Lawsuit: Hawaii Gambling Machine Contract Guaranteed ‘No problem from Vice-Squad’
Abercrombie Quietly Orders More Pay Hikes, Publishes HGEA, UPW Contracts
Neither Age nor Disability is an Indication of Financial Need
Sylvia Luke Next House Speaker?
Boylan: Luke acknowledges that “14 years ago my friends and I were a lot more intolerant and arrogant.
We were impatient, and we didn’t have an appreciation for different positions.”
In 2004, Luke and Rep. Scott Saiki went into opposition within the House Democratic caucus.
“I’d characterize the dissidents as policy wonks,” says Luke. “We weren’t necessarily out to gain positions.”...
Republicans as well as Democrats have praised Luke’s stewardship of the Finance Committee. That praise may well result from her conviction, at 46, “that every elected legislator, Democrat or Republican, a member of my faction or another, is there to represent her district and be effective. True power is shared power, and I’m convinced that a good leader has to let go of some control.”
Luke will gather her committee to look at special funds and the practice of raiding them to pay for other, unrelated state programs.
“Some of those funds made sense in the beginning,” says Luke, “but 30 years later?”
read ... Sylvia Luke: First Woman Speaker?
Finance panel’s summer work puts heat on budget
Borreca: The plan, according to the House Finance Committee chairwoman, Rep. Sylvia Luke, is to assign the 16 committee members different state departments and ask them to review or at least become conversant with the departments' special funds and how they relate to the budget.
During the Legislature's regular session, the House and Senate budget committees listened to testimony from the department heads. In past years, some of the questions from committee members only showed how little preparation or simple advance reading they did....
Going line by line through the Agriculture Department's spreadsheet listing of the weights and measure branch will set no hearts racing, but if you did your homework and know there is only one person testing all the gas pumps in the state, it might make a difference to pay attention.
The big item for Luke's summer session is the state's 570 special funds. Special funds are carved out of the budget and can be used only for a niche purpose. Almost every year, new special funds are created to screen off more and more state money.
Luke's committee, working with the legislative auditor, is going through the funds, one by one, asking if the money is still needed for the specified special program or if it can be tossed back into the general fund in competition with all other state programs....
Other projects Luke has for her committee include querying the Education Department about how it will make up the funds used for programs now expending "Race to the Top" federal funds that will eventually be depleted.
She also wants more information on money devoted to vacant state positions that are still carried on the budget and used for different purposes.
read ... Finance panel’s summer work puts heat on budget
Water board should be investigated
Cox: A lawsuit was filed about five years ago because a major component of the "AMR" (automatic meter reading) system — the plastic reader attached atop the meter — was failing. The board's response was a pennies-on-the-dollar settlement that got the vendor off the hook at the expense of valuable revenues that could and should have been used to upgrade the system. Needed revenues were lost then, and continue to be lost now.
We then found out that the batteries powering the remote transmission of data were failing earlier than expected — and the board wants $1.5 million annually just to change them. For $1.5 million, the board could rehire the 20 meter readers it laid off and customers would get monthly "real reads," actual meter box inspections and batteries changed.
Is the board making money off of customers because it is not checking for leaks in hardware it is responsible for?
The AMR system cost $30 million, and was supposed to save money. Instead, board managers received pats on the back in the form of bonuses and the abhorrent practice of rehiring individuals after retirement (double-dipping) as further "rewards."
We have a right to know how much of an ongoing blunder the meter system continues to be. Only a fraction of the 150,000 meters over the last 10 years have been inspected. Batteries have gone dead. What else, and for how long?
Background: 51,000 Water Dept Customers May Have Been Overcharged
read ... Carroll Cox
Hanabusa Loses Big as HGEA Endorses Schatz
SA: The Hawaii Government Employees Association has endorsed U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz over U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, an early lift that could help propel his campaign.
The union’s board, meeting on Maui, agreed unanimously Friday to support Schatz after previously interviewing both Democrats. The union said Schatz is down to earth, expresses middle-class values, understands the challenges many working people have in raising young families, and vows to protect Social Security and Medicare.
Randy Perreira, the HGEA’s executive director, said the union believes both candidates are equally capable and friends of labor, but that Schatz empathized more....
read ... Hanabusa Losing
Karst Caves Basis for New Stop Rail Lawsuit?
Star-Adv Editorial: Local environmental groups and Native Hawaiians say they're worried that not enough is being done to ensure rail won't harm hidden, underground springs and coral caves deemed vital to cultural practices and the islands' ecology.
"The fact is, iwi can be moved," said Mike Kumukauoha Lee, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner who said he uses the algae, seaweed and invertebrates that grow in these systems elsewhere to practice traditional medicine and ceremonies. "This underground network needs to be preserved."
Lee and others, including the Kailua-based Hawaii's Thousand Friends, further contend the State Historic Preservation Division isn't doing all it can to make sure such sites aren't damaged if they lie under the rail line's path.
The groups expressed their concerns in formal responses submitted to the rail project's draft Archaeological Inventory Survey report, and provided copies to the Star-Advertiser. SHPD officials say they've opted not to release any of the public's comments submitted on the report until the division has completed its review of them....
"How far down did they dig?" Lee, a member of both groups, said Friday. Lee said his review of historical Land Commission Award records dating from the mid-1800s shows 13 potential sites along the rail path that could contain underground karst or springs. Many of the potential karst sites he's identified may have been buried under generations of plantation farm soil, he said.
Lee said Kanehili Hui is prepared to sue if the state doesn't "appropriately" answer how the project plans to avoid damaging those potential natural resources.
Background: More Flooding in Kakaako's Future
read ... Underground sites raise rail concern
Ernie Martin, Kirk Caldwell and the Cesspool
Shapiro: » City Council Chairman Ernie Martin admitted he signed papers forgiving $1.2 million in loans to a company that gave $4,200 to his political campaign, but said he did nothing wrong because someone else made the decision to forgive. It's known locally as the Stevie Wonder excuse.
» Martin, who was the city's acting community services director while running for the Council, said he had to sign off on the canceled loan that has received a sharp federal rebuke because "I was the only executive left." The buck stops at his campaign fund.
» Mayor Kirk Caldwell, who was acting mayor at the time and also received a campaign donation from the loan recipient, has hired a private investigator to look into the matter. We'd find out more from a private cesspool excavator.
read ... Investigate This
ORI Timeline
SA: >> 1980: The nonprofit Opportunities for the Retarded Inc. is founded by Susanna Cheung to help adults with developmental disabilities. (The group’s name is later changed to ORI Opportunities & Resources Inc.)
>> 1984: Cheung opens the for-profit Helemano Plantation, next to the Dole Plantation outside Wahiawa town, as a training and employment center where adults with developmental disabilities can learn vocational skills.
>> 2003: Using an $8 million federal Community Development Block Grant approved by the city, the nonprofit ORI Anuenue Hale — also founded by Cheung — acquires 30 acres next to Helemano Plantation for its Aloha Gardens Wellness Center and Camp Pineapple 808 to serve elderly people and people with developmental disabilities.
>> 2008: Pressed by the watchdog group Hawaii Disability Rights Center, the Medicaid fraud unit of the state attorney general’s office investigates concerns that clients’ rights are being abused. The case is later dropped.
>> April 26, 2011: The city cancels two loans given to ORI in the 1990s totaling $1.2 million, separate from the $8 million grant. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development later determines that city employees running for public office in 2010 were directly involved in developing and approving the “forgiveness” of the loans.
>> July 2011: Following an investigation that included an April site visit, HUD warns the city that it must get ORI Anuenue Hale to comply with grant requirements or repay the money. ORI and city officials promise to comply.
>> June 4: HUD demands that the city return the $8 million block grant, saying it does not believe the city is able to get ORI Anuenue Hale to comply; the city has until July 18 to do so.
>> June 6: Mayor Kirk Caldwell says an internal investigation into the matter has begun; the city Ethics Commission also confirms an investigation.
read ... 23 Years
Gun enthusiasts attend 20th Annual Shooting Sports Fair
KHON: The event continues Sunday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m at Koko Head.
read ... Gun enthusiasts attend 20th Annual Shooting Sports Fair
MECO wants to Replace Kahului plant by 2019
MN: Utility officials said that they are "definitely planning" on shutting down the Kahului plant by 2019. However, to continue meeting Central Maui's energy needs, the utility must first upgrade and reinforce existing power grids - particularly, a 69-kilovolt transmission line from Waiinu to Kanaha.
"This is the most definitive we've ever been about it to date," MECO Renewable Energy Services Manager Mathew McNeff said after the meeting. "It's an older plant. We need to replace it with something that is more flexible. The tricky thing is . . . in order to retire that plant, we need to reinforce that Kanaha-Waiinu line."
...the full report, with more detailed figures, will be online and available for public comment at the end of the month. Public comments should be sent to public@irpie.com. Testimony should include a person's name, the date and island of residency.
This week, MECO will host public meetings on Molokai and Lanai.
Hawaiian Electric on Oahu and Hawaiian Electric Light Co. on the Big Island are going through similar processes as required by the state Public Utilities Commission. All three Hawaiian Electric companies must submit their draft action plans to the commission by June 28.
read ... LNG to replace?
Star-Adv: $300M for Solar Scammers
SA: The investment commitment is for $300 million in upgrades to state and Hono-lulu county buildings, following an aggressive timetable.
All the work, which will be done according to performance-based contracts that need to show stated energy savings, is to be completed sometime in 2015.
The benefits sound terrific. Estimates are for 5,000 new jobs to be added to Hawaii's economy over the course of the improvements being made, and for all the encouraging signs of a turnaround in the Hawaii's fortunes, the work will be welcome to a construction industry that's only started to heal. Industry officials say 20 percent of its workforce is still unemployed.
It's a mammoth job list. The improvements are pegged for the 15 airports under the state Department of Transportation, the Department of Public Safety's prisons and jails, 30 structures at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply and the city's largest wastewater treatment plants and other locations.
read ... More Scams
Prostitution: Legislature Passes Four Bills
SA: State lawmakers, who already have increased penalties for pimps, are fighting back again.
This year, they passed four bills that seek to end the consumer demand for prostitution that drives the sex-trafficking industry, while expanding services for prostitutes, especially minors.
One of the bills, which became Act 53 when it was signed into law in April by Gov. Neil Abercrombie, adds solicitation of prostitution to the list of offenses that are ineligible for deferred acceptance of guilty plea, by which a defendant can have the offense erased from his or her record. The other three bills await action by Abercrombie.
"Act 53 was necessary to strengthen the law so that all participants in the crime are held accountable, including those who solicit services," Abercrombie said. "This is an important step in addressing and deterring human trafficking in all its forms."
Kathryn Xian, executive director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, a nonprofit on a mission to stop human trafficking in Hawaii and the Pacific, said passage of this law should be a significant deterrent for "johns." However, Xian said Senate Bill 192, which she called the session's most important anti-prostitution bill, is also needed to address rising child sex trafficking.
The two other pending bills, House Bill 1068 and HB 1187, also are needed to help children who are often misidentified as "delinquents" and "runaways" get services and protection, Xian said....
read ... Four Bills
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