Company With Ties to Abercrombie, DelaCruz Seeks $200M from Legislature
HSTA, DoE Announce Tentative Contract Agreement
Taxes, Marriage, PLDC Top Agenda for Hawaii Republican Assembly
For the First Time, Welfare to Work is Being Enforced in Hawaii
KHON: Unemployed folks living in federal housing are being asked to do community service or move out. It's a federal requirement that's been in affect for more than a decade, but there's a new push to enforce it here in Hawaii….
The word has been spreading fast that any adult working less than 30 hours a week is required to do at least 8 hours of community service a month or face eviction….
The federal requirement has been in existence since 2003, but it hasn't always been as strictly enforced.
In Hawaii, there are about 5,200 families that live in federal housing, 30-percent of those adults are required to perform community service because they are not working or going to school full time. That equates to about 500,000 volunteer hours a year….
The property manager who signs off on the volunteer time sheets are supposed to use their discretion….
So far, no one has been evicted solely because they didn't fulfill their community service requirement.
There are 10,000 people on the waiting list to get into public housing.
read … Debate stirs over community service mandate for certain public housing residents
Tax Cut or More Giveaways to Tax Credit Scammers?
SA: State House leaders are interested in providing income tax relief — an idea that has not had currency at the Legislature since the state was flush with a record budget surplus.
House Speaker Joseph Souki says the state's top marginal income tax rate of 11 percent, approved in 2009 to help reduce the state's budget deficit, is too high a burden on taxpayers. He would repeal the top rate at the end of 2014, one year sooner than scheduled, which would cost the state $48.6 million.
House Majority Leader Scott Saiki said lawmakers are also looking "to expand the concept to see if it's possible to make it more of a middle-class cut, as opposed to just reducing the top bracket."
Details of a tax relief package will likely not emerge until the House and Senate move closer to a state budget agreement and identify the amount of money available to spend on new initiatives. Sen. David Ige (D, Pearl Harbor-Pearl City-Aiea), chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said he could add more shape to the idea this week when his committee takes up House Bill 694, the House's tax relief vehicle.
Income tax relief could compete with an expansion of film production tax credits or cash incentives for entrepreneurs when lawmakers weigh economic stimuli before the end of session in May.
read … Tax Relief
Leading Progressive Columnist Makes Complete Fool of Herself
CB: Dawn Morais Webster on Civil Beat: “I am Asian and I have just learned something about myself, thanks to Senator Sam Slom’s appearance on national television. According to Mr. Slom, we Asians “are usually more industrious and hardworking." So, not to let the side down, I decided to be industrious and take a crack at addressing the ignorant stereotypes dished out by the good Senator.”
Note to Webster and Civil Beat: Here is the transcript of Sen Sam Slom's interview. As you can see there is nothing in it about "Asians" or "industrious" so the entire premise of your column is based on a falsehood. How embarrassing for you -- and your editor. Is anybody doing fact check over there--or are you clowns so full of your own agenda that it is beyond question?
The “culture” which is OK with sex with children—is the Legislative culture: Child molester back at work at Hawaii Legislature
read … Some Agenda Driven Drivel
Concerns arise over $150M Road Repair Plan
SA: Much has been made of Mayor Kirk Caldwell's plan to spend $150 million in the next fiscal year to repave roads, an endeavor he had hoped to pay for with a gas tax increase. But some public officials have questioned whether the city could get all that spending out the door in a single year, converting all those dollars into smoother roads across Honolulu in a relatively short time.
"Last year we went to the budget … but the administration kept testifying against it," City Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi said in February, referring to this year's road repair budget of $100 million. That's up from $77 million the prior year.
"They can't even do $77 million. How are they going to do $150 million?" Kobayashi wondered.
On Wednesday, Councilman Stanley Chang contended that almost all of $100 million the Council earmarked last year for road repaving has yet to be spent. Caldwell disagreed, saying it simply takes time to process all the contracts.
SA: Roadwork practices slammed in '05 audit
SA: Years of neglect drive up costs
read … $150M
UH Spending Millions On PR Efforts
CB: Amid surging tuition rates, a shrinking state budget and a failed concert fiasco that raised concerns over the institution’s internal structure, the University of Hawaii this past year spent roughly $4 million of its $1.4 billion operating budget on public relations, marketing and outreach, according to a Civil Beat review of records provided by the university.
That money covered a broad range of communications activities as well as the approximately 41 positions in charge of running them. Overall, the university spends about $65 per pupil on public relations and related services.
Data suggests that UH’s communications expenditures are on par with those at comparable public universities. But many of those institutions have swelling public relations budgets — a trend that has critics questioning whether universities are doing enough to keep costs in check and put students on track to success….
The university earlier this year created a 39-page tabloid insert — entitled “The Sky is Not the Limit” — that was published in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
A contract with Oahu Publications for production and distribution services cost $84,000. Individual UH campuses and programs foot the bill for the contract services by purchasing ad space in the insert, according to the initiative’s lead spokeswoman Kelli Abe-Trifonovitch. (The contract also included producing magazines containing the same content.)
The money paid to have the insert put in 146,000 copies of the newspaper. The magazine version was sent to 4,500 business leaders. And the initiative got some press on local TV, radio and newspapers.
CB: UH-Produced 'Fake News' Has Recurring Role in Hawaii Newscasts
read … UH Spending Millions On PR Efforts
Pflueger Honda Changes Name after Bad Publicity
SA: The Pflueger name might no longer top at least one of the family's car dealerships. The trade name Pacific Honda was registered as a car dealership by J.P. Automobiles Inc., owner of Pflueger Honda, in October.
