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Thursday, April 1, 2010
April 1, 2010 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 12:00 PM :: 9519 Views

LINK>>>FULL TEXT: Hawaii Pork Report finds $300M in waste, abuse, and mismanagement

LINK>>>VIDEO: Hawaii Meth Project welcomed at Legislature

AtomicMonkey: Neil Abercrombie Blasts Condi Rice. Blames Affirmative Action?

Shapiro: Hanabusa ad boldly deceptive

One of the guilty pleasures of my job is occasionally making local public officials spit up their morning coffee.

I've got to admit that state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa turned the tables on me with the latest TV ad in her congressional campaign, in which she claims to have "cut legislative salaries."

This is a cheeky attempt to blot out a troublesome stain on her political record by stretching the truth like a wad of bubble gum.

The fact is that legislators' salaries have been going sharply up, not down, and Hanabusa has been in the middle of making it happen.

RELATED: Hanabusa: “Legislators work very hard and deserve the raise”

KITV Video: Case: Hanabusa’s ad misleads public

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Hawaii environmental law being reshaped in private talks

They also say that working groups are the best vehicle to reach consensus on highly contentious issues such as Hawai'i's environmental review process, which has played a direct — or indirect — role in derailing high-profile projects such as the Hawaii Superferry and the $350 million Hokuli'a development on the Big Island, while fueling the Islands' reputation as a hostile place to do business.

SB 2818 is designed to streamline the Islands' environmental review process and make it more efficient and consistent….

Since Feb. 1, the nine members of the environmental review working group have met twice a week, along with additional subgroup meetings.

They represent the University of Hawai'i, which prepared a report that looks at overhauling Hawai'i's environmental review process; the state Health Department's Office of Environmental Quality Control; state Health Department's Environmental Council; the Building Industry Association, a private trade organization; Earthjustice, a nonprofit public interest law firm; Belt Collins, an international planning, design and consulting firm; The Nature Conservancy, an international conservation organization; the Land Use Research Foundation of Hawai'i, a statewide, private, nonprofit research and trade association of major Hawai'i landowners and developers; and the Sierra Club, a volunteer-run environmental organization.

(Hmmmmm…..The enviros in this group have interesting connections to companies like Grove Farm and A&B.  And of course when it doesn’t degenerate into a cheap and tawdry shake down operation like Hokulia, or a crass and disgusting display of arrogance like the anti-Superferry protesters, environmentalism is a means for one developer to gain a competitive advantage over the other.)

PDF: Read Senate Bill 2818

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Fake Plan put to vote: Teachers endorse union plan to end furloughs

Thousands of public school teachers across the state today voted to affirm a $92 million deal between their union and the state Board of Education that is their proposal to end teacher furloughs….Officials said the plan was endorsed by 84 percent of Hawaii State Teachers Association members who voted at 27 schools across the state.

The HSTA did not release the total number of ballots cast, but turnout appeared to much lower than the more than 10,000 who voted in September to ratify the two-year HSTA contract.

Interesting Timing: Bill to abolish elected BOE OK'd

HGEA, ruled by fear, continues to panic: Cutting principals' work year to 10 months would be harmful 

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ADV: Flawed? Sure, but DHS plan is worth trying

On paper, Koller's plan is supposed to save the state $8 million a year and make it easier and faster for people to apply for financial assistance, food vouchers, shelter and child-care subsidies, employment training and other services available to the poor and disabled.

Koller says other states have made this shift and that the results are obvious in the amount of money saved and the efficiency in getting paperwork processed.

But if legislators are serious about reinventing government and not simply protecting government jobs, then they should stand aside and let this painful but potentially transforming project happen.

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Ban on tents, shopping carts in parks across Oahu signed into law

New laws that prohibit unauthorized tents and shopping carts in city parks are now official. Mayor Mufi Hannemann today signed the two bills into law and police will begin enforcing the restrictions on April 19.

SB: Ban on tents, shopping carts in parks across Oahu signed into law

RELATED: Kapiolani Park: Homelessness industry takes Hawaii tourism hostage, Defeating the "homelessness industry" before it gets a grip on Hawaii

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Honolulu Council Member Romy Cachola’s Scoops on the Rail

To resolve the encroachment on the runway protection zone, the FTA stated the following alternatives:

  • 1. Move the alignment to the mauka side of the viaduct.
  • 2. Move the alignment onto the median of the viaduct.
  • 3. Extend the affected runway(s) to the opposite direction (makai) so that it would no longer encroach on the runway protection zone.

Link to Romy Cachola’s report: http://www4.honolulu.gov/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-98901/4_qfdwq-.pdf

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Hilton plans major renovations in Waikiki

Executives at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa announced Wednesday that the company will redevelop the 22-acre Waikiki resort with the addition of two new time-share towers.

PBN: Revenue picture brightens for Oahu hotels

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Station owners must reveal merger details

The disclosure order follows a Freedom of Information Act request by The Honolulu Advertiser, seeking the business agreements between Raycom Media Inc., which owns KGMB and KHNL, and K5's owner MCG Capital Corp.

(Good.  Will Raycom now demand the financial details of the SB-ADV merger?  Oh, that’s right it can’t.  SB and ADV don’t use public airwaves.  But if “network neutrality” is imposed, the Internet will be regulated by government and potentially subject to censorship just as the “fairness doctrine” once regulated the airwaves.)

Media Council Hawaii, which has filed a complaint with the FCC over the shared services agreement, believes that the details of the loan arrangement between Raycom and MCG will show that the newsroom merger is in fact a disguised transfer of ownership of the stations.

The council has argued that the deal violates federal laws barring one company from owning multiple television stations in a single market.

"This will allow us to finally understand what's really happening in the deal," said Angela Campbell, a Washington, D.C., attorney representing the Media Council and director of the First Amendment and Media Law Project at the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown Law.

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Aloha Bowl among record Bankruptcies

The number of business bankruptcies jumped to four from one in March last year. Two of those were filed by the companies that operated the Aloha, Hula and Oahu football bowl games. The NCAA bowl season included the Aloha Bowl from 1982 to 2000, when it ceased due to dwindling attendance.

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Sorry: Mizuno apologizes to Governor

State Rep. John Mizuno, D-30th (Kamehameha Heights, Kalihi Valley, Fort Shafter), has apologized to Gov. Linda Lingle for suggesting at a briefing on Kauai that the state Department of Human Services gives out contracts to the administration's friends.

Lingle, according to an account in the Star-Bulletin, demanded that Mizuno issue a written apology for the remark.

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Marijuana charge dropped against Honolulu police officer

Las Vegas prosecutors have dropped a minor marijuana possession charge against veteran Honolulu police officer Shane Souza, who today pleaded guilty to obstructing a public officer….

A May 11 preliminary hearing is scheduled for Fujioka, who is facing a felony charge of being under the influence of a controlled substance and misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence and possession of an ounce or less of marijuana.

Souza, a 20-year HPD veteran, and Fujioka, a 13-year officer, were placed on administrative leave without pay last fall pending the outcome of an internal Honolulu Police Department investigation, which is ongoing.

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Ex-MPD officer enters not guilty plea to 25 charges

WAILUKU - Former Maui Police Department officer Allison Moore pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 25 charges, including deceiving the department, tampering with evidence, drug possession and forging doctors' notes.

Moore, 28, who resigned from the department Sept 16, was out of custody Tuesday. She posted $150,000 bail after she was booked at the Wailuku Police Station on March 16.

She has worked in the Lanai and Lahaina patrol districts and was a vice officer for about a year before her resignation. She began working for the department Aug. 16, 2004.

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Shapiro: Charter school kids get something to chew on (candy ban)

After my item last week poking fun at a bill in the Legislature to ban candy sales at public schools, I got an e-mail from my old friend Patti Cook on the Big Island telling me about an innovation at Waimea Middle School that actually encourages students to chew gum in school.

A teacher at the school, which became the state's first public conversion charter school in 2003, found a Los Angeles Times story about research at Baylor suggesting that students who were allowed to chew gum while taking standardized math tests  scored 3 percent better….

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SB: Clamp down on cockfights

Each of the resolutions states that it supports cockfighting "as a cultural activity" but "does not support gambling, betting or gaffs," which are sharp spurs attached to the rooster's feet, all of which are integral to cockfighting. People engage in cockfighting to bet.  (So its a politically incorrect “cultural activity” -- suddenly the cultural nationalists aren’t so …uh…nationalist anymore….)

Some Islam (sic) societies traditionally engage in stoning women for engaging in nonmarital sex. (So why celebrate Islam Day then, Star-Bulletin???) In parts of Africa, female genital mutilation is considered cultural. If those activities were discovered in the United States, the perpetrators would be brought to justice. 

So it is and ought to be with cockfighting, even though what the resolutions describe as the "proud and Hispanic tradition" is legal and regulated in the Philippines. It is not a proud tradition in Hawaii….  (And neither is Islam Day.)

(In summation.  Your third world culture will only be upheld if we, the advanced intellectuals on the SB Editorial Board, can reshape it to our mold or use it to bash our enemies the “racist, homophobic, bigoted” people who are not “conscious, enlightened, and progressive”, like us.)

READ: Antonio Gramsci Reading List

BTW:  Did you know that Neil Abercrombie’s first political campaign was launched from jail after being arrested in an illegal cock fight?  We didn’t know that either, but Neil himself says so in his first campaign poster>>>The Incrdible [sic] Story of Neil Abercrombie

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