Creative Insolvency: EUTF to Enter ‘Shadow Insurance Industry’?
Feds Give Hawaii Health Connector $128M to Pay for Overhead
Solar Scam Bonds to Fund Bank of Abercrombie
SA: At the heart of the initiative is legislation that would authorize the issuance of "green infrastructure bonds" to provide needed capital. Early indications are that the bonds would be well received by the capital markets and would allow the state to borrow at interest rates below what it currently pays on state revenue bonds.
Proceeds from the bond sale would be used to make clean-energy loans to residents and business owners, who would repay the loans with the savings on their electricity bills. Called "on-bill financing," the program would require approval by the state Public Utilities Commission.
read … Bank of Abercrombie
Abercrombie Hi Tech initiative Larded With Fat Salaries
SA: The high-tech expert hired by Gov. Neil Abercrombie to upgrade the state's aging computer and technology systems received a national award for extraordinary achievement last month, so Hawaii's "F" in a national rating of how states provide online access illustrates the complexity of the problem. The Legislature's proposed reduction of the upgrade's budget would be a significant blow that should be avoided.
Sanjeev "Sonny" Bhagowalia, the state's chief information officer of management and technology, asked for $29.7 million in each of the next two fiscal years to proceed with an ambitious improvement of the technology infra- structure and avoid "catastrophic and irretrievable loss of data and information."…
However, the state House has approved what it calls "a less aggressive approach" to reflect "a more reasonable timeframe … while focusing on the most urgently needed initiatives." It also criticizes the administration's use of "federal and market salary rates" that are more than 50 percent above the state's salaries.
read … No More Wangs?
HART Takeover of TheBus?
SA: Councilman Breene Harimoto, chairman of the City Council's Transportation Committee, has a proposal that could reshape the way transit is run on the island if the idea is embraced by his colleagues and eventually city voters.
The Council member, representing Pearl City to Waipahu, says he'd like the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation to eventually take over the city's public bus system. HART, a semiautonomous government agency, was created by a voter-approved amendment in 2010 to oversee the city's $5.26 billion rail project.
read … Push on to let rail agency run bus
SB1171: Abercrombie Admin Seeks Phased reviews of sites to find iwi
SA: State House lawmakers are growing uncomfortable with a bill that would allow the state to conduct phased reviews of the impact of construction projects on burials or other historic property.
The Abercrombie administration asked for the bill in response to a state Supreme Court ruling last August that temporarily blocked construction of the Honolulu rail project. The administration has cautioned that state construction could be delayed if archaeological inventory surveys have to first be completed for entire projects, rather than in phases, which had been the practice before the court's decision on rail.
But many Native Hawaiians contend the bill would weaken protection for human remains, or iwi, and opposition also appears to be building among conservationists and environmentalists.
read. .. Phased reviews of sites to find iwi draw debate
Waiting for Colleen
CB: If Hanabusa runs against Abercrombie — she is said to be critical of the governor's record — media-darling Gabbard may run against Schatz. If she does, it would also likely be a two-candidate primary contest; Gabbard has demonstrated impressive campaign fundraising chops, and Schatz expects to post a healthy haul when quarterly federal financing reports are due next week.
Whatever decision Hanabusa makes, her CD1 seat becomes open….
If Gabbard runs for Senate, that opens up the District 2 seat with similar consequences.
Here's a short list of the politicians that could run for either CD1 or CD2 and their handicaps: Case and Hannemann (both damaged by huge loses in consecutive races), Gary Hooser (same), Esther Kiaaina (money and name recognition); Will Espero, Josh Green, Donna Mercado Kim, Brickwood Galuteria and other ambitious legislators (same); and county officials Billy Kenoi of the Big Island and Stanley Chang of Honolulu (same)….
Schatz still seems a work in progress, vague to many voters. It's not clear whether his top priorities, including addressing global warming and pursuing renewable energy, will prove appealing.
Schatz has run just two big races. He won the 2010 Democratic lieutenant governor primary with a plurality (34 percent) of the vote in a weak, though crowded, field.
