Open Letter: Hawaii MDs Challenge “Severely Dysfunctional” Medicaid Program
Akaka Bill Coming Back? Schatz Demands US Treat Hawaiians Just as Badly as American Indians
Honolulu Revealed As Highest-Priced U.S. City This Summer
Martin signed loan documents After Receiving Contributions
SA: City Council Chairman Ernie Martin said he signed off on two documents tied to cancellation of $1.2 million in loans to the nonprofit Opportunities and Resources Inc., whose leader contributed $4,200 to his political campaign committee....
Martin's comments came in response to the release late Tuesday of documents by the Department of Housing and Urban Development related to its investigation of ORI's relationship with the city. The documents were requested by the news media seeking clarification of a 15-page HUD report given to the city last week after its investigation of the city's relationship with ORI.
Among the documents are two ORI-related letters Martin signed....
Martin received contributions from ORI founder Susanna Cheung four times, for a total of $4,200 from December 2009 through May 12, 2012, according to reports Martin's election committee filed with the state Campaign Spending Commission.
The loans to ORI were for $350,000 and $812,718.50 and issued in 1995 and 1999, respectively.
A signed letter from Martin to Cheung dated Oct. 19, 2010, was sent with a copy of an agreement canceling the $350,000 loan. A similar letter transmitting a copy of the agreement canceling the $812,718.50 loan, dated Aug. 5, 2010, was signed by former Community Services Director Debbie Morikawa.
Both Martin and Morikawa were political appointees of former Mayor Mufi Hannemann, who received $6,000 in campaign contributions from Cheung. Hannemann, who resigned as mayor on July 20, 2010, to run for governor, was replaced by his second-in-command, then-Managing Director Kirk Caldwell who himself received a $500 campaign contribution from Cheung.
It's unclear from the documents HUD obtained how involved Hannemann and Caldwell were in the decision to forgive the loans.
read ... Martin signed loan documents
City Budget Gives Martin $8M to Play With
SA: Where the Council comes up short is in its failure to apply that same discipline to its grants-in-aid approach. City Council Chairman Ernie Martin favored expanding the spending on nonprofit grants beyond the $5.5 million required by a recently adopted City Charter amendment, and the Council ultimately approved an additional $8 million in grants.
It's not at all clear that the city budget is flush enough for that surge in generosity this year, just for starters. But the bigger problem is that the grants were alloted without undergoing the vetting process by a new review panel that the Council itself established last fall. The mayor has drawn applications from more than 100 nonprofits and should convene the review panel as soon as possible. The Council doesn't have cause to simply hand out the grants now.
The mayor has said he would be hesitant to release all the funds allotted....
read ... Keep tight rein on city spending
Media Flacks for Abercrombie, 2014 Edition
Shapiro: He has no Democratic opposition after U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa decided to run for the U.S. Senate.
The only name Republican expressing even tepid interest is former Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona, whom Abercrombie defeated handily in 2010....
Abercrombie caught the start of the national recovery that filled Waikiki hotels and state coffers, leaving him politically golden despite a string of self-inflicted wounds that sank his popularity.
While governors have little to do with outside forces that determine our underlying economic health, they can be judged on how they manage state finances in bad times.
By objective measures, Abercrombie has done a far better job than Lingle.
Lingle introduced the debilitating Furlough Fridays that made Hawaii a national joke. She balanced her final budget by throwing up her hands and deferring state tax refunds into the next fiscal year, leaving her successor in a deep hole.
Abercrombie also negotiated labor contracts that traded pay cuts for days off but spread them out to avoid furlough days that shut down government.
He could have gotten away with extending Lingle's delay of tax refunds another year until the economy improved, but bit the bullet and paid it off so the state could enjoy the full benefit of the recovery when it came.
The state is now running a healthy surplus as a result of that decision, and it's fair that Abercrombie reaps the political rewards.
More Flacks ... KGI: Obamacare "What's Not to Like?"
read ... Just Like Media Flacks for Abercrombie, 2010
Varona Squalor Thanks to Theft of Ewa Villages Redevelopment Fund
SA: Ewa-area Council members Ron Menor and Kymberly Pine said the city's management of Varona has been shoddy since the Ewa Villages scandal of the late 1990s. Former city housing official Michael Kahapea was imprisoned after being found guilty in August 2000 of masterminding a scam that stole $5.6 million from the city's Ewa Villages redevelopment fund.
Meanwhile, after Renton, Tenney and other villages were renovated, Varona was left largely untouched.
Abelardo Balala, 74, another Varona resident, told the Star-Advertiser he's certain that if it weren't for the Kahapea scandal, Varona residents could have used the cash stolen to purchase their homes at below market price, and their houses and the neighborhood would be fixed up by now.
"Kahapea steal 'em," said Balala, who worked as a payloader operator for the plantation for 25 years and lives in his home with his wife and a daughter.
read ... Price of Corruption
Schatz, HCDA, UH Team Up to Create new Generation of Obama Community Organizers
BS: The University of Hawaii, in cooperation with nonprofit, business, government and community leaders, has been leading this effort. The project's leadership team members have sent fact-finders to almost every presidential center in the country. They have worked closely with the state administration and the Hawaii Community Development Authority to set aside a beautiful site in Kakaako Makai....
One proposal is to establish an institute that would advance collaborative, Hawaii-style solutions to some of the great challenges of our time, like energy dependence, food insecurity and climate change. Combining the president's power to bring people together with the research capacity of UH, the institute would invite experts, stakeholders and decision-makers to craft workable solutions. But it would then go a step beyond most think tanks by launching community-based initiatives to give those solutions life. Their vision is to create a university-affiliated institution that would combine thought and action.
The leadership team is also proposing that an Obama center include a more-ambitious set of educational programs than exists at any other presidential center. The focus would be on civic education and public service, and the goal would be to cultivate a new generation of community leaders. Through after-school and in-school programs, summer institutes, teacher development workshops and online learning, the hope is to make meaningful engagements in children's lives while also developing templates for civic education programs that could be implemented across the United States.
read ... Community Organizers
A Mother's Day Nightmare: Foster Home Failure?
CB Officially, Vera died of natural causes, which might seem logical given that she had lived 86 long years.
But Castaneda believes the death was anything but natural.
She blames the caregiver, and Hawaii’s foster home system more generally. With proper care, she is convinced, her mother would still be alive.
“They took her to nothingness,” Castaneda said.
“This is an epic failure,” she said, before homing in on her mother’s caregiver at the time of her death. “I feel like slapping that lady and kicking her in the okole.”
The caregiver at the adult foster care home in Waipahu found Vera unresponsive in bed. Vera had a history of malnourishment over the past several years, and starting in 2011 she was fed through a feeding tube.
read ... Care?
NOAA to Use Seal Meat as Bait in Shark Killing Program
CB: In discussing a proposal last month to use the meat of salvaged endangered Hawaiian monk seal carcasses as bait to catch the 20 or so Galapagos sharks that have learned to prey on pups at French Frigate Shoals (FFS), Aila said, “The question asked of me is, ‘You’re going to put me in jail for killing a seal, but you’re going to cut up and feed [the seals] to sharks?’”....
In the case of the recent permit application by NOAA’s Frank Parrish and Alecia Van Atta to kill up to 18 sharks at French Frigate Shoals using salvaged seal meat (among other things) as bait, the seals are already dead, NOAA monk seal recovery coordinator Jeff Walters pointed out.
read ... They can do what the do not allow you
Crane that Installed Maui Wind Turbines Won't be Around to Remove Them When they Fail
CEG: Once back to turbine number six in May, they had enough room to disassemble the crane for transport to Oahu. Transport of the crane to and from the port and between Islands was arranged by locally owned general/mechanical contractor American Piping & Boiler Co. (APB), Kapolei, Hawaii. “Moving between islands was logistically challenging, but APB did a fantastic job handling all of the arrangements,” mentions Long.
Reflecting on the steep grade, narrow road width and ample capacity in a high wind application, Long marveled at the benefits offered by the CC 2800-1 NT. "That model crane is the only crane at that capacity that could do the project," he says.
read ... Bye-Bye
More GMO Articles
Cockfighting is illegal, but everything else related is fair game in Hawaii
KGI: Two young roosters square off in front of the Historic County Building in Lihue ....
read ... Cockfighting
Homosexuals Spread Syphilis Around State
SA: Five cases of syphilis were reported over the past five months, primarily in Hawaii County, the state Department of Health said.
The department sent a medical advisory to physicians statewide Monday to raise awareness regarding a possible syphilis outbreak. Although most of the cases were reported in gay men in West Hawaii, cases related to this outbreak may develop on other islands.
“While we know there are several cases from West Hawaii, there may be people who are infected and unaware of their illness, who have traveled to other islands,” said Luke Hasty, program coordinator for the STD/AID Prevention Branch of the DOH.
read ... Gay Health
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