Kauai County

Association of Alternative Newsweeklies CONDEMNS the attempt by Maui authorities to force this disclosure, and SUPPORTS the right of Maui Time and Tommy Russo to oppose this subpoena and CALLS ON the district attorney of Maui to immediately withdraw this subpoena and cease all efforts to chill the free speech rights of Maui Time readers.

When the government chooses a preferred beneficiary before it condemns, the taking looks a lot more like the prohibited "A-to-B" taking that the Court professes to frown upon....

Representative George Fontaine discusses domestic violence in Hawaii with Dara Carlin a domestic violence survivor and advocate; and Tiffinie Walters a domestic violence survivor....

The Maui Police Department has issued a subpoena to obtain the IP addresses of Maui Time web commenters, citing the terroristic threatening of one of its officers. by Maui police officer Nelson Johnson....The comment in question was left in response to an April 14 blog post in which Maui Time publisher Tommy Russo posted a video of himself being assaulted....

HELCO reported that 20,660 customer interruptions (16% of all interruptions) were related to Independent Power Producer (non-HELCO Generation) sources. In 2009 Hamakua Energy Partners (HEP) and Pakini Nui Windfarm were the non-HELCO generation sources that caused customer interruptions. 

Kalama Park on Saturday, May 21, at 11:30 -2:30 (middle pavilion by the playground equipment).

Representative Gene Ward, Minority Leader, Sine Die Announcement May 2011, Hawaii State House of Representatives ....

As the 2011 Hawai`i State Legislature moves closer to an end, boisterous applause, back-slapping, and high-fives erupted on the morning of Friday, May 1st in Conference Room 229 at the Hawai`i State Capitol as health insurance lobbyists congratulated themselves. They were celebrating the passage of Senate Bill 1274 that repeals a decade-old consumer protection law consumers have used successfully to overturn health plan denials approximately 80% of the time.... 

Friends of Lāna‘i (FOL) today petitioned Hawaii’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to reopen the competitive bidding process for the “Big Wind” project.

PUC--"This bill would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for companies to gain entry into the water carrier market in Hawaii….”

Representative George Fontaine discusses Hawaii Drug Courts with Chief Judge, Judge Shackley Raffetto from Maui and Judge Michael D. Wilson from Oahu....

Hawaii has one of the highest State Tax Rates in the United States, and yet the State Legislature is considering many new increases in taxes including income, excise, and other fees.  Are you Taxed Enough Already?

This project uses tax and rate payer money to enrich a privately held corporation. It bills itself as “green” when it is actually a corporate boondoggle to put a billion dollars every four years into one man’s pocket.

After two years of marketing the alleged horrors of the non-existent “Pacific Garbage Patch”, environmentalists, big business, and big government are ready to cash in.

Ever since I visited the decrepit wind project at South Point on the Big Island I realized that wind farms are investment schemes, not reliable energy production plants. So did T. Boone Pickens with his multibillion dollar order of GE wind turbines for his “Pickens Plan,” a plan that has been abandoned because wind energy makes no business sense....

If the majority of the lawmakers and Hawaiian Electric Co. get their way under Senate Bill 367 — the bill designed to finance an interisland cable — the Oahu ratepayer will be solely responsible for the cost of the project, predicted to cost somewhere between $500 million to $1 billion.

As defined, the offense of violation of privacy in the first degree involves the installation or use of “any device for observing, recording, amplifying, or broadcasting another person in a stage of undress or sexual activity in that place.” – Attorney General Louie

Analysis by Thomas R Cannon, Architect AIA, Chair of the Maui County General Plan Advisory Committee.

Fontaine, who represents South Maui, will have access to an exclusive bank hot line on behalf of constituents and other Maui homeowners who are having difficulties with their mortgage payments. BOA’s goal is to establish contact with the customer within one business day, and to provide a response the legislator’s office and to the borrower within 20 business days on the specific issues of the inquiry.

HB1101: Allows for increase in the State motor vehicle registration fee

HB1097: Extends the $3 per day surcharge on rental motor vehicles

“This bill primarily affects property crimes and takes repeat offender status away from those kinds of crimes.  As a police officer I’ve dealt with this many many times where we’ve had people that have gone out and habitually burglarized homes, stolen cars all to fuel their drug habit….  And I feel that we need to have that repeat offender status for these kinds of crimes because of the fact that we do have these people that are just habitual criminals….”  -- Rep George Fontaine (R-Kihei)

It has been a busy two months in office. So far there have been floods in Kihei and Maalaea, rockslides on the pali, a ban on plastic bags and a push for a major film production studio. And that was just January.

Mayor Alan Arakawa will be attending and will make opening remarks, as well as speaking about his plans for West Maui....

HONOLULU – The Regents Candidate Advisory Council (RCAC) has presented a list of candidates to Gov. Neil Abercrombie to fill four seats on the University of Hawai’i Board of Regents, including two City and County of Honolulu seats, a Hawai’i County seat and a Maui County seat.

Hooser invites readers to look at his campaign website www.GaryHooser.com. Listed on the right column of his site are links to other websites described as “Senator Gary Hooser’s Regular Reading Regime.” The 25 links include the Kailua, O`ahu-based anti-Semitic 9-11 conspiracy website www.WhatReallyHappened.com (WRH).

At WRH “Regular Readers” like Hooser may peruse an article from a Holocaust denier publication asserting: “(only) two to three hundred thousand Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none in gas chambers.” Another WRH article touts a 1928 communist scheme to send Russian Jews to Siberia. There are literally hundreds of such articles interspersed between a selection of articles about Jewish child molesters, Jewish swindlers, and any other—mostly Jewish or “Israeli”--wrongdoing.

Location: Kalama Heights Retirement Home, Garden Room

Date: Friday, February 18th, 2011, 6:30pm

Cost: Free and open to the public!

Senator Charles Schumer and other congressional leaders have called on government safety agencies to investigate why such elevated levels of lead are coming into contact with our food and leaching into the environment. Perhaps even more alarming, a University of Arizona study found fecal coliform bacteria and E. coli in some of the bags.

EPA standard for lead in packaging materials is 100ppm.  Safeway tests 6.72 times the EPA limit.  Walgreens is 2.98 times, KTA Superstores 2.85 times, and Defense Comissary Agency tests 2.35 times the EPA standard. 

Amends chapter 37, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to include agency-wide technology and computer systems with an estimated useful life of greater than seven years as capital investments to allow all costs to be financed with bond funds and depreciated as capital investments.

Fontaine: “We heard from a Maui roofing contractor who said that if he received a $70K fine … he would have to earn $7M in additional business in order to make up the fine because his profit margin is so slim.”

Oahu:  Wednesday, Feb. 2nd, 11:30 am to 1 pm

Maui: Wednesday, February 2nd, 5:30 to 8pm

Thanks to the high cost of motor vehicle fuel--which in Hawaii includes the second highest gasoline taxes in the country at 63.5 cents per gallon--people have started buying alternative cars and cars which get better fuel mileage. The unintended consequence of increasing the cost of motor vehicle fuel is that there is less money going into the state coffers....

Maui’s County-wide plastic bag ban goes into effect January 11, 2011.  No EIS has been required.  Here’s what they are hiding:

The PEIS will examine the program-level impacts of the development of up to 400 megawatts (MW) of wind energy on Maui County, the transmission of the energy to Oahu via an undersea cable, and the integration of that energy into Oahu’s electrical grid.

Governor-Elect Neil Abercrombie today named Kalbert Young as the Budget and Finance Director; and Sen. Dwight Takamine and Audrey Hidano as the team heading up the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations as its director and deputy director, respectively.

Better Government Dec 2010 with Representatives George Fontaine (R-Kihei), Arron Ling Johanson (R-Aiea), Gil Riviere (R-North Shore) and Gene Ward Ph.D (R Hawaii Kai). 

...the greatest gift he gave them was their transformation from a disordered, lawless throng exiled in desperate anarchy into a living community built on Jesus Christ, a community in which they learned to care for one another.

According to Council committee agenda, “The purpose of the proposed bill is to lower the home exemption from $300,000 to $200,000, for tax years beginning on or after July 1, 2011.”

The result of such a move would be to sharply increase residential property tax bills.  Calculated as a percentage, the tax hike would fall disproportionately on those whose homes have lower real estate values.

Today, Tuesday November 16th, the Maui County Council will be accepting public testimony regarding a big proposed property tax increase. If you can make it you can sign in to testify by 1:30 pm on the 8th floor of the County building.

We will be flag and sign waving at 1 PM till 2 PM, to show our appreciation for our Veterans on the corner of Kaahumanu Ave and Kanaloa Ave.

Minority Leader Representative Gene Ward said, "Our new Caucus is excited and united and ready to do the people's business, particularly regarding fiscal responsibility and job creation in the 2011 Session.  We are very pleased to have grown 33 1/3 percent representing the first net-gain in the size of caucus in 10 years." 

HONOLULU - Duke Aiona and Lynn Finnegan today launched a new radio ad, "Twice," to highlight recent endorsements, such as the Hawai‘i Tribune-Herald, Maui News, Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Hawai‘i, Maui Chamber of Commerce and Hawai‘i Island Contractors' Association.

The Hawaii Republican Party has released its endorsements and recommendations for non-partisan County Council and Mayor races, County-level charter initiatives, and the two proposed Amendments to the State Constitution.

“I am pleased that MHLA’s Board of Directors has taken this action to publicly endorse Duke Aiona and Lynn Finnegan,” said MHLA Executive Director Carol Reimann. “The visitor industry is the largest employer of Maui County residents and we must have government cognizant of the industry’s needs.”

Subsets of the 14-member Political Action Committee met with candidates to identify those who were friendly to businesses. To receive the Chamber's endorsement as a "business friendly" candidate, each candidate had to meet a minimum score equating to 60 percent of the total points possible.

Duke Aiona and Lynn Finnegan's opponents did not meet the minimum score to qualify for an endorsement.