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Wednesday, June 5, 2013
June 5, 2013 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 4:51 PM :: 3755 Views

IRS probes former GOP leader’s ties to Maui Tea Party

HART releases Supplemental EIS in response to court order

Native Hawaiian Advancement: Dr. Kelii Akina Speaks in Hilo

Losing One Of The Good Guys

Mortgage Settlement: Hundreds of Hawaii Borrowers to get $1480

Seniors in Poverty: Hawaii Ranks #3 in Nation

PUC Decision Aims to Force HECO to Pay More to Wind, Solar Scammers

SA: Going forward, the hope is for a collaborative, open discussion on how to make the "decoupling tariff" program less onerous for consumers, and on how the utility should transition to become primarily an energy distributor rather than a producer....

This decision "sends a strong signal that business-as-usual is not good enough," said Blue Planet Foundation CEO Jeffrey Mikulina. "By placing shareholder profits at stake, the order makes clear that using less fossil fuels, and more clean energy, is in the interest of both the public and shareholders."...

The PUC approved decoupling tariffs, producing a rate revenue increase of $77.2 million for the companies. About $43.5 million is to cover lower sales — the tariff was created to compensate for customers moving to green energy, which was necessary to incentivize renewable energy projects. The remainder is on account of rising costs and capital reinvestments. The typical electric bill on Oahu is going up $3.13 a month as a result.

» In a remarkable turn, the regulatory agency also took the opportunity to list some of its concerns about utility operations. Most startling was the assertion that "HECO companies lack a strategic and sustainable business model to address technological changes and increasing customer expectations."

The utility is considering whether to challenge any of the orders through normal administrative channels, Alm said. Once that's settled, it's time for the parties — the consumer advocacy groups, environmentalists, the utility and commissioners — to sit down and chart a clearer route toward a new energy reality that doesn't overburden ratepayers.

read ... Money Out of Your Pocket

ORI Mismanagement Comes Back to Haunt Ernie Martin, Throws Wrench In City Budget

CB: The council is scheduled to vote on a $2 billion spending plan that has pitted the council against Mayor Kirk Caldwell over — coincidentally —$8 million the council wants to give to various nonprofit groups through a series of earmarks.

Caldwell and some council members have criticized the earmarks, but others, including Chair Ernie Martin and Ann Kobayashi, have called them necessary at a time when traditional funding sources for nonprofits are drying up.

On Monday the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ordered the city to pay back nearly $8 millionit had previously given to an embattled Central Oahu nonprofit in the form of a Community Development Block Grant. The organization — ORI Anuenue Hale — has been at the center of a years-long federal probe involving possible kickbacks, political favors and mismanagement of taxpayer funds.

read ... Ernie Martin's Deeds Come Back to haunt Him

Martin is the Biggest Earmarker

NPQ: Martin is actually the initiator of the Grants-in Aid program, but he is also the biggest earmarker. He drafted the resolution that went on the 2012 ballot because CDBG funds were dwindling fast, cutting off many nonprofits that would have previously been funded locally through that source. “I submitted the bulk of them (earmarks), and I’m not ashamed of it,” Martin said. “Contrary to what may be asserted, when I ran for office I’m doing exactly what I said I would do because there was a critical need in my particular area, and as you can see from a lot of the proposals that are proposed, it extends beyond just my district.”

read ... Martin

ORI: HUD Hires Community Organizers to Show Us How its Done

CB: the federal agency has contracted with the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders to help the city come into compliance with federal rules for managing Community Development Block Grants.

That’s right. A contract group based in Texas that specializes in serving the Latino community has been hired to help the city of Honolulu comply with federal laws related to grant funds.

read ... Community Organizing

Dutch, Belgians Dump Honolulu Rail Contractor Ansaldo

SA: Italian train manufacturer AnsaldoBreda agreed to provide 19 V250 "Fyra" trains for a high-speed service between Amsterdam and Belgium. However, that service was suspended last winter just five weeks after it launched amid a host of weather-related problems with the nine Fyras that Ansaldo had delivered thus far.

On Friday, Belgium's railway company, NMBS/SCNB, canceled its order for three Fyras, citing safety and reliability, according to international media reports. The Netherlands' operator, Netherlands Railways, followed suit Monday and canceled its order for its seven remaining trains from Ansaldo.

Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation CEO Dan Grabauskas is on a 10-day business trip that includes a stop in Belgium to assess the situation firsthand, HART officials said. "We want to ensure that (the Fyra problem) certainly doesn't happen in Hono­lulu," HART Board Finance Chairman Don Hor­ner said Monday.

According to Reuters, the European operators complained of doors coming loose (ooops!), parts falling off due to ice and warning horns blocked with snow.  However, the operators also flagged basic design flaws such as brakes unsuitable for high speed (breaks? no need ....).

Netherlands Railways has asked its legal experts to study all the ways the Dutch railway operator might recover the more than $156 million it has already paid AnsaldoBreda....

read ... Ansaldo fails Again

Millions spent on out-of-state travel by Dept. of Education

KHON: many in the DOE are often hitting the road — and it doesn’t come cheap.

Through an open-records filing with the DOE, KHON2 obtained detailed spending reports that show a million or two spent on out-of-state travel by the DOE every year — a total of more than $7 million just since fiscal year 2010....

The DOE tells KHON2 it’s for things like school turnaround meetings, Race to the Top and common-core standards....

KHON2 asked for the details by name and found several who have racked up more than $10,000 in travel — among them, a Big Island special needs supervisor and the child nutrition program director. There are even a handful of cases where related employees may have gotten to travel for work together....

The DOE says there actually may be more, not less, travel in the future...

All that travel leads to hundreds of thousands of dollars being paid to various travel agencies. Panda Travel — nearly a million bucks — says they used to have an exclusive, but says the DOE moved away from bids like that.

read ... Millions spent on out-of-state travel by Dept. of Education

Matayoshi Whines about DoE Executive Salaries

CB: Matayoshi explained that the varying pay structures stem largely from the fact that superintendent salaries had in 2006 been capped at 80 percent of the statewide superintendent’s salary, which was frozen at $150,000. (On average, superintendents for large urban school districts made about $239,000 in 2010, with 54 percent making more than $250,000 per year.)

read ... DOE Superintendent: Exec. Salary Inequities Stifle Recruitment

Obama Will Give $7M to Get Hawaii Hooked on Free Preschool

PR: Hawaii could help underwrite preschool for low-income families if the state chooses to participate in President Barack Obama's Preschool for All program.

The White House estimated on Tuesday that Hawaii could receive $7 million in the first year of the program to help serve about 850 4-year-olds. The state would have to pay an estimated $700,000 match.

read ... then cut us off

Public gets its say on rules to contest sidewalk violations

SA: People can tell the city how they feel about the appeals process for the city's new sidewalk nuisance ordinance at a hearing today in Kapolei. A hearing officer will receive spoken testimony from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the first-floor conference room of Kapolei Hale, 1000 Ulu Ohia St.

The city Department of Facility Maintenance will also accept written testimony through June 12, city spokes­man Jesse Broder Van Dyke said. The city is expected to begin enforcing the law soon after.

The sidewalk nuisance ordinance, signed into law by Mayor Kirk Caldwell on April 19, two days after it was approved unanimously by the Hono­lulu City Council, allows city workers to remove, without notice, tents and other objects deemed "sidewalk nuisances."

read ... Public gets its say on rules to contest sidewalk violations

Bill would apply city ethics policies to transportation workers

SA: The Honolulu City Council will consider today whether the top nonprofit employees overseeing the city's TheBus and TheHandi-Van services should be subject to the same ethics training, ethics policies and civil penalties as city employees.

Councilman Joey Mana­han said he introduced the proposal a couple of weeks ago as Bill 32 after he confirmed the nonprofit firm Oahu Transit Services' contract with the city would not go out for competitive bid this year, as proposed earlier by his colleague on the Council, Ann Koba­ya­shi.

OTS has run TheBus and TheHandi-Van since 1991, and city leaders say OTS inhabits a gray area between being a city entity and independent contractor — describing the firm's relationship to the city as "complex" and "convoluted." Mana­han's proposal, if approved, would seemingly give more weight toward OTS falling under the city — even though most OTS employees remain Teamsters and none are members of the 13 state-recognized pubic employee unions....

OTS President and General Manager Roger Morton said Mana­han's bill would affect about 115 non-Teamster OTS employees as well as the board but that the proposal seemed fair overall. "We don't mind that," said Morton, who's also an OTS board member. He added that he has always considered the firm to be more of a city entity than a private business.

read ... TheBus

Probation That Works

Slate: Over the years, one innovative reform program after another has materialized and then quickly receded from memory. So Hawken was skeptical when she heard that participants in a yearlong pilot program in Hawaii were 50 percent less likely to be arrested for a new crime and 70 percent less likely to use drugs. “In this line of work, when you hear something that sounds too good be true,” she said, “it’s because it is too good to be true.”

Background: Judge Steven Alm: Justice Reinvestment and the future of HOPE Probation

read ... Hawaii HOPE

Is This The End of 50-Yard-Line Shmooze Seats?

ILind: Under the new guidelines, only the university president, Manoa chancellor, and members of the Board of Regents will be eligible to receive complimentary athletic tickets for themselves and a spouse or partner.

These officials qualify because they all serve protocol functions due to their positions of leadership and responsibility for representing the university at public events, the commission said....

This will be a big change. In recent years, several vice presidents and associate vice presidents have received thousands of dollars worth of season tickets for themselves and family members on request. That will no longer be allowed under the commission’s new guidelines.

read ... Schmooze

House Approves Military Construction Bill With $400M for Hawaii

CB: The House version of a bill appropriating military construction spending — including $400 million at Hawaii bases — easily passed today, 421-4.

Posturing: Schatz, Hanabusa Praise Idea Of Defense Summit In Hawaii

read ... Pork

How Abercrombie Came to Hawaii and How to Avoid Similar Situations in the Future

From Abercrombie FB Page: The premier of "Getting to Know You" on 'Ōlelo Community Media starts in 30 mins. Gov. Abercrombie discusses what motivated him to come to Hawaii, his school years, even his favorite TV show. Enjoy this insightful look into the life of Hawaii’s Governor who has enjoyed such a colorful political career in Washington, D.C. and Hawaii.

Tune in to Olelo Ch. 54 or watch online at http://www.olelo.org/views54

Kawanakoa: Only a Small Number of Mortgage Foreclosures Warranted on DHHL

SA: I was very disappointed at the state auditor's report to the Legislature regarding the DHHL.

The auditor's implication that lessees unable to pay their mortgages should be removed from the land is most disturbing and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding by the auditor of the national mortgage foreclosure epidemic.

The audit concludes that leaving defaulting borrowers in their homes is somehow perceived as giving special treatment to this group and favoring them over others on the wait list. Such a view is mean-spirited, shortsighted and divisive.

It is evident there is a very small number of extreme cases for which eviction is the only option; however, there are viable alternatives for the overwhelming majority of lessees in default that the audit does not address.

What the auditor should have recommended is that DHHL engage in a process of loss mitigation....

Background: Audit Slams DHHL 'Lax Loan Management'

read ... Abigail Kawanakoa

CNHA Hosts Hawaii-Alaska Summit in DC

AP: A discussion in Washington, D.C. on native issues is continuing an alliance between congressional delegations of Alaska and Hawaii, forged by a longtime friendship between two senators.

The delegations say Tuesday's round-table continues the special relationship established by Hawaii's late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye and Alaska's late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.

The discussion included Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native business leaders, community organizations and policy advocates. It was hosted by the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement and the Alaska Federation of Natives. Topics included improving education and stimulating native-owned businesses.

The round-table is expected to become an annual event, with future discussions to be held alternately in Hawaii and Alaska.

SA: the meeting did not result in any proposed legislation

KITV: Photo

read ... Still Trying to Invent the Indian Tribe

Honolulu Weekly Pau for Now

HW: Wanted you to be the first to know: Editors learned today, Honolulu Weekly is going on hiatus for financial reasons. Tomorrow's June 5 FOOD ISSUE will be our last until we regroup, looking at Fall 2013.
Stay in touch, dear friends.

SA: Honolulu Weekly to suspend publishing to review finances

read ... Pau

Military Homosexual Rapists to Win Protection?

CB: Gabbard said in a statement  she was “deeply disappointed” that military leaders testified “that commanders should retain authority over whether or not a sexual assault incident be investigated or prosecuted…I am so proud to serve our country as a Soldier, and it sickens me that there are those who willingly dishonor the sacrifice of so many, and the privilege of service, by committing these violent sexual assaults within the ranks. This is absolutely unacceptable.

“Leaders in the Defense Department have known about this problem for decades, have said there is zero tolerance, yet reports indicate that in 2012 alone, on average, 71 service members were sexually assaulted every day,” Gabbard said.

read ... Rapists Win

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