Electronic Health Records: Monopoly 'Scare tactics' Driving Hawaii Doctors into Retirement
Number of Special Funds Should be Curtailed
City Corruption Places Millions of Federal Dollars at Risk
SA: Honolulu residents who still harbor any warm and fuzzy feelings about their government after the last few weeks simply haven't been paying attention....
HUD did not name the campaigners beyond pointing out that "city employees, running for elected office, were directly involved in approving, developing or recommending the ORI CDBG loan forgiveness while receiving campaign donations from ORI representatives."
Around the time of the loan forgiveness, Caldwell was managing director and then acting mayor, and Martin was deputy director of the Department of Community Services, the city agency overseeing ORI.
Caldwell, Martin and then-Mayor Mufi Hannemann have received campaign contributions from ORI founder Susanna Cheung in recent years; records also show Hannemann receiving a donation from ORI Chief Executive Officer Ann K. Higa.
In addition to an inquiry underway by the city Ethics Commission, Caldwell has ordered an internal review, to be aided by a private detective firm, Goodenow Associates. HUD had directed the city "to ensure proper authorities are reviewing the possible kickback situation," a reference to one of the questions raised in the report. HUD released a letter sent from Cheung to a contractor "to confirm that a monetary donation of $90,000" would be made to ORI when the contractor's work was done....
While the city probes are necessary, a July 18 deadline looms....
The whole revelation casts a pall over one of the ways government serves those in need. The CDBG program is there to provide aid to organizations that work within specific communities and thus, in theory, are positioned to help people most efficiently and effectively.
The grants supply city grantees with a lot of funds. Over the past five years, it's ranged from $7.5 million to $10.5 million.
2011: Resignation call after Audit reveals “ward heeler’s slush fund” overseen by Honolulu Councilman
Shapiro: $8M a Transparent Attempt to Buy Votes
read ... City actions put federal funds at risk
$8M scandal involving ORI draws odd city response
Borreca: This is not the time when you color outside the lines....Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporter Susan Essoyan wrote in July 2011 that the city and ORI must "either repay more than $7.9 million in federal funds spend acquiring the land and building the facility, or immediately take corrective action to bring it into compliance."...
Now two years later, the feds are back at the door, telling the city and ORI to give the money back, saying neither the city nor ORI complied with the agreement to shape up.
What would you do if the feds were at your doorstep? You might think about getting a lawyer, or maybe a bank loan — but Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell decided what the City & County of Honolulu needed was a private eye....
The feds' most recent demand for the city to pay up said "HUD found many questionable management decisions regarding oversight of ORI. It also noted that while the city was forgiving loans to ORI, ORI representatives were giving campaign donations to city officials (including former Mayor Mufi Hannemann, current City Council Chairman Ernie Martin and Caldwell).
"The financial relationship with ORI and city staff created a CDBG conflict of interest situation," last week's report said.
It went on to give lots of directions to the city, including paying back the forgiven loans with interest, cleaning up its record system and listing all the money it funneled to ORI as a debt until it pays back the federal government.
Nowhere in the 15-page directive does it say the city should hire a private eye to find out what happened.
2011: Resignation call after Audit reveals “ward heeler’s slush fund” overseen by Honolulu Councilman
read ... $8M scandal involving ORI draws odd city response
Tsutsui Talks Up 2018 Campaign for Governor
SA: Admittedly reluctant at first to take the job, Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui says he did not want to join Gov. Neil Abercrombie's administration if it meant ... simply carrying the administration's water on controversial issues....
When he took office, Tsutsui said he hoped to serve as a liaison between the administration and the Legislature, a role at which many expect him to excel....
Abercrombie, too, has found the relationship beneficial, perhaps most effectively on the effort to repeal the Public Land Development Corp. law. The governor found himself in the position of seeking repeal of a law that was supported overwhelmingly by the Legislature and his administration, but faced intense and vocal backlash from the public.
Lawmakers say Tsutsui was able to help communicate the governor's views and help guide the repeal measure, which Abercrombie signed.
"I think it was very, very beneficial to us, as an administration, in terms of going to conference meetings in particular and bringing disparate points of view together and reconciling them with what we'd like to accomplish in the administration," Abercrombie said. "So, he's been a very, very good partner. He's been an encouraging one and he has exemplified, as far as I'm concerned, the qualities of leadership that I saw in him when I asked him to become lieutenant governor."
