilo, 27 percent of courses have more than 25 students, while nearly half of courses at UH-West Oahu have more than 25.
- UH-Manoa had the highest percentage of undergraduate courses with fewer than 10 students — at 19 percent — followed by UH-Hilo at 13 percent and UH community colleges at 8 percent. At UH-West Oahu, 4 percent of courses had fewer than 10 students.
- UH-Manoa had a lower student-to-faculty ratio — at 12-to-1 — than its mainland peer institutions, where the average student-to-faculty ratio is 18-to-1. (6/18 = 33%) The ratio at UH-Hilo is 15-to-1, compared with 16-to-1 for its peer group.
- Faculty at UH-Manoa put in 332 "student semester hours" on average in 2012, while the average for their peer group was 545. The number represents the number of credits each faculty member taught multiplied by the number of students and the number of classes taught. (213/545 = 39%)
- Faculty at UH-Hilo generated 389 student semester hours in 2012, while those in their peer group average 505.
Board of Regents members said the results indicated there was room for cutting costs.
read … UH officials look into productivity
Star-Adv Covers Bipartisan House Jones Act Resolution
SA: A bipartisan group of five Hawaii lawmakers has introduced a resolution that if passed would ask Congress to allow foreign-built ships to carry cargo to Hawaii from the mainland under a limited exemption to the Jones Act.
The measure, House Resolution 119, was introduced last week along with companion measure House Concurrent Resolution 150 by two Republicans and three Democrats.
Lead sponsor Rep. Gene Ward (R, Kalama Valley-Queen's Gate-Hawaii Kai) said in a written announcement that the high cost of building new ships at domestic shipyards is the main cost driver in Hawaii shipping, and so residents would save money without it.
The proposed exemption wouldn't change other key elements of the Jones Act that require cargo between two U.S. ports be delivered on ships with U.S. crews, owners and flags.
The resolution seeks an exemption only for building ships domestically, and asks that Alaska and Puerto Rico also be given the same exemption.
The proposed exemption is modeled on similar but more limited exemptions in place for Guam and cruise ships serving Hawaii.
Ward also said such an exemption would play an important role in an effort to import liquefied natural gas as an alternative to oil for generating electricity. He said U.S. shipyards haven't built liquefied natural gas carriers since the 1970s….
The council estimates that U.S.-built ships cost five times as much as foreign-built ships.
Matson, which spent $500 million buying four new ships in the past decade and plans to spend another $400 million in the next three to five years on two more new ships, opposes the proposed exemption.
Hawaii's largest ocean cargo carrier said the U.S.-built requirement is a vital component of the Jones Act that helps ensure the country has strong shipyards.
"We should not become dependent on foreign shipyards to support the U.S.-flag maritime industry," Matson said in a statement.
Matson also said the cost of ships represents a "small percentage" of overall operating costs and that other U.S.-flag cargo transportation companies are aligned in support of building ships domestically.
‘Strong Shipyards?’: Jones Act U.S.- build requirement is a sham
Related: Sen Solomon Resolutions Urge Hawaii Jones Act Exemption, Rep. Ward urges Jones Act reform, Jones Act: Five House Reps Introduce Resolution Urging Reform
read … Bipartisan group seeks limited exemption from Jones Act
DelaCruz Proposes State Run Collectivized Agriculture
PR: State Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz thinks the state should purchase land in Central Oahu that Dole Food Co. has offered for sale, adding to the Galbraith Estate land the state has already picked up.
The roughly 22,500 acres of Dole land could cost from $175 million to $200 million. Dela Cruz suggests the state could float general obligation or revenue bonds to finance the purchase, with farmers and other tenants paying back the bonds.
read … State-Run Collectivized Agriculture
Star-Adv: Lets Sponsor a State-Wide Pot Party
Star-Adv: Hawaii can take some logical steps by transferring the medical marijuana program to the Health Department (to make it harder to catch drug dealers) and decriminalizing possession of small amounts for recreational use (so we can keep college kids doped up so they will accept all the Gramscian drivel).
Starting with California in 1996, Hawaii is among 18 states and the District of Columbia that allow marijuana to be used for medical purposes, which has (not) proven (medically) effective (but has proven effective in creating more liberals). The program in Hawaii has been administered by the state Department of Public Safety but should have been transferred long ago to the Department of Health, where it belongs.
