SBH News + Views December 14
Rail Supporters Take a Hit. Visiting Federal judge A. Wallace Tashima of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, has ruled in favor of the anti-rail project plaintiffs, including the SBH Foundation, and against the City & County of Honolulu and Federal Government who sought to stall the legal proceedings on the issues further (we’ve been waiting since May for a copy of the Administrative Record) by challenging the legal standing of four of the 7 plaintiffs. The City is using YOUR money ($600,000 initially) for frivolous legal challenges like this.
On to SCOTUS. Local attorney Bill Burgess has spearheaded a civil rights effort for non-Native Hawaiian taxpayers to be treated equally with the special tax exemptions given Hawaiians on the basis of race on Hawaiian Homelands. The case is one step closer to a full hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court after several justices yesterday asked the U.S. Solicitor General for the government’s position on the issue. State lawyers argued against going to the Supreme Court.
Cox Confirmed For January 11. Wendell Cox has been confirmed as a speaker during the 36th annual SBH Business and Economic Conference on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at the Ala Moana Hotel. Cox is principal of Demographia (Wendell Cox Consultancy), an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He has completed projects on four continents on issues of housing, urban land use, transportation and governance.. He was appointed by Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich to the Amtrak Reform Council. Cox also completed a study on Green Gas Emissions and the Proposed Honolulu Rail for the SBH Foundation.
The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund keynotes the annual conference and will be joined by Supreme Court CJ Mark Recktenwald, Hawaiian Airlines CEO Mark Dunkerley, ALEC’s Jonathan Williams computer guru Peter Kay and leading Hawaii business owners. Call Darlyn (808-396-1724) for details and reservations.
Big Wind. HECO and First Wind, received Hawaii PUC approval yesterday to construct the Kawailoa Wind Farm—Hawaii’s largest—a 69-megawatt, 30 wind turbine facility on Oahu’s North Shore (near Haleiwa). Construction could begin next week and completion is set for the end of 2012. Kawailoa Wind Power is a subsidiary of First Wind, out of Boston. First Wind will sell electricity to HECO. The two entities are also negotiating for a controversial wind farm and transmission cable from Lanai and Molokai.
Who’s On First? University of Hawaii baseball coach, Mike Trapasso, spoke to a business group yesterday at the East O’ahu Breakfast Club, and hit a home run. He talked about motivating young men, teamwork and successful recruitment. He also spoke candidly about sometimes conflicting demands on coaches. Trapasso is a tremendous coach with a great record on and off the field during his 10 years at UH. He doesn’t get the publicity—or controversy—that dogs some other sports coaches here and he seems glad to just do his job. He is a credit to UH and the community.
Five-0 Black Eye. Wow. The flap over The “Hawaii Five-0” filming at Punchbowl Cemetery last week after the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor is big national news. Not good news. It has been a PR nightmare for CBS television and the popular show. The film crew interrupted a service of Pearl Harbor survivors at Punchbowl, restricted their movement, and some of the crew were disrespectful to them, many of whom are members of a Denver group, Greatest Generations Foundation. CBS did issue an apology and vowed to check the issue further. Five-0 Executive producer Peter Lenkov issued an apology on behalf of the production unit. Hopefully, we can move on. Hawaii Reporter broke the story in Hawaii.
Riverdance Fantastic. The Irish traveling group, Riverdance at the Blaisdell Concert Hall last weekend was tremendous. It was the first time the original troup appeared in Hawaii.
“Hello? Hello?” Our land line telephones at Smart Business Hawaii (396-1724/25) have been out of service for the past five days and counting. Hawaiian Telcom, whose members have struck for higher wages, can’t even tell us when a tech person will pick up our order in the queue.
More Taxes Coming? The Hawaii Economic Task Force, made up of environmental activists, special interests and Abercrombie department heads, has recommended to Governor Abercrombie that the Administration support a tax increase in 2012 on the Hawaii barrel tax, from $1.05 per gallon to $2.05 per gallon. – Former Governor Lingle vetoed the increase in the tax from 5¢ to $1.05 per gallon two years ago but she was easily overridden by the massive Democrat legislative majority. The increase in this tax alone has added considerably to your cost of living increase.
Blue Ribbon Winners! I will join in the celebration at Koko Head Elementary School, tomorrow, 9 am, recognizing the Hawaii Kai school's National Blue Ribbon School Award at a school-wide celebratory assembly held for the students, parents, faculty/staff and community. Jeffrey Shitaoka is the Temporary Assignment Principal.