No challengers have formally announced against either, but Rep. Calvin Say, the former House speaker, is exploring the possibility of a run at lieutenant governor. Tsutsui said he has not thought about any election beyond next year, and though he says he never, before this year, aspired to be among the state's top elected leaders, he acknowledges the potential for his office to serve as a steppingstone to the top job.
"I'm going to try to work hard to get some of the things that I want to focus on done in the next year and a half," he said. "If I'm fortunate enough to serve for another four years, then I'll just continue to focus on that. Then we'll see.
"In 2018 I'll make a decision."
Reality: Tsutsui Being Used to Keep Unstable Abercrombie Under Control
read .. Tsutsui settles into state's No. 2 job
Campaign Spending Violator Leads Charge for 'Clean Elections'
MN: A bill to create a public financing option aimed at lessening corporate influence on campaign elections died in the final hours of the last state legislative session, which ended May 2. But supporters of election reform are hoping it will resurface next session.
Advocacy groups like Voter Owned Hawaii and state legislators like Democratic South Maui Rep. Kaniela Ing, who used partial public funds to win his primary election last year, (and was fined by the Campaign Spending Commission for multiple violations) still hope to see a "clean elections bill" - or one that allows a comprehensive public funding program - passed in the 2014 session.
LOL: CSC: New Campaign Spending Violations by Kaniela Ing
2008: Clean Elections activist nailed by Campaign Spending Commission
read ... Clean?
DoE Brass Think they're Worth More Money
SA: The state education board is mulling pay raises for top-level Department of Education executives whose salaries have been frozen the past seven years, allowing their six-figure salaries to be surpassed by those of some school principals.
Schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi said the salaries of her deputy superintendent, six assistant superintendents and 15 complex area superintendents have not been increased since 2006.
That's in part because previously "their salaries were capped at 80 percent of the superintendent's salary, so all complex area superintendents and assistant superintendents hit a certain number and then that was it, including the deputy (superintendent)," Matayoshi said Tuesday at a Board of Education meeting.
Matayoshi, who was hired in 2010, earns $150,000, the maximum allowed for the position under state law.
read ... DOE seeks increase in salaries for its top executives
Bill that applies ethics rules to transit workers advances
SA: Barbra Armentrout, one of the city's principal advocates for better service from TheBus, spoke in favor of the measure during the City Council's regular meeting Wednesday, saying OTS should be more transparent to the public.
OTS President and General Manager Roger Morton said earlier this week that the bill would affect the OTS board and about 115 non-Teamster employees, but that the proposal was fair overall.
OTS and its 1,850 employees oversee about $224 million in annual bus and TheHandi-Van services for the city. However, the city covers those costs.
OTS' contract is for $448,000, which Morton said is a "management fee" that covers the salaries and benefits for him and a top deputy, as well as board trips and expenses and company holiday parties.
Bill 32 now heads to the Committee on Executive Matters and Legal Affairs.
read ... Bus Ethics
Water Dep't Rate Hikes Needed to Pay for Bill Collection
SA: The meters and meter-reading system was installed more than 10 years ago, while the previous customer information system (CIS), which was retired in January, was two decades old. The majority of the additional funds resulting from changing the frequency of mailing bills from bimonthly (with a billing charge of $7.02, totaling $42.12 per year) to monthly (with a billing charge of $7.02, totaling $84.24 per year) would pay for these new expenses:
- » A new billing system, or CIS, that cost $14 million.
- » CIS maintenance and upgrades averaging about $1 million annually.
- » Online bill payment expenses of about $600,000 annually.
- » Lock-box services of about $170,000 annually.
- » Automatic meter reading (AMR) battery replacements of about $1.2 million annually.
- » AMR transmitter replacements of about $4 million annually.
- » Meter replacements of about $1 million annually.
read ... Monthly water bills needed for upgrades
'Insane' Plan Put $331M Tsunami Center at Sea Level
SA: Construction has been completed on the $331 million Daniel K. Inouye Regional Center, which will house the tsunami facility along with other National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration operations. Plans are for employees to begin occupying portions of the complex this year.
The Washington, D.C.-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is critical of the location, saying the danger is that the center would be rendered inoperable by a tsunami or hurricane at the moment it is needed the most.
"Having the tsunami warning center at sea level is insane," said the group's executive director, Jeff Ruch.
Ruch said the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center requires staffing around the clock and that employees need to cross the Ford Island bridge. The bridge, he said, could become inoperable in the event of a tsunami.