Senate Health Committee Chairman Josh Green, a Hawaii island physician, has blocked such a transfer in the past (favoring Oxycontin instead) but has allowed the proposed transfer to go forward this session. He acknowledges that marijuana has been of benefit to cancer patients (actually Marijuana causes cancer just as tobacco does) and others with chronic pain, nausea and loss of appetite. (Actually Hawaii’s 10,000 medicated marijuana patients are young males who want to get high. Nobody believes ‘medical marijuana’ crap. Maybe young females will start asking why they can’t find a husband. Answer: He’s on the couch in his mom’s basement. Another blow to the nuclear family.)
read … Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll
Clayton Hee: City May Not Roust Sleeping Bums from Bus Stops
DN: It seems that the Senate Judiciary Committee (Chair, Clayton Hee) agreed with the testimony by the Office of the Public Defender on House Bill 31. From the committee report just posted:
Your Committee recognizes the concerns raised in the written testimony submitted by the Office of the Public Defender that the act of sleeping at or near a bus stop is not conduct or behavior that is inherently bad or unacceptable. The Office testified that under section 711-1101, Hawaii Revised Statutes, the offense of disorderly conduct involves the act of bad conduct or behavior that includes fighting, threatening, violent or tumultuous behavior, unreasonable noise, offensively coarse behavior, or abusive language, to name a few actions. The act of sleeping at or impeding access to a bus stop does not appear to align with the types of disorderly conduct specified under section 711-1101, Hawaii Revised Statutes.
Furthermore, the Office of the Public Defender raised concerns that this measure would be criminalizing homelessness, as a person sleeping at a bus stop may have refused accommodations at a shelter and may have chosen to remain on the street for various reasons. While your Committee recognizes the problems that individuals who impede access to or sleep at bus stops cause, homelessness is not and should not be a crime.
Let’s see if their reasoning holds—the bill is still alive.
What’s left in it? Several grammatical corrections to the existing law.
read … Clayton Hee’s Gift to Homeless Industry
Punatics Hyperventilate over Geothermal Steam Release
SA: Civil Defense convened a meeting Friday to review the response to the emergency release of 125,000 pounds of steam March 12 at the PGV geothermal power plant when it tripped offline due to faults on two Hawaii Electric Light Co. transmission lines. (125,000 lbs steam = 15,625 gallons of water. Equivalent to size of a typical Puna catchment tank.)
More than 20,000 HELCO customers lost power across the island.
Puna residents heard a loud rushing sound like a jet plane, saw the large steam plume and detected a rotten-egg smell.
The Hawaii County Fire Department was first notified when it received a 911 call from a community resident who smelled the odor of hydrogen sulfide, and at about the same time got a call from PGV, said Battalion Chief Gerald Kosaki.
A radio, email and text message notification was used to inform residents, as well as police and fire units driving through the area and addressing residents, Oliveira has said.
Puna Pono Alliance is holding a community meeting at 4 p.m. today at the Akebono Theater in Pahoa to discuss what it says is the lack of information on the release, which has caused alarm. (There will be 100s of enraged people there. A mob.)
Oliveira said last week that Civil Defense is looking into a siren with a specific warning tone for chemical release around the 3.5-mile radius of PGV's plant, like one at Campbell Industrial Park on Oahu.
Hydrogen sulfide levels detected were well below safety standards, officials said.
Test Puna’s IQ: Google “Geothermal Evacuation” Puna is the only place on Earth con-vinced to establish geothermal evacuation plan for this non-threat.
read … About How Your Electric Bills Stay High
Steven Tyler Act stalls in Hawaii
AP: …the bill is missing deadlines in the state House, and key lawmakers say they won't push it through.
Rep. Angus McKelvey, chairman of the first of three panels the bill needs to pass to get to the House floor, said he won't hold a hearing for the measure.
"There is zero support for that legislation in the House of Representatives," said the Maui Democrat, who heads the Consumer Protection Committee. "To say there is absolutely zero support would be an understatement."
The bill already has missed one internal House deadline to be considered. A second deadline to hear the measure is on Thursday….
MN: Congrats for Killing Steven Tyler Bill
read … Paparazzi
Tracking bills on your smartphone with a free RSS reader
DN: This method is really easy, and I recommend it. No external programs are required. Just your smartphone and a downloaded RSS reader. I can talk about Android phones—if you have an iPhone there is something for you also, but I don’t know what to recommend. So everyone can do this, even though I’m only speaking to Android users here.
First, you need an RSS reader. If you don’t already have one, for an Android phone, go to the Play Store and try the free version of RSS Demon, for example. Others will work as well, or perhaps even better. Free is good, that’s one of the reasons I selected this one to begin with. Even if you already use an RSS or podcast reader, you may want to leave that one as-is and download another just for bill tracking. At the end of the session you can simply un-install it.
Let’s go through the steps assuming you have RSS Demon, but others will not be too different.
- Step 1 - The program comes with some feeds already selected. You can keep them, or just uncheck them and they won’t bother you again. To do that, use the Menu key on your phone (Menu > More> Manage Sources).
- Step 2 - You’ll also want to set up notifications via the Settings selection on the menu (Menu key > More > Settings > Notifications). I picked a ring tone and asked it to flash the LED as well. Ok, now the program is set up.
- Step 3 – search the Capitol website and find the bill you want to track….
- Step 4 – Grab the feed….
- Step 5 – Back in your RSS reader, add the feed (Menu > More > Manage Sources > Feed URL > +). Paste the URL into the text box and Save it…..
read … Easy How-to Guide
Revamped state websites lack access to minutes
ILind: Take the Department of Agriculture. I was interested in meetings of the Board of Agriculture. And it looked like it would be easy to find information about the board’s meetings and actions, because there’s a link at the top for “meetings and reports.” It led to another page of links. At the top, a link to “Board of Agriculture Meetings.” So I clicked again.
This third level had yet another set of links to agendas and “actions” of the board.
Along with these links was this message:
Minutes of meetings are available upon written request.
Please include your name, address, phone number, name of board and date of meeting. Requests may be sent to: [Department of Agriculture address]
So after clicking through several levels, you discover that Board of Agriculture minutes are not publicly available online.
Is somebody actually paid to devise these uninformative sites?
read … Secrecy
Hawaii House committee defers gambling resolution
AP: A Hawaii House committee rejected a resolution Friday asking the state to study the potential social and economic effects of gambling in Hawaii….
Economic development committee Chairman Clift Tsuji said the panel rejected the proposal because the study would be too expensive. He suggested that lawmakers hold an informational briefing instead….
The issue was one of several resolutions that House lawmakers considered Friday. Resolutions are official statements that don't have the force of law.
Tsuji's committee moved forward a resolution to use federal funding to research the feasibility of "creating a world-class commercial space launch and control facility in Hawaii." Rep. Angus McKelvey introduced the resolution…
Meanwhile, the Senate Education Committee advanced a resolution asking the Board of Education to develop a sexuality health education program. The Hawaii Youth Services Network, which supports the resolution, said Hawaii has the 12th highest rate of teen pregnancy in the U.S.
read … Close, but No Cigar
Hawaii Shippers Council: GAO’s Jones Act Report Is Inconclusive
Guam PNC: Among Hansen's initial observations are that:
"The report’s point-of-view is decidedly skewed to the domestic ocean carriers and other Jones Act shipping interests. The report doesn’t really seem to make any recommendations, rather it offers a “on the one hand, and then the other hand” kind of conclusion."
He writes that the report "does cover both a “full exemption” from the Jones Act and a “limited exemption” from the U.S. build requirement of the Jones Act. There appears to be several outright errors in the report, and at least a couple of material omissions."
Hansen says that the Hawaii Shippers Council will "issue a formal critique of the GAO in due course after we have more time to review it."
Meanwhile, in response to the GAO report, Hansen says that Puerto Rico's Resident Commissioner, Pedro Pierluisi, has announced that he will "introduce legislation to assist shippers of energy – including liquefied natural gas (LNG)[an energy source Guam intends to adapt in the near future] "in the domestic noncontiguous Puerto Rico trade."
Hansen also points out that Representative Pierluisi's proposal "for the liquid bulk cargoes would be to allow foreign flag vessels in to the domestic Puerto Rico trade, his remedy for the dry bulk market is less well defined and he states it would be his intention to “relax” the Jones Act restrictions in this sector of the trade."
read … Hawaii Shippers Council: GAO’s Jones Act Report Is Inconclusive
Judge calls federal espionage accusation into doubt
SA March 23, 2013: A federal judge said the case against a Camp Smith military intelligence defense contractor is not espionage and, unless the government has evidence of missing files that he could disclose while out on bail, questioned whether he is a danger to the community.
