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Monday, July 8, 2013
July 8, 2013 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 4:24 PM :: 4372 Views

Surprise: Entire OHA Trust Fund Frozen by Gentry Pacific Boondoggle

FBI Still Hasn't Contacted IRS-Targeted Hawaii Tea Party Groups About Investigation

Report: Joint POW/MIA Command on Oahu “inept, mismanaged and wasteful”

AP: The report paints a picture of a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, a military-run group known as JPAC and headed by a two-star general, as woefully inept and even corrupt....

The internal report by Paul M. Cole was never meant to be made public. It is unsparing in its criticisms:

  • In recent years the process by which JPAC gathers bones and other material useful for identifications has “collapsed” and is now “acutely dysfunctional.”
  • JPAC is finding too few investigative leads, resulting in too few collections of human remains to come even close to achieving Congress’s demand for a minimum 200 identifications per year by 2015. Of the 80 identifications that JPAC’s Central Identification Laboratory made in 2012, only 35 were derived from remains recovered by JPAC. Thirty-eight of the 80 were either handed over unilaterally by other governments or were disinterred from a U.S. military cemetery. Seven were from a combination of those sources.
  • Some search teams are sent into the field, particularly in Europe, on what amount to boondoggles. No one is held to account for “a pattern of foreign travel, accommodations and activities paid for by public funds that are ultimately unnecessary, excessive, inefficient or unproductive.” Some refer to this as “military tourism.”
  • JPAC lacks a comprehensive list of the people for whom it’s searching. Its main database is incomplete and “riddled with unreliable data.”
  • “Sketch maps” used by the JPAC teams looking for remains on the battlefield are “chronically unreliable,” leaving the teams “cartigraphically blind.” Cole likened this to 19th century military field operations.

Absent prompt and significant change, “the descent from dysfunction to total failure … is inevitable,” Cole concluded.

Star-Adv Nov 14, 2012: JPAC's honorable mission no longer worth the cost.

read ... Mismanaged

KSBE has no Traffic Study on Kakaako

SA Editorial: Another major issue in the region will be the aggregate increase in traffic in the years ahead. Hughes Corp. has submitted a report that "modifications" will be planned "to alleviate future traffic conditions." Kamehameha has not conducted a traffic study but has said its master plan should have only a limited effect on traffic — a dubious assertion. HCDA predicts that improved pedestrian and bike lanes as well as parking, increased density around rail transit stations should reduce automobile trips.

That all seems overly optimistic about traffic from some 29 condo towers with 7,400 residential units and numerous shops. HCDA now shows a laudable willingness to deal with a development proposal that would interfere too much with a neighboring condo building and bust planning guidelines; let's hope it will deal as effectively with traffic that is sure to mushroom with population.

Fidell: Finding our Future in the New Kakaako

read ... Give variances a tough review

What Does Hawaii PUC's Revolving Door Mean For Its Integrity?

CB: Two years ago, a top Hawaiian Electric Co. executive urged state lawmakers to kill a bill that would have forced the utility to give up on oil-fired power plants unless it could prove it was meeting renewable energy standards.

A couple years earlier, that same woman led the state Division of Consumer Advocacy where she was on essentially the opposite (same) side of the issue. Then, she'd helped put in place the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, the state's landmark agreement requiring HECO to switch from oil to renewable resources and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But Catherine Awakuni didn't stay long at HECO either. Today, she’s the Public Utilities Commission's chief legal counsel....

at least eight high-level PUC employees who have left in the past several years for jobs at HECO, other utilities the commission regulates or law firms representing those companies....

(And Blue Planet represents green energy scammers and is writing much of the PUC's regs.)

read ... An Article Which Doesn't Mention the Blue Planet Foundation!

If no Cable, HECO Breakup?

ILind: the inter-island cable seems to be doomed. The local utility has declared that every island can be energy independent....

This therefore raises the question if HECO might be dismantled, with each island getting its own energy cooperative like Kauai. And energy cooperatives have no business in banking or insurance.

read ... Breakup

DoE Teacher Complains: All this Math and Reading Makes it hard to Play

CB: In lessons about the solar system and Earth, she asks her third-grade students to do chalk drawings of outer space and the planet’s crust. In lessons about geometry, she has them do artwork modeled after Picasso.  (No wonder they're failing.)

Art makes its way into social studies classes, too, with students making masks when they learn about Africa and origami when they study Japan, to name a few.  (No wonder they're failing.)

But Dubiel, who’s taught at Sunset Beach Elementary School for the past 25 years, says she’s in the minority. Teachers often struggle to incorporate art into their classes because of severely limited public funding and the demands of federal and state education requirements that place an emphasis on testing in core subjects such as math and reading.

read ... Revenge of the Basket Weavers

Activists Concerned Abercrombie May Veto Bill to Let Drug Dealers off Easy

SA: Opponents of a proposal to grant judges discretion in setting aside mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders in certain Class B and Class C felony cases say the law would apply in only a small number of cases.  (Notice how the Star-Adv writes into nonexistence the idea that drug dealers should just be locked up?)

To supporters of the measure, that's all the more reason Gov. Neil Abercrombie should sign the bill into law.

"We know that it's a manini kind of small step, but it's the best that we've been able to do in decades," said Kat Brady, coordinator for the Community Alliance on Prisons. "What we need to do is show the prosecutors that the sky isn't going to fall, that we're not opening the gates of hell.

"This is basically turning discretion over to the courts, and it's not even an elimination of mandatory minimums. It's just a lessening."

The proposal, Senate Bill 68, is among nine bills identified by the governor for a potential veto. Abercrombie informed the Legislature on June 24 of nine bills that he is considering rejecting by Tuesday, the veto deadline.

Like all measures on the veto list, SB 68 had advocates and opponents arguing their case before the administration. Abercrombie also has the option of letting the bill become law without his signature.

read ... We need more drug dealers on the streets

Illegal Immigrant Criminal Was Arrested Twice, Not Deported

SA: According to the affidavit, Leopold fraudulently entered the U.S., failing to indicate on his visa application that he has a criminal record in Canada: a 1982 theft conviction and a 1984 escape conviction.

The visa application he submitted to the U.S. Consulate in Juarez, Mexico, was approved in November 2000.

Leopold overstayed his visa after his request to extend or change his nonimmigrant visa was denied in March 2006, federal officials say.

Leopold also has a record in Hawaii. He was convicted in 2009 of operating a vehicle under the influence of an intoxicant. In 2011 he was convicted of harassment. Both offenses are petty misdemeanors.

read ... Feds Had to do the Job

Lawmakers could make it hard to light up on Oahu

KITV: Public parks, includes many popular beaches, golf courses, swimming pools, and other recreation facilities, it's a total of 293 places. Thinking that the days of enjoying a smoke on a city park bench could be over has some people fuming.

"I think it's bad because we are out in the open air, so I do think there should be a designated smoking area at parks away from the children for all of us who do smoke," smoker Desareigh Sweet.

"Outdoor, I think the smoke dissipates enough that it's not harming anybody. Pretty soon it's going to be you can't smoke in your own home," said Brian Johnson who is against the bill.

Another bill would make it illegal to smoke at city and county bus stops and that's making some bus commuters upset.

"If you want to smoke and you go in the back where you aren't bothering people you should be OK as long as kids don't have to breathe it," said smoker Lisa Yelas.

read ... Applies to Tobacco Only

Mega church taking over businesses, agricultural land in West Oahu

KHON: The church says it plans to keep the majority of the 203 acres agricultural by making a farming co-op and even creating a farmers market.

When the church first presented this massive plan to the Department of Planning and Permitting in 2012 it was denied, but with the change of DPP leadership, it’s being revisited.

“Four weeks after we got the letter of rejection, we got notification that they appointed a new director at the Department of Planning and Permitting, George Atta. He’s the senior architect that envisioned our entire plan,” Lwin said to the congregation.

read ... Atheists to Target This

Hawaii National Guard furloughs take effect this week

HNN: Monday will not be a work day for some 1,100 full-time members of the Hawaii Army National Guard. It will be a furlough day, thanks to federal sequestration budget cuts.

Every Monday will be a furlough day until the end of September for the Army and Air National Guard men and women who wear the uniform, but are technically counted as federal Department of Defense civilians.

read ... Obama's Furloughs

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