After decades of successful automotive business in Hawaii dating back to 1963, the family name has been in turmoil given patriarch James Pflueger's legal troubles, including the recent tax case in which he was exonerated and the still-pending case involving the deaths of seven people whose homes were washed away when the Ka Loko Dam burst on Kauai in 2006….
The younger Pflueger, his executive assistant Julie Kam, Chief Financial Officer Randall Kurata and Los Angeles accountant Dennis Duban pleaded guilty to charges relating to the elder Pflueger's tax fraud and conspiracy case.
read … What it takes to embarrass an old boy
Star-Adv Cheers as Legislature Risks Closure of HMC West
SA: As written, HB 411 does not include any alternative means of compliance for a emergency-care facility run by a religious institution that objects to this rule.
Although this would appear not to be an impediment for hospital administrations now doing business in Hawaii, it would be a good idea to enable such an alternative to cover some future, unforeseen circumstances. For example, emergency-care staff in a religious institution that objects could provide access to emergency contraception by transporting the patient to another facility, once the more immediate assault injuries have been treated.
On Oahu, this might have been a more pressing concern when St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii, a Catholic institution, owned the former Hawaii Medical Center West campus. The hospital, which serves the growing Ewa communities, recently was acquired by The Queen's Health Systems. Under current plans, the hospital will reopen in 2014.
Statements from executives of both Queen's and St. Francis confirmed that the purchase deal included an agreement that Queen's executives "would abide by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services" that governed the St. Francis operation, as well as any state laws.
These directives would preclude any medication or procedures that would terminate a pregnancy.
(Does this sound like the editors are calling for HB411 to be amended? No, quite the opposite. Read on ….)
…It's unclear how Queen's would honor both the directives and state laws, which is why enabling an alternative means of compliance would be prudent.
However, the bottom line is that lawmakers need to act in the best interest of all. The state Senate Committee on Health made the correct call by passing HB 411, which should proceed to final approval.
read … Legislators Know Best
Failed education bills demoted to resolutions
SA: Lawmakers have downgraded some of this year's unsuccessful education bills to resolutions encouraging public school officials to instead study or consider certain initiatives rather than make them with new laws.
The resolutions — which do not have the force of law — deal with issues that proved unpopular or controversial, such as requiring sex education at all schools and allowing home-schoolers to play sports in their district.
A House bill that would have made sex education mandatory for all students and require an expanded curriculum beyond the Department of Education's current abstinence-based policy died in the Senate.
Two Senate resolutions ask the Board of Education to develop a "uniform" sex health education program for all public schools.
Senate Concurrent Resolution 77 and Senate Resolution 44 were sponsored by the Democratic members of the Senate Education Committee, including Chairwoman Jill Tokuda. (Concurrent resolutions need a nod from both chambers of the Legislature.) Both measures passed out of the Senate Education Committee on Friday.
While DOE officials have said its current sex education policy cannot be enforced, resulting in inconsistent lessons at schools, it opposed the measure. The bill would have made the policy enforceable by mandating what is taught.
Another pair of resolutions — SCR 76 and SR 43 — request that the board research how other states have allowed home-schooled students to participate in extracurricular activities, such as athletics, at public schools. Both resolutions were approved Friday by the Senate Education Committee.
Bills seeking to allow the practice here failed to gain enough support earlier in the session. School districts in at least 30 states allow the practice, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association, but it's prohibited for the estimated 4,000 students who are home-schooled in Hawaii.
read … Failed education bills demoted to resolutions
Wooley Pens Anti-GMO Screed
Best Comment: “Wooley is an environmental attorney chair the agriculture committee. Environmentalists only want ag land to be fallow for conservation instead of being used by farmers to grow food.Or you have to grow it the way THEY want it grown. And her husband is an attorney for EarthJustice, the number one environmental group that sues anything and everything including Monsanto. Can you say "conflict of interest?" The only thing she's interested in is putting farmers out of business. And it starts with the seed farmers. She's doing no one any favors....least of all the people of Hawaii.”
Civil Beat: Another Agenda Driven Anti-GMO Screed Masquerading as a News Article
read … Legal worries about GMO labeling law can be overcome
800 Protest Postal Cuts
SA: An estimated 800 people rallied outside the downtown post office Sunday afternoon to protest Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe's plans to end Saturday mail delivery.
The rally was part of a coordinated national effort to draw attention to the impending cut in delivery services, which is scheduled to begin in August.
"It's the wrong turn for us to take," said Terry Kaolulo, president of the Hawaii Association of Letter Carriers. "We cannot allow them to start chipping away at delivery service."
Donahoe last month proposed that the financially strapped postal service eliminate Saturday as a way of saving an estimated $2 billion per year.
read … No Saturday Service
Grove Farm IAL Designation Tied to Biofuel Scheme
SA: Grove Farm emphasized its intent to grow biofuel crops on the designated land and said the partnership, Hawaii BioEnergy LLC, has a pending option to lease 10,000 acres.
But the state Office of Planning recommended that only 4,717 acres be granted the designation because much of the property contains poor soil, gulches and ravines.
According to the petition for designation, about 6,000 acres of the land has "very poor" soil under a University of Hawaii rating system.
About 6,000 acres is in active agricultural production, including close to 5,000 acres leased to cattle ranchers. Another roughly 4,000 acres isn't used for agriculture and includes ravines, gulches and reservoirs.
read … Biofools
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