Benjamin Pierce Bishop, 59, is facing charges that he gave classified national security information to his 27-year-old girlfriend, a Chinese national in the United States on a student visa, and that he kept classified files in his Makakilo home.
A hearing on whether to grant Bishop bail was held Friday before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Richard Puglisi, who set another hearing for Monday….
Bervar agreed that the case is not one of espionage. He said there is no evidence that Bishop's girlfriend is a spy for the Chinese government and that she passed on any information to the Chinese or any other foreign government.
He said he spoke to the woman Thursday and said she has not been arrested and remains in the U.S.
Bervar declined to say where the woman is residing. He said the FBI searched her home Feb. 15, seized some items and questioned her. He said the woman remains in contact with the FBI and that she passed a government-administered polygraph test.
read … Espionage?
At Legislative Town Hall, East Oahu Residents Express Outrage Over Proposed KSBE Development on Preservation Land
HR: "It's definitely not a strip mall," Kamehameha Schools Area Development Director Susan Todani tried to tell the skeptical audience Thursday night. ”We're really thinking about a gathering place that's so much more than just retail. We're thinking about combining community amenities, such as a waterfront-recreational path and pedestrian and bikeways and playgrounds. Incorporating the dog park, that's a really important feature to this community."
The land, now zoned as preservation, is one of the few undeveloped parcels in the busy community, and it would have to be rezoned by the Honolulu City Council before any commercial development moves forward. There already are three major shopping centers in Hawaii Kai and a smaller one that is relatively unused at the entrance to Kalama Valley - all of the land under the centers is owned by Kamehameha Schools.
Residents did not buy Todani’s attempt to downplay the development’s size or purpose, and even were upset by several of her statements, especially as she compared Hawaii Kai to other “anti development” communities, as she claimed the development would benefit Hawaiian children at Kamehameha Schools, and as she used Hawaiian words that native Hawaiians attending took offense at.
The meeting went further downhill for Kamehameha Schools and Foodland when they brought up their poll.
Kamehameha Schools hired OmniTrak Group Inc., a locally owned polling company, to call Hawaii Kai residents and gage support for the project. A representative from OmniTrak testified that 72 percent of the nearly 400 people who were contacted were in support of the project. But several people in the audience said those results were highly suspect….
after Sen. Laura Thielen, one of the sponsors of the event, detailed the extensive permitting and rezoning process Kamehameha Schools still has to go through, Todani admitted it would take at least four years to get the project completed if it moved forward….
read … Preservation Rezone
Sierra Club Leader Lost on Mauna Kea
HTH: “It was really, really cold,” said Jennifer Ho, a massage therapist for Klein Chiropractic Center, about her unplanned overnight stay on the mountain after being separated from a group hiking in the Mauna Kea Ice Age Natural Reserve Area.
Nelson Ho, a prominent environmentalist and chairman of the Sierra Club’s Moku Loa Group, said his wife she started to feel the effects of elevation sickness and told the others she was returning to the vehicle, which was parked on the side of Mauna Kea Access Road. He said the group was only about 300 yards away from the vehicle, so he thought it would be safe for his wife to turn back.
“That was my error,” Nelson Ho said. “I should have escorted her back to the roadway if not back to the vehicle.”
Jennifer Ho said she left her cell phone in the car because the battery had gone dead, and she didn’t have a flashlight or reflective clothing.
“I thought it was just going to be a couple of hours hike,” she said.
County Fire and Police departments, Pohakuloa Fire Department, Mauna Kea rangers and friends searched Wednesday nightmorning for Ho. On Thursday, the search included helicopters from county Fire Rescue and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, but Ho ended up inadvertently finding the historic Humu‘ula Trail and was descending from the mountain.
“Once I figured out I was going the wrong way, I didn’t want to go back uphill, because it’s too hard to breathe up there and there’s a lot of rubble and stuff, so I thought I would cut straight across and I would run into the (access) road, but I never did.”
She managed to make her way to Saddle Road by midday Thursday, and was picked up by “two good Samaritans, Ryan and Louie.”
SA: 300-yard hike for woman turns into 15-mile trial
read … Sierra Club
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