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Sunday, March 22, 2015
March 22, 2015 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 5:08 PM :: 4624 Views

HB1471: Barreling the Poor

GE Tax: Significant negative effect to state economy

Ethanol Requirement Costs Consumers, Provides no Environmental Benefit

TAT: Tourist Dollars not an Infinite Resource

Makakilo NB Opposes "48 Minute" Bill 1329

Ige's DLNR fiasco echoes dark days of Abercrombie

Shapiro: ...This appointment was wrongheaded, and the governor handled it in the wrong way at every turn.

Ching is a good and accomplished man, but it's simply inappropriate in terms of public trust to give oversight of Hawaii's precious lands and waters to a developer's lobbyist who sought to weaken environmental protections.

It's akin to appointing a tobacco lobbyist as health director or a utility lobbyist to head the Public Utilities Commission.

If Ige still doubts he messed up, he should consider that the appointment couldn't pass the nose test of very friendly state senators who gave him every possible benefit of the doubt as a popular former colleague.

In his campaign action plan, Ige promised his administration would be "honest, transparent, account­able and responsive to you," adding, "I will serve the public interest and not special interests."

He accused former Gov. Neil Abercrombie of not doing things the right way and said, "Hawaii needs leadership that brings us together instead of divides us."

The Ching fiasco failed all of these tests.

It tilted toward special interests over the public interest and so divided the community that it evoked memories of the worst days of Abercrombie and the Public Lands Development Corp.

Ige wasn't honest, transparent, accountable or responsive when he relied on arm-twisting over clearly explaining his goals for DLNR and why he thought Ching was so uniquely qualified to achieve them that it was worth overlooking the obvious conflict of interest.

Despite having six weeks to bring Ching up to speed for the Senate confirmation hearing, the nominee showed up unprepared to answer even basic questions about DLNR's mission or the administration's goals, leading to a 5-2 vote against him.

To this day, we still don't know the Ige agenda for DLNR.

Ige even channeled Abercrombie's bellicosity when, after declaring his respect for the legislative process, he disrupted the confirmation hearing by interrupting a senator who was questioning Ching.

It's bewildering why Ige, who got his job because Abercrombie wasted political capital on endless drama and pointless controversies, started off by repeating the mistake instead of learning from it....

SA: Ige has chance to get it right with DLNR pick

read ... Dark Days

Ihara: Ige 'Quite Hurt' by My Flip-Flop on Ching

AP: The culture (faction) that Ige and his allies worked to build in the Senate helped to unravel one of his first major moves as governor.

"Under regular politics you go with your friends. We go beyond that," said Sen. Les Ihara, who was in the Chess Club with Ige for 20 years.

Ige had worked tirelessly to persuade his former colleagues to approve Carleton Ching as DLNR director, setting up meetings and sitting through hours of grueling confirmation hearings to defend Ching.

But the day of the scheduled vote, it became clear to Ige that his nominee didn't have enough votes to be confirmed. During the floor session, senators stepped out for a recess. Then in a closed-door meeting, Ige, after learning the senators' intended votes, announced to them that he would withdraw the nominee.

"He was quite hurt and understandably so," Ihara (D, Moiliili-Kai­muki-Palolo) said. "I mean, I would be if I were him. … Those of us who are close to him and voted no really respected him for respecting us, as hard as it was."

Ihara struggled with the decision on how he would vote, caught between the wishes of his respected colleague and crushing opposition from the public. Ihara had said in committee that he would support Ching when the full Senate took a vote, trusting the governor's judgment.

But the opposition to Ching, a lobbyist for the land development firm Castle & Cooke, was the strongest that Ihara had seen in his two decades in the Senate, he said. So he did what he calls an "integrity check" in the days before the vote and then let the governor know he had a change of heart....

read ... Quite Hurt

Funding scheme expands UH autonomy, like it or not

Borreca: ...Insisting that the state is still in an unsustainable mode of spending more than it takes in, Luke said the only increases were because of increased fixed costs.

That means the public worker costs went up because public workers got pay raises last year.

Pay raises, paying the interest on money borrowed and health insurance costs came to $320 million more in FY 2016, Luke said. In the next fiscal year, those costs go up $585 million.

"We are continuously spending more than the revenues the state generates," Luke said in her House floor speech last week.

"The Finance Committee is hoping to reverse this trend in the next few years."

The University of Hawaii is always a big part of the state budget. This year, UH gets $369 million in operating funds from Luke's committee.

The wrinkle is Choy designed a budget that essentially is a lump sum. Basically, the House is telling UH, "Here is $369 million; you figure what you want and how you will pay for it."

In other budgets, Choy said, "It was every campus for itself."

The UH chief financial officer, who is the state's former budget director, Kalbert Young, will run the numbers and decide on budget requests from each department and restrict or manage funds.

"No more coming to the Legislature with fake budget requests for electricity, no more hiding money in their slush funds," Choy said in his floor speech last week.