He picked up only 7 percent of the vote in another busy primary, the CD2 race in 2006 to fill the seat Case left. That's the race that sent Hirono to Congress, though she bested Hanabusa by less than 1 percentage point.
read … Waiting For Colleen
After All the Hype, Sequestration task Force Slow to Start
CB: Five weeks ago politicians painted a picture of impending doom when the automatic federal budget cuts hit Hawaii’s shores.
Canceled flights, unsafe food and lost teacher funding were forecast as part of sequestration’s multi-million-dollar impact on the isles. That hasn’t happened yet, but officials are still bracing for the worst.
The slow flow of information from the feds has hampered preparations. State department heads are working with their federal counterparts, but even they don’t know exactly what to expect or when, officials said.
“It’s not really a fiscal cliff, but more of a slope — and that slope is happening right now,” Hawaii Budget and Finance Deputy Director Luis Salaveria said Friday.
He and Kalbert Young, state budget czar, have worked the past few weeks to ensure the Legislature includes a $25 million sequestration contingency fund in the budget. It’s not enough to cover up to $45 million in direct federal grants that are at risk, but it would dampen the blow.
The House and Senate versions of the state’s $24 billion biennium budget include the requested contingency fund, according to the budget worksheets released last week. Salaveria said the Senate attached a proviso that would give the Budget and Finance Department discretion over how to allocate the money.
Meantime, sequestration preparations haven’t been moving as quickly as expected on the task force front.
read … Hawaii Has Budget Contingency Fund, But Where's The Task Force?
Early Education: Abercrombie Making it up as He Goes Along
CB: Pass my initiatives; don’t worry about the details.
That, more or less, was what I heard echoing out of the House Finance Committee this week when Governor Abercrombie testified for his early childhood education program.
His proposals would create a publicly funded educational preschool system, establish a program to prepare young children for school environments and ask voters to amend the Constitution to allow public funding of some private schools.
Abercrombie provided insufficient details of his plan but seemed to want legislators to advance it based on faith. His presentation oversimplified these complex proposals into an unfair question about whether or not we value education for Hawaii’s youth.
It is no secret that the governor is approaching the next election in need of a signature accomplishment. But it’s unfortunate that he would use Hawaii’s children to that end. If this sincerely were all about the children, he would welcome questions and criticisms to help create an educational system as perfect and sustainable as possible. But the inconvenient fact is, a program of this size and complexity takes time to implement well. And he knows he is running out of time.
Straightforward questions from the committee about how much money the program will require and how many children it will serve were met with evolving answers. The governor’s Executive Office on Early Learning – the very people who will be charged with implementing this program – was all too ready to amend the plan and consider new ideas.
Abercrombie testified, “Everybody is so anxious to get started in this, they're going to make decisions in rapid order.”
read … Making it up as he goes along
Senate Judiciary Chair, Journalists, Battle Over Future of Journalism Shield Law
HR: Hawaii’s law is considered by media advocacy groups and working journalists as one of the best in the country. However the battle between Senate Judiciary Chair Clayton Hee and local journalists to keep the Journalism Shield Law in place did not end well for journalists at a Wednesday committee hearing.
Journalists from 22 media organizations who teamed up to form the Hawaii Journalism Shield Bill Coalition, the University of Hawaii journalism department and other advocates of the current law including the Society of Professional Journalists national and local chapters, hoped the legislature would merely eliminate the June 30 sunset provision.
Instead, the Senate committee chair made changes to a House version of the bill, and in doing so, removed any protection for online journalists or non-traditional journalists. The new version of the bill was not shown to Senate committee members before they voted or to journalists who will be impacted by changes.
“This is an outrage. … It’s rubbish,” said First Amendment Attorney Jeff Portnoy who worked diligently in partnership with the attorney general, the judiciary, the media and the ACLU five years ago to pass the existing law, Act 210.
University of Hawaii Journalism Professor Gerald Kato said Hee’s substantial changes to the state's shield law “pose a threat to journalists and journalism in Hawaii.”
MN: Unprovoked attack
read … Shield Law
Secret Digest Records Measure Pending on Third Reading
ILind: Last year, I was able to informally obtain a copy of the digest prepared for first crossover during the 2012 session….
Some of the same information can be found on the capitol website by selecting the report on “measures pending third reading in the Senate.”
