Sources: Hanabusa to enter Senate race today, Dems Will Give no Money to Schatz
Honolulu Neighborhood Voting April 26 - May 17
Nicole Velasco to Head Neighborhood Commission
Conference Committee Hearing on Senate Bill 69 Rescheduled
Act 27: Abercrombie Orders Doctors, Hospitals to Provide Abortion Pills
LINK: Bills Singed into Law 2013
Budget: Union Contracts Kill Other Big Ticket Items
Borreca: "We've been involved in seven (private sector) settlements in 2013; workers in these contracts are looking at an overall 1.43 percent first-year increase," said Shari-Ann Lau Clark, general counsel for the Employers Council.
The big raises given government workers are more than what the Employers Council had been projecting in the private sector, where the increase was predicted to be more like 2 percent. But, some larger firms were signaling they would have increases of 3 percent.
In times of increased revenues, such as now, big public worker pay raises will mean two things:
Legislative leaders will have their hands tied and say they have to pay for the worker pay raises and therefore will have to reject the more extravagant money bills still floating around.
And, no matter what you think of Gov. Neil Abercrombie, smiling public workers make it more difficult to vote him out of office next year.
read ... Bill finally becomes clear for public worker contracts
HSTA Begins Pushing Back Against Evaluations
RNZ: Amy Perruso, who teaches at Mililani High School, says the pay rise compensation is tiny compared to the financial losses some teachers have suffered over the past two years.
And says the evaluation system is more likely to end up devaluing those in the profession.
“My fear is that the use of this new evaluation tool will further contribute to the kind of demoralisation of teachers and begin to pit teachers against each other.”
read ... Pushback Begins
Justice: Runaways Get Locked Up, Child Molesters Get Probation
SA: About 55 percent of the youth in the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility are from the neighbor islands, even though those islands account for 30 percent of the state's population.
These teens are cut off from their families and communities, largely because there aren't programs available for them on their own islands that would be an alternative to lockup, officials said.
"We really should be utilizing our state's correctional facility for kids that are a risk to public safety, not because we can't figure out what to do with them," said David Hipp, executive director of the Office of Youth Services, who oversees the state's youth jail, the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility, or "Koolau," in Kailua.
Various efforts are underway to try to keep kids whose infractions are minor from being incarcerated, a costly and often inappropriate response. The Office of Youth Services is forming task forces in each county to consider civil citations for status offenses such as running away and truancy, which wouldn't be crimes if committed by an adult.
"Fifty percent of our arrests over the past 10 years have been for status offenses," Hipp said. "Right now we are working with the prosecutor's office and HPD and the court to institute a civil citation program, where the kids wouldn't be arrested. And if they sufficiently comply with whatever sanctions and successfully follow up with the services, there would be an informal adjustment, and the youth would not have to go to court."
read ... Justice?
Shamefaced Abercrombie Repeals PLDC
AP: Abercrombie announced that he signed the repeal via email at 4:50pm on Monday.
He didn't hold a ceremony for the signing, unlike earlier in the day when he publicly signed another bill requiring hospitals to offer emergency contraception to female victims of sexual assault.
The governor announced the land agency's repeal with a two-sentence statement.
He said that "in the case of the PLDC, best intentions and the potential for public good could not be reconciled with public concerns."
read ... Shamefaced
Green, Seitz: Homosexual Rape Gang Still Active at Blind-Deaf School
SA: Lawyer Michael Green, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the initial set of plaintiffs, praised the settlement process and the court-appointed special master who facilitated it. However, Green did not express optimism that the assaults will stop.
"I don't believe for a second that this (settlement) is going to end what's been happening at the school for decades," Green said.
Eric Seitz, the lawyer for other students and parents, said, "I don't have a lot of confidence that the Department of Education will prevent what has already happened at the school."...
Seitz said the plaintiffs had a much longer list and that the state agreed to only a third of the requests. He said the state was more concerned about the amount of money it had to pay rather than preventing future assaults. He also said the state threatened not to settle if it was forced to submit to court supervision under a consent decree.
Students who were sexually assaulted, had sex with a staff member or witnessed a sexual assault on the Kapahulu campus or on school buses since Aug. 10, 2001, will receive payments of $20,000, $75,000 or $200,000 based on how the experience affected them. The parties estimated that about 35 former and current students qualify for payments under the settlement.
Seitz said in court Monday that four parties opted out of the settlement because they believe they don't qualify. He said one other party who opted out might pursue a separate lawsuit.
read ... Homosexual Rape Gang
Hawaii lawmakers negotiate limits to shield law
AP: Sen. Clayton Hee, the lead Senate negotiator on the bill and head of the Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee, has further sought to remove protections for free newspapers, online newspapers and reporters' unpublished notes.
The Democrat also wants to give defendants in criminal cases more power to subpoena information.
Rhoads, the lead House negotiator on the measure, countered last week with a proposal that maintains protections for free, digital newspapers but accepts some of Hee's other changes, including the release of unpublished notes and greater subpoena power for defendants.
Rhoads, also a Democrat, said Monday that the ongoing discussions in the negotiating committee could lead to less protection for bloggers but more protection for unpublished information.
Republican members of the committee, Rep. Cynthia Thielen and Sen. Sam Slom, have said they would prefer to make the existing shield law permanent without any changes.
Hawaii media organizations have harshly criticized Hee's amendments, arguing that the measures reflect a lack of understanding of the evolving news media industry.
The state attorney general's office has been pushing for the changes....
CB: Hawaii Media Still Unhappy With Latest Version of Shield Law
read ... Shield?
Japanese Yen losing value, effects felt in Hawaii
KHON: The Japanese Yen is losing value and that means Japanese tourists have less money to spend when they visit Hawaii. ... the effect is being felt by some Waikiki businesses.
“I noticed instead of them buying for 2 person they buying for 1 person and sharing for 2 person… For the last 3 weeks it’s been going on like that. Its like almost half.. Like almost half, like almost 30-40% now from what we normally do,” said Restaurant manager Linh Tran.
As Explained: Stimulus Japan Style: Cost of Hawaii Vacation Jumps 3% Today
read ... Losing Value
Army warns of deeper cuts in troop numbers
AP: Senior Army officials are warning they may have to cut as many as 100,000 more soldiers over the next decade unless the automatic spending reductions forcing the military services to slash their budgets are stopped.
Army Secretary John McHugh told a Senate committee today the losses would undermine the service's ability to be prepared for wartime missions. He says the Army is already planning to trim its ranks by 80,000 active duty troops
read ... 180,000
Aerial hunts under fire: Restriction on meat recovery unpopular
WHT: Hawaii Island hunters are again expressing concerns over the state’s aerial sheep eradication.
This time, though, hunters aren’t focusing on the hunts themselves, which a federal court ruled should be allowed to continue, despite a county ban on the practice. Shecky Cabulizan said this time, his concern is the Department of Land and Natural Resources offered to let hunters come and claim sheep carcasses and even scheduled several hunters to do so on Monday and again tomorrow, but won’t let anyone sign up to pick up the animals on Thursday.
“I would actually go up there on Thursday to go get the meat so it doesn’t rot,” Cabulizan said Monday.
read ... Eradication
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