If the university top brass wants to pay down the athletics deficit, it takes the money out of the $368 million it was given, not by asking the Legislature for a little something special.

Lawmakers have heard the annual cries of poverty from the university, but have never been able to verify the truth.

"Now the university will have full control to fund its programs, manage its repairs and fund its operating costs," said Choy, warning that no longer would UH be able to say, "The Legislature didn't give us the money to fix our toilets."

With the lump-sum approach, Choy reasons that if UH is awash in broken plumbing, it is because UH decided to spend the money on something else.

Today each campus has a direct line to the Legislature, and each chancellor and program learned how to curry favor with a special legislative sugar daddy.

That stops, if the budget plan holds....

read ... Autonomy 

Will Senators Waste Another $28M on Health Connector?

AP:  ...One proposal seeks to help the Hawaii Health Connector maintain its operations by allowing the organization to issue $28 million in debentures, a type of bond backed by the state. A similar proposal died in the House, because of concerns about the funding mechanism and the dollar amount.

Now, the Senate-backed proposal, SB 1028, is in the House. A joint panel of House committee members will hear the proposal on Monday afternoon....

read ... Disconnect

State's website lacks information on big subsidy programs

SA: Hawaii's Department of Budget and Finance last year launched a new website designed to provide a one-stop source for state spending and financial information, but the state still earned only a grade of "C" on the latest "transparency scorecard."

Hawaii trails 42 other states in the annual report on how well states provide spending data online, conducted by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund.

Hawaii's 15-month-old website was specifically dinged for failing to provide critical information for Hawaii's four biggest subsidy programs: the Capital Goods Excise Tax Credit; Employment and Training Fund Statewide Training Grants; Enterprise Zones; and the Film & Digital Media Income Tax Credit (Act 88).

"Ideally the gold standard would be that you could say exactly who got these credits — or special grants — from the state, how many jobs or benefits they promised in return, and did they actually do what was promised?" said Phineas Baxandall, director of the U.S. PIRG Education Fund's tax and budget program. "That information is what some states provide. Hawaii just comes up a big goose egg. They had none of that information."

Hawaii also comes up short in providing information for "quasi-public agencies" that "run as a government organization outside of the general budget," Baxandall said.

Background: Secretive Subsidies, Tax Credits Make Hawaii 7th-Least Transparent in USA

read ... Big Goose Egg

Laws aimed at limiting pesticide use could rebound on responsible farmers

SA: ...the majority of farmers use pesticides; but before regulatory agencies allow them to be used, these products undergo extensive scientific study to ensure they will be used safely around people and in the environment.

Without the use of modern agricultural tools such as pesticides, our current way of life would not exist. The resulting higher crop yields allow a mere 2 percent of Americans to feed the rest of us.

Pesticides also keep bedbugs out of hotel rooms, invasive species out of watersheds and dangerous pathogens out of drinking water.

They're in household products such as bleach, mosquito coils, bathroom cleaners and products used to control fleas and ticks on pets.

If the little fire ant were to spread to your neighborhood, wouldn't you use pesticides to keep your children and pets from suffering the ants' painful stings?

Several measures introduced this legislative session have unfairly targeted farmers. Among other things, they propose to arbitrarily establish zones where farmers would not be able to protect their crops from bugs, weeds and diseases, taking valuable farm land out of production and making farms less viable, especially small farms.

Various claims have been made, but are not supported by facts; legislative action is not warranted.

Farmers realize the importance of protecting schools and other non-crop areas from the pesticides they use. A 2015 state Department of Agriculture (HDOA) review of the last nine years confirms that no schools in Hawaii were affected by crop farmers' use of pesticides.

The Hawaii Department of Health recently conducted statewide surface water sampling for 136 pesticides. Some may find it surprising that samples from urban areas on Oahu showed the highest number of different pesticides. Only one pesticide, a product once used to kill termites in buildings, exceeded regulatory limits....

read ... Anti-GMO is Anti-Agriculture

DoT Rejects PM H1 Zipper, Opts for Additional Lane

SA: The state Department of Transportation recently contemplated expanding the Zipper Lane to afternoon traffic. But, said DOT spokesman Tim Sakahara, officials opted instead to add an extra lane on the H-1 on the Pearl City viaduct, as well as improve the Waimalu offramp to Waikele.

"These approaches will provide additional capacity without the cost of running an afternoon Zipper Lane operation, which was estimated at about $2 million," Sakahara said in an email response. "It also does not take away two lanes of traffic in the eastbound direction," which the Zipper Lane does.

KITV: Interview with Councilman Brandon Elefante on rail

read ... An article about social engineering except for these two paragraphs

Housing First Ends Homelessness for 46 People--1,000 others moved to Stable Housing

SA: Mayor Kirk Caldwell's Housing First initiative to provide shelter and related social services to the chronically homeless has achieved mixed results nine months after the Hono­lulu City Council dedicated $35 million toward the effort.

A $2.18 million contract issued to the nonprofit Institute for Human Services in November is supposed to find long-term housing for 115 individuals and families who are chronically homeless. To date, 40 families totaling 46 people have been housed and are receiving related services, and both city and IHS officials say the effort is on track to house and provide services for up to 115 households in its first 12 months.

But a planned temporary homeless transition center for up to 100 families at Sand Island has hit numerous snags, leaving city officials still trying to decide if they should proceed with or scrap the much-maligned project. The city needs to spend funds by June 30 or the appropriation will lapse.

Meanwhile, the administration has yet to come up with definitive plans for much of $32 million in bond money aimed at acquiring, developing or renovating properties to provide emergency, transitional or permanent shelters.

The Council last June signed off on $3 million in Housing First funds from this year's $2 billion operating budget. IHS won a contract to provide long-term shelter, a year or more, and related "wraparound" services for 115 individuals and families that fall into the category of chronically homeless.

Kimo Carvalho, IHS community relations director, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Friday that the organization is on pace to provide permanent shelter via rental housing subsidies to 115 households by the end of October, the end of the first year of its two-year contract.

Carvalho emphasized that besides putting people in Housing First units, which are scattered across the island, IHS has been able to provide "stable housing" opportunities from other program funds for more than 1,000 other people since July.

Related: Waikiki: Homelessness Ended for 81 Individuals

read ... Housing First

Thefts Spike as Downtown Hilo Overrun by Homeless

HTH: Hawaii Police Department Assistant Chief Henry Tavares said a spike in property crime in downtown Hilo is related to the city’s ongoing homeless problem.

“Talking to our community police officers, I was actually floored to hear that the latest statistics show that there are over 100 homeless individuals that visit, stay or live in downtown Hilo,” he told the County Police Commission on Friday.

Tavares said the numbers are shocking and that the department is working with property owners to find ways to address the situation....

According to a May 2014 report by the state Department of Human Services Homeless Programs Office, there were 139 homeless in Hilo in 2014, up from 96 in 2013 — a 31 percent increase. Hilo’s 2014 figure accounted for 21.1 percent of the island’s homeless population.

Islandwide, the homeless population jumped nearly 40 percent, from 397 in 2013 to 658 in 2014, according to the report. Last year, Kealakehe accounted for 27.5 percent of Big Isle’s homeless, with 181 individuals.

Sita Gonzales, chair of the Hilo Downtown Improvement Association’s safety committee, said there are definitely new faces around town, including a noticeable increase in the number of families living on the streets....

read ... Predators, not Victims

After 14 Years, E. Maui Water Gets Contested Case Hearing

MN: May 24, 2001 - Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. on behalf of Na Moku 'Aupuni o Ko'olau Hui (a nonprofit corporation organized by Native Hawaiian residents of East Maui), Beatrice Kekahuna, Marjorie Wallet and Elizabeth Lehua Lapenia file petitions to amend the interim in-stream flow standards for 27 East Maui Streams.

September 2008 - The state Commission on Water Resource Management adopts recommendations at Maui meeting for eight "prioritized petitions" for the Honopou; Hanehoi and Puolua; Piinaau, Palauhulu; Waiokamilo; Kualani; Waikani and Wailuanui streams. All but two, Piinaau and Kualani, were recommended to be restored.

May 2010 - The commission takes action on 19 East Maui streams. Of those, 13 stream flows were left unchanged. The flows were restored to six streams; two on an annual basis and four on a seasonal basis.

Oct. 18, 2010 - The commission denies Na Moku's request for a contested case hearing after the May decision.

Nov. 30, 2012 - The Intermediate Court of Appeals rules that a contested case hearing should be granted.

read ... Maui Water Pt 2

Bikini Islanders to Move En Masse to Big Island?

MV: “We’re going to Washington next month,” the mayor said. The aim is to further the plan for relocating Kili and Ejit populations to three locations in the U.S., which Jamore identified as Arkansas, Oklahoma and the Big Island of Hawaii. There are already significant populations of Bikini islanders in these three locations, he said.

Jamore and Bikini Council executives would like to use their trust fund to purchase property for a resettlement. “We have asked the Interior Department if we can change the policy of the trust fund agreement (to allow for property purchases in the U.S.),” he said, adding Kia’aina was encouraging in her response. Currently the U.S.-provided Bikini trust fund allows for property purchase only in the Marshall Islands. “This will give the people options for education and jobs,” he said of the three potential resettlement locations....

This is not the first time the Bikinians have considered resettling in the U.S. In the 1980s, following an aborted resettlement at Bikini that ended with Bikinians being exposed to high levels of radiation in the environment, the exiled islanders sought to buy a large tract of land in Maui in the state of Hawaii for resettling the population. But the plan was vetoed when it ran into considerable opposition from Maui residents.

GPDN: Takai: Feds obliged to provide for migration

read ... Coming to Hawaii?

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