But the digest has some additions that enhance its utility. It lists all the pending bills, provides a very brief summary, and lists those who had voted “no” or “with reservations” at any point in the process. It also contained quick links to testimony and committee reports, making it a time saver.
It would save time for members of the public who might be tracking the legislature’s progress. So I put in the request. As I said, I’m still waiting for a response. …
An email sent out to all senators last week from the office of Senate VP and Kauai Sen. Ron Kouchi announced today’s majority caucus and the bill digest, which was scheduled for distribution on Saturday, April 6. It also contained this notice:
*Please note that the bills digest and cross reference sheets are internal Senate Majority Caucus Leader’s work product documents, are for Senators’ use only, and are not for distribution to third parties.
Read … Secret Digest
Tsutsui Distraught Over Failure of Sugar Tax
HTH: KTA Superstores president and CEO Barry Taniguchi noted how “great advertising can make a bad product worse” and applied it to Banyan Drive, where the rundown condition of state-managed Banyan Drive properties is driving away visitors the state is trying to attract. The state “has to solve that problem,” Taniguchi said. “Fix the infrastructure now. That would be one of the biggest things you could do. Fix Banyan Drive.”
Taniguchi also called on the state to lengthen the school day by one hour. “A lot could be accomplished,” he said. “Let’s get the infrastructure in to do it. Pay teachers to stay.”
Tsutsui said the governor is committed to early learning and proposed to provide educational opportunities to all pre-kindergarten students. “The big concern is that it’s a cost item, in this case a hefty one.”
Like many cost items, he said, their funding will be contingent on the results of collective bargaining with state employee unions. “The surplus will be absorbed by contracts. Teachers, nurses, will take a lot out of funds out of what’s left.” He lamented the failure of the governor’s proposed sugar tax. “Everything comes down to dollars and cents,” he said.
read … Meanwhile on Banyan Drive
Bumpy Roads, Brain Injury And A $1.7 Million Pothole
CB: A pothole on Diamond Head Road is being blamed for causing a moped crash that left a tourist from Alaska with brain damage. It's going to cost Honolulu $1.7 million.
The Honolulu City Council approved a legal settlement last month with Loah McCoy stemming from a moped accident in 2008 in which she fractured her skull and shattered several other bones in her body.
Although McCoy wasn’t wearing a helmet, her attorneys say the pothole is the culprit. They say if the city had maintained the road as it should have, McCoy wouldn’t be disabled today.
read … $1.7M
Weed, Whacked: Why legal pot didn’t happen in Hawaii
HM: For local advocates, pakalolo enthusiasts, even the local Libertarian Party, it was a good start to the 2013 session. But the high didn’t last long. Hawaii, it turns out, isn’t much like Colorado or Washington. Our political processes are different, and so is our brand of liberalism….
Hawaii won’t join in Colorado and Washington’s marijuana conquest anytime soon. It all comes down to politics. Our state constitution has no provision for statewide referendums by which voters can directly overturn an existing law, such as the ban on marijuana, or ballot initiatives to create a new law, such as establishing medical marijuana dispensaries. That’s how Colorado and Washington did it. In Hawaii, such issues are funneled through the Legislature, in what can be a longer, more cautious process. And, although legislators put their names on legalization and decriminalization bills this session, “there’s a lack of political will” to see them pass, says Lichty….
You could tell some House representatives were dubious of the legislation based on the questions they asked testifiers, but deferred to the leadership of chair Karl Rhoads.
“I thought there was a very good chance it would pass this year,” Rhoads said over the phone just days after the legalization bill stalled. He says that, in the beginning of the session, he polled the House Democratic Caucus on whether it would support marijuana legalization. He had 19 yeses, 16 noes and four undecided. That’s why Rhoads’ committee scheduled a hearing for the bill. But, it “became clear it wasn’t going to make it,” he says after learning it wouldn’t pass muster once it left….
“If you want something killed, it’s relatively easy to do,” says John Radcliffe, who has been a government lobbyist for more than 20 years. “Getting something passed into legislation is very difficult,” he says, especially controversial legislation such as legalizing marijuana, or gambling, the latter of which he’s tried to get passed for years. “Getting ideas killed happens every day.”…
“[But Hawaii] legislators are timid,” explains Radcliffe from his office, which overlooks Dog the Bounty Hunter’s Da Kine Bail Bonds. It’s the reason gambling legislation isn’t being heard this session, despite the “intense interest,” says Radcliffe, as well as bills for same-sex marriage or physician-assisted suicide, also known as “death with dignity.”