(Two Words: Storm Surge.)
read ... Group questions safety of new tsunami center
Hawaii One of Only Five States Which go Soft on Child Molesters
MN: Jessica Lunsford was a 9-year-old Florida girl who was kidnapped, sexually molested for three days and buried alive by a convicted sex offender in 2005.
Later that year, the Florida Legislature passed "Jessica's Law" - a bill that imposes life sentences on perpetrators of sexual battery by an adult on a victim 12 years old or younger. Since then, 45 states have passed Jessica's Laws mandating minimum 25-year sentences for offenders convicted of "lewd and lascivious molestation of a child."
Hawaii is one of only five states in the union without a Jessica's Law-type bill in place....
Online source: www.jessicaslawnow.wordpress.com
It is hard for us to understand how anybody can oppose this effort to protect our children. Yet, efforts by Sen. Sam Slom to get such a bill through the Hawaii Legislature died again this year.
read ... ‘Jessica’s Law’: Why not here?
W Maui to Finally Get Hospital?
MN: California-based developer Brian Hoyle is more optimistic than ever that funding will come through in the next several months and he can finally build the long-awaited West Maui Hospital and Medical Center.
It's been four years since Hoyle received the green light from the state as it issued a certificate of need required in order to build the estimated $45 million to $50 million hospital in West Maui.
The president of Newport Hospital Corp., which has built at least 50 hospitals and nursing homes across the country, acknowledged that projects like these do take time.
"The financing has been the hurdle. (But) I never have been more optimistic since we first started this project," said Hoyle in phone interview last week.
Hoyle started working on the project in 2006.
read ... Just In time for MMMC to Close
GMO:$243 million seed industry largest in state’s ag sector
WHT: If anyone could be crowned the King of Corn in Hawaii, it would be Jim Brewbaker.
As a scientist with University of Hawaii at Manoa, he has spent a half century studying and breeding different varieties, finding ways to cross-breed disease resistance and improve the production of one of the world’s most widely grown cereal crops.
It may seem odd in a place brimming with exotic fruits to focus on a plant that is mostly associated with America’s Midwest.
But Hawaii, as the ever-inquisitive scientist found decades ago, provides researchers with an edge other places find hard to match — a nearly endless growing season.
Without seasonal interruptions, research can be accelerated three- or four-fold.
“The more generations you can get in a year, the faster you improve,” Brewbaker said.
Meanwhile, the sacred food of the eco religion:
read ... Seed Industry
Plan to tax online hotel bills stalled
AP: Courts in others states have come down on different sides of the tax dispute, including in the tourism-heavy states of Hawaii and Florida.
Orbitz Worldwide, Priceline.com, Travelocity and Expedia, including its subsidiaries Hotels.com and Hotwire, have appealed a Hawaii court’s March ruling saying the sites owe Hawaii a $70 million penalty for skirting state general excise taxes over the past 10 years. A tax appeals court there ruled online travel companies had been selling hotel rooms online for years without paying the necessary taxes.
But in Florida, a divided three-judge panel sided with the online travel companies in February. In a lawsuit filed by 17 of Florida’s 67 counties, the 1st District Court of Appeals panel voted 2-1 that tourist development taxes were due only on what the online firms paid to the hotels, not the full amount they charge their customers. The counties were recently denied a request for a rehearing and the case has been punted to the Florida Supreme Court, the state’s highest court.
Among issues for Ohio senators was the fact that the House proposal was projected to generate a potential increase in tax revenues, causing some to view it as a tax increase. The measure could emerge again as tax code changes are debated in a conference committee negotiating a budget compromise.
Read ... Ohio
U.S. District Court in Hawaii dismisses lawsuit challenging applicability of Jones Act in Hawaii
SMIB: The U.S. District Court dismissed the case on the grounds that the population Carroll represents, all Hawaiian consumers, is unduly large and diverse. Carroll previously challenged the Jones Act in 2009, and his previous case was dismissed on the same grounds as the present case. Carroll already filed an appeal of the ruling.
CB: No Jones Act Relief for Hawaii in 2013
read ... Second Bite of the Apple
10 Priors, Gets Probation, Now Most Wanted
KHON: Serikawa was arrested for breaking into a car.
He was also arrested for that same crime in February 2011 and for drugs in October 2010.
“He does have 10 prior convictions and is known to frequent the Windward area. And he does have “trust no one” tattooed across his neck,” Sgt. Buffett said.
He’s now wanted for three $20,000 dollar warrants for not complying with the terms of Hope probation.
read ... No HOPE for this one
QUICK HITS: