Donna Brazile: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC
GOP Tax Plan Will End Federal Subsidy for Unaffordable Housing and High Tax Localities
Scheming to Jam up Traffic Even More, Caldwell Sets Community Meetings
Ige: I have Aloha for Donald Trump
SA: …Gov. David Ige said he would greet the president and first lady Melania Trump this afternoon with an “aloha.”
“I don’t intend to have a heated issue or political debate on the tarmac,” he said Wednesday. “Whenever any president visits the state of Hawaii, I think it’s an opportunity to learn about the people, place and culture. We all learned a long time ago that when we work together we accomplish great things.”…
Protests will add to the chaos in the state that gave Hilary Clinton her largest margin of victory in the last presidential election. HawaiiJ20+ has planned a protest for 4 to 6 p.m. today at the state Capitol. Tomorrow the (Maoist) group World Can’t Wait will host another protest, slated to begin at 10 a.m. with a march from Ala Moana Park to Thomas Square, where a rally will start at 11 a.m…..
read … Aloha
Ige, Other Governors to meet Trump in HNL
AP: President Donald Trump plans to meet with the governors of Alaska and Hawaii and Pacific U.S. territories amid ongoing tensions with North Korea.
Alaska Gov. Bill Walker says the meeting, scheduled for Friday in Hawaii, is expected to focus on Trump's upcoming trip to Asia and "Pacific theater issues" affecting the governors.
(Unfortunately, since Obama will not be there, they will not be able to discuss new initiatives to bring more Muslims into the country nor will they be able to map out plans to put a tranny in every bathroom. Try not to cry over these lost opportunities.)
Walker says the governors of Guam, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands were invited.
Walker plans to travel to Hawaii with Trump's team from Washington, D.C., where Walker testified before a U.S. Senate committee in support of opening a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration.
(Wow. That’s what is happening in the real world. Amazing.)
Walker has raised concerns with North Korea weapon's tests and suggested the strategic importance of having a naval base in the state….
read … Meet Trump
DLNR Plots Legislative Agenda—Control of Recreational Fishermen
CB: Building on the governor’s promise to “effectively manage” 30 percent of nearshore waters by 2030, the Department of Land and Natural Resources gave legislators a preview Thursday of the priorities it’s hoping the Legislature will tackle next year.
At an informational briefing before a few lawmakers, DLNR officials said increasing enforcement of marine laws is the top priority, but they also asked for regulation of aquarium fishing, a network of Fisheries Replenishment Areas and the authority to create a licensing program for non-commercial fishing.
State Rep. Chris Lee, chair of the Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection, said it “blows his mind” that a major tourist destination like Hawaii doesn’t already have a permitting system for non-commercial fishing….
(The rest of the article consists of repetition of the words, “overfishing’, ‘record high temperatures’ and ‘bleaching.’ Please keep in mind that Rep Chris Lee is not the only person fooled by this blither.)
read … Control
2018 -- Hawaii Budget and Policy Center?
SA: …Among current efforts Thornton’s excited about: plans in the works to launch Appleseed’s “Hawaii Budget and Policy Center,” which will conduct research and data analysis on our state budget and tax structure, providing findings to policy makers ever in need of reliable information to more efficiently and effectively address poverty and inequality matters, he said.
“Good data and analysis underlies successful companies we’re all familiar with. That concept can be applied to governance, and the new budget center aims to dramatically increase Hawaii’s capacity for data analysis focused on creating better public policy,” Thornton said.
In tandem with its Budget and Policy Center, which is slated to be up and running in 2018, Appleseed intends to release a budget primer. “It will look at the process used to create the budget — where the state gets its money, how it spends it, how we compare to other states, and how things have changed over time,” Thornton said.
“The folks in the (governor’s) administration and the Legislature who work on the budget have a tough job. They have a massive amount of information to process, and they have to make difficult decisions that people are bound to disagree with. The purpose of the primer is to provide a bird’s eye view of how the budget has evolved over time and some of the major issues at play, which will hopefully inform future decision-making.”…,
read … 2018?
Regulatory review board member wants more engagement from Hawaii's small business community
PBN: The state’s Small Business Regulatory Review Board was established in 1998 and has these responsibilities:
- Commentary on small business impact statements to rule-drafting departments
- Identifying and commenting on business impacts of existing administrative rules and regulations
- Recommendations to the governor, state departments or the state legislature regarding the need for an administrative rule or legislative change
- Recommendations to the mayors or county councils regarding county rules
- Review of small business petitions and complaints on business impact
Those duties, how the board works, the calendar of meetings, minutes from past meetings, can all be found at dbedt.hawaii.gov/sbrrb/.
read … Engagement
Tsutsui, Abercrombie Still Pushing for Sports Authority, Stadium Boondoggle
HPR: ….Currently, all those marketing dollars, and the effort to attract new events, are directed by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. Not everyone in state government agrees this is the right place, not because anyone thinks the HTA is doing a poor job but out of the belief that a dedicated sports commission could do even more. One of the strongest advocates for a sports commission is Hawaii Lieutenant Governor Shan Tsutsui, who was appointed head of the Hawaii Sports Development Initiative in 2013 by then-Governor Neil Abercrombie. As the Lieutenant Governor describes it, such a commission would have some authority to invest in Hawaii’s aging stadiums in addition to focused outreach….
read … The Future of Sports in Hawaiʻi
Kauai County Wants legislators to Break Humane Society Monopoly
KGI: Kauai Humane Society’s animal services contract with County of Kauai could be on the chopping block if the council’s 2018 legislative proposal package is accepted….
read … Kauai Humane?
Cat 4 Hurricane? Hawaii Has Zero Shelters
KHON: Shelter shortage, supply-stocking outlook among Hawaii’s hurricane concerns….The plan estimates 420,000 people would seek shelter, and just 50 individual buildings at public schools statewide are on the current shelter roster….
We wanted the list of all the shelters, but had to push to get the ranking of what kinds of winds each could take. The vast majority of shelters, all at public schools, are at campuses that average 60 years old, in just one or a few school buildings that at most can withstand a category 1 storm.
All of the listed school shelters on Kauai — the only island hit head-on by a strong hurricane in decades — can only take a Category 1. All of Oahu is also Category 1.
A couple of shelters on Maui and one on Hawaii Island can take a Category 2. And just one, Hilo High, is rated a Category 3.
There are none inventoried for Category 4….
read … Shelter?
BILL INTRODUCED ALLOWING HAWAII'S FOREIGN FISHERMEN ONSHORE
AP: Hundreds of foreign fishermen currently confined to vessels in Honolulu for years at a time would be allowed to come ashore when they dock under legislation introduced Thursday in Congress.
The Sustainable Fishing Workforce Protection Act offers workplace protections a year after an Associated Press investigation found that Hawaii's commercial fishing fleet is crewed by about 700 men who are never allowed off their boats, even when they come into the Honolulu Harbor to unload their catch….
read … Introduced
Murder: 30 Year Old Secret Haunts HPD
KHON: …Au’s purse was still in the car when it was found, but her driver’s license and car registration were missing.
Witnesses also reported seeing a car with blue flashing grill lights behind Lisa’s car.
That led to speculation that someone posing as a police officer, or even a real police officer, had something to do with it.
“The police department felt that it was serious enough to change the policy regarding the stopping of vehicles by off-duty police officers, and the use of blue grill lights,” former Honolulu police homicide Lt. Gary Dias said.
On Jan. 31, 1982, 10 days after her car was found abandoned in Kailua, a jogger and his dog found Au’s body in the brush on Tantalus in Makiki. Her body was naked and decomposing.
…no one was ever arrested or charged with her murder.
The Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office told KHON2 there was not enough evidence to support a charge.
“Several theories have emerged that she was on her way home when she was stopped and abducted from that Kailua location, or that she was killed elsewhere, and the vehicle was staged in Kailua to make it look like that’s where she was stopped,” Dias said.
There’s no statute of limitations on murder, so the case is still open….
read … 30 Year old Secret
Feds: Kealohas Got Over $4.2M from Schemes
CB: $4,254,937 -- That’s how much federal prosecutors estimate Louis and Katherine Kealoha improperly obtained through allegedly illegal actions.
The former police chief and his prosecutor wife — who’ve been referred to as a Honolulu power couple — aren’t accused of directly receiving that amount in cash. The bulk of the total — $3.8 million — came from bank loans and refinancing of mortgages that were allegedly obtained with fraudulent information.
read … What’s At The Center Of The Case Against The Kealohas? Bank Fraud
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