“Absent of anything you might have heard of Hawaii otherwise politically, our politicians are extremely affected by people who criticize them or who want something from them. The loud voice is heard in Hawaii.”
When it comes to marijuana, that loud voice is law enforcement….
“The Democratic platform looks really progressive,” says Kat Brady, the coordinator for the Community Alliance on Prisons, who, like Lichty, spends much of her time at the Capitol during session. “But then you go down to the Legislature and listen to them speak and you think, Why do they call themselves Democrats?”
In this instance, she’s referring to the 13-year-old medical marijuana program, which has remained unchanged since then Gov. Ben Cayetano signed it into law in 2000. There have been repeated attempts to amend it; so far, none have made it.
Lichty thinks a main cause is the “conservative voices that ruled the House for years.”
read … Weed, Whacked
Another Prisoner Escapes
SA: Big Island police have re-captured a 21-year-old woman who escaped from the Hale Nani Correctional Facility in Hilo on Saturday morning….
Araw, who was incarcerated for multiple burglary and theft charges, allegedly made her escape by scaling a 15-foot razor-wire fence, police said.
read … Hawaii County police recapture escaped Hilo inmate
Sovereignty Activists Recruit the Next Generation in Prisons
HM: Lillian Harwood is a longtime Hawaiian sovereignty and anti-prison activist, as well as the wife of Delbert Wakinekona, whose dramatic life story was explored in our piece on Hawaiian prisoners in Arizona, in Issue 26….
Along with her hanai [adopted] sister LouAnn Tampos, Tampos's husband Edwin, and a hula teacher, Harwood was the first to bring Native Hawaiian programs and rituals, like the New Year celebrations (Makahiki), to Arizona prisons.
HM: Leader is a convicted murderer, twice escaped, among the first to be shipped to Arizona
(They are using the prisons as ready-made reeducation camps.)
read … How Hula Dancing Came to Arizona Prisons
The Scraggly Tents of Resistance
HM: People intensely focused on single issues, particularly homelessness. Tent dwellers who refer to themselves as houseless, not homeless, since, as one put it, “Home is where the heart is.” Vegans. People with apartments, houses and dorm rooms. Disillusioned Obama voters. A 71-year-old chronically houseless man, who feels safer among the (de)Occupiers than on his own….
Plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a city ordinance that restricts the storage of belongings on public property and permits the city to impound them with 24 hours notice….
A woman with a vision of houseless people marching in the streets behind their shopping carts; after acknowledging the houseless population isn’t particularly responsive to organizing, she sighs and says, “But wouldn’t it be great?”
read … Homelessness Industry
Librarians Urged to Show Solidarity with MRC Greenwood’s Overpaid Pick
AL: Librarians who think they’re underpaid would be better off spending their time trying to get better jobs than complaining that they aren’t paid enough or attacking other librarians who have been a lot more successful at salary negotiations than they have. Trying to make sure other librarians don’t make more money than you isn’t going to improve your salary.
(Translation: The more corruption others can get away with, the more corruption you can get away with. And, yes, this is a thought-out strategy.)
read … Corporate Ladder of Academia
Family marks second anniversary of fatal Waikele bunker explosion
HNN: "I don't ever think there's ever going to be a definite answer to exactly what happened or how it happened," said Kelii's aunt, Deborah Dulatre.
"Thinking about what happened here and that's all I think of him being in that bunker, and they couldn't get him out. They left him in there all night. That's another question I had, too," said George Kelii.
Families of the men filed multiple lawsuits in connection with the deaths. Last September, a federal grand jury handed down an indictment against Donaldson Enterprises Incorporated, which employed the five men.
"We want to hold somebody responsible. So that's what our lawyers are doing, and we're in the process of finding out who that is. So it's still an ongoing process," said Dulatre.
read … Family marks second anniversary of fatal Waikele bunker explosion
QUICK HITS: