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Tuesday, July 14, 2009
July 14, 2009 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 10:57 AM :: 6635 Views

Legislative special session begins tomorrow:  Not a single article in any of the papers

Here are some highlights...

Ceded lands a tougher sell now (its not over yet)

Act 09-176, formerly Senate Bill 1677, requires the governor to obtain a two-thirds majority vote from both the House and Senate before being able to sell any of the roughly 1.2 million acres of ceded lands in the state.  (A complete ban would violate the Admission Act.)

The lawsuit that first brought on the law, however, remains alive. University of Hawai'i Hawaiian studies professor Jonathan Osorio, one of the original plaintiffs, is not party to the agreement and is expected to continue with the case in the Hawai'i Supreme Court.  (When is a compromise just a capitulation?  When you agree to allow the enemy to keep attacking.)

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs and four Native Hawaiians, including Osorio, sued in 1994 to bar the state from selling ceded lands until claims by Native Hawaiians to those lands are resolved. The U.S. Supreme Court on March 31 ruled that the Hawai'i Supreme Court erred in relying on the 1993 Congressional Apology Resolution as the legal basis in ruling for a moratorium that essentially agreed with the plaintiffs.

The high court sent the case back to the Hawai'i court, although lawyers for the state and OHA have different opinions as to what the Hawai'i justices are allowed to do.  (Those opinions don't matter the Hawaii Supreme Ct will make it up as they go and come up with exactly the same decision as before--without mentioning the Apology Resolution.  They do not follow the law.  They make it.)

RELATED: OHA driving Hawaiians out of Hawaii
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Hawaii public unions offering 5 percent pay cut

"Our members are willing, as we've said all along, to make a sacrifice," Perreira said. "The sacrifice we put on the table is the same sacrifice that legislators have made, the same sacrifice that the governor and her Cabinet have made to date (key word), the same sacrifice that the mayors and their respective Cabinet members have made."  (So the Legislature is venal and we will be also.)

Lingle has said she wants to realize $688 million in labor savings to help with a $786 million budget deficit through June 2011. A 5 percent pay cut for the state's 46,000 workers would only achieve about a third of the amount the governor wants to save.

Union leaders have suggested that the governor and lawmakers use money from the state's hurricane relief fund and rainy day fund and consider temporarily raising the general-excise tax to close the gap.  (We must sacrifice so they can play solitaire on computer all day long.)

(Spinning furiously as he preps for his run for Governor) "We're pleased that the stalemate has been broken," Hannemann said. "We've insisted all along that now it was the time for the principals to come to the table. We're pleased that the governor finally came to the table.  (She's been there for six moths, Mufi.) We're pleased that the unions put a proposal on the record on the table. And there's still some massaging (tax increasing) that needs to be done, but clearly now the principals are involved, across the board."

(Compromise:  Take Oahu's rail GET override and give it to HGEA.   Happy Mufi?)

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Central Pacific Bank offers $100M in common stock

In addition to the stock offering, the company also announced that it expects to report a net loss of about $33 million to $37 million for the second quarter of 2009, compared with net income of $2.6 million in the first quarter of 2009. The estimated net loss includes total credit costs of about $77 million to $83 million compared with $29.6 million in the first quarter of 2009.

RELATED: After Call From Senator Inouye’s Office, Small Hawaii Bank Got U.S. Aid

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KHON owner files for bankruptcy

The company said the bankruptcy is a prepackaged reorganization that will have no impact on KHON, its employees, its programming and its customers.

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Maui Wipeout: Numbers have faces

The numbers paint the broad picture of how the national recession has battered Maui County: visitor arrivals down nearly 25 percent in a two-year period; more than four of 10 hotel rooms unoccupied in May; millions less in visitor spending; and unemployment at 9 percent on Maui, 11.5 percent on Lanai and 13.6 percent on Molokai.

But the numbers don't tell the stories of people trying to get by financially in one of the deepest economic downturns to hit the islands, at least in recent memory.

(Note.  This is the only paper doing an in depth look at the effect of the economic recession.  That is because it is a Democrat recession and the folks at Maui news didn't get the memo.) 

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Hawaii County East-west disparity: It's our fault

Reality Check: It has been a known fact that for many years, most of the county funding comes from the west side.
However, in the past five years, the west side held the majority vote in the County Council. They gave themselves $300,000 in discretionary funds each year, and more that doubled the county budget from $185 million to $412 million in that same five-year period. The amazing thing is that in spite of the budget increase, they continued to allocate the same percentage of funding to the east side. The ratio did not change even with the west side in the majority and the council chairman being from the west side.
If it were true that the west side was being short-changed, would not the council chair with his west side majority even out the allocations in a more balanced way when they doubled the county budget.
It seems that the west side revels in being victims to the east side. We are not victims.
We need representatives who will work with others and can count to five.
Our representatives had their opportunity to increase west side funding but instead, they chose to loquaciously bask in being the majority and continued to give the east side the greater share of the funding. Because the east side could pull that off while being in the minority, the fault lies with us.

(As the WHI Democrats driven out of Council power by EHI Dems crank up their Alinskyite anti-Hilo agit-prop show.  Except for his reference to Greenwell GTMO being a distraction, former councilman Leningrad Eliaranoff talks sense.)

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Carlos now a hurricane, but should pass far south of Hawaii

Carlos is located about 1,465 miles southwest of the southern tip of Baja California. It has maximum sustained winds of 90 mph and is moving west at 7 mph.

A potential five-day track places Carlos several hundred miles southwest of the Big Island on Sunday.

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