New Grocery. Safeway will kick off the opening of its new Beretania store in Honolulu this Friday, December 16 with a private blessing and invitation only VIP event, followed by an official store opening to the general public on Saturday, December 17. The VIP event will include a performance by Ka Leo O Laka I Ka Hikina O Ka La followed by remarks from Mayor Peter Carlisle, elected area officials and Safeway representatives. The new Safeway Beretania, located at the former Schuman Carriage site, is around 65,000 square feet, with an additional 5,000 square feet of retail space. The store is built on a podium with nearly 240 parking stalls underneath. It will be open 24 hours a day and includes an in-store Bank of Hawaii branch, American Savings Bank, Panda Cuisine and a T-Mobile store.
Room Revenue Up. Hawaii’s hotels enjoyed nearly a 10% increase in hotel room revenues during the month of October.
Is The Sun Shining? Governor Neil Abercrombie and Schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi yesterday announced that the state Department of Education (DOE) is working to significantly reduce the cost of school operations and, as a first step, has awarded a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) contract to install photovoltaic (PV) systems at 15 Kaua'i schools. Under the agreement, the installation of the PVs at the schools will be completed at no cost to the state.
No Text, No Cell. The Federal National Transportation Safety Board has called for a broad, total ban on the use of cell phones and all electronic devices by car drivers. Since many states and cities have banned texting and cells, use of the devices by drivers has increased by 50%.
Fill The Kettle. Come donate to the Salvation Army and enjoy Hawaiian Host Chocolate (Thanks Hawaiian Host for donating every year!) tomorrow, Thursday, December 15, 11 am – 1pm, corner of King & Bishop, led by two of our SBH members Brook Gramann and Gloria Garvey, who have been at the same spot annually for 20 years. If you can't make it -- go to http://www.salvationarmy.com -- and make a donation on line... because "Everyone Deserves to Shine."
Unions Grab Students. Hundreds of University of Michigan students who object to being redesignated as government employees for the purpose of a unionization effort have no say in the administrative proceedings pertinent to the case, the Michigan Employment Relations Commission ruled in a 2-1 vote yesterday. Patrick J. Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, said that the exclusion of both the students he represents and the Attorney General leaves the case with parties representing only one position.
MERC ruled 30 years ago — in a lengthy case involving the exact same parties — that under Michigan law research assistants cannot be placed into a mandatory collective bargaining unit. “MERC’s ruling undermines due process,” said Wright, who represents more than 370 U-M students opposed to the unionization effort. “We now have a case where an administrative law judge is going to hear from two parties — the union and the university acting at the behest of the Board of Regents — both representing the case for unionization. The students directly impacted by the decision were left out in the cold. This outcome conflicts with testimony MERC Director Ruthanne Okun provided to the state Senate last year about a similar matter.
Wright noted that the state of Ohio has a law preventing graduate students from being unionized. Michigan policymakers could prevent these and future students from forced unionization efforts with legislation that explicitly precludes it. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette in a motion filed in the case argued that given the U-M’s scholarly reputation, and its impact on jobs and tax revenues, the case is “a matter of public interest” to the entire state, thereby highlighting the importance of this question. .
Earlier this year, the U-M Board of Regents voted 6-2 to allow the GEO to pursue the unionization, although a letter to Provost Philip Hanlon from the deans of 19 of the 20 schools and colleges at the university expressed concern about the “potential negative impacts that would result from (this) unionization.”
Could this be in store for Hawaii college students? Do we need a law?
Our Keiki Are Optimists! Weekly Reader, one of the leading K-12 educational publishers, and IBOPE Zogby International, a global public opinion polling and market research firm, announced the results of paired nation-wide surveys. The results show that children and adults agree on the top two issues facing the United States today - but feel very differently about our prospects for solving the country's problems. The economy/jobs was cited by large majorities of adults (89 percent) and children (64 percent) as our country's number one challenge in similar polls conducted by the two organizations. Health care was the clear second choice for both groups, but by a much larger percentage of kids (25 percent of adults, 44 percent of children). And unlike adults, children overwhelmingly indicated that the number one characteristic they are looking for in the country's next president is honesty - even over intelligence.
Children and adults surveyed showed vastly different sentiments when asked how they felt about the future of the United States. Children overwhelmingly chose "I feel very hopeful that we will be able to fix our country's problems" (58 percent), while 75 percent of adults responding to the same choices picked either "I do not feel hopeful" or "I feel somewhat hopeful" about the nation's future.
Blonde Uprising. Award winning Hawaii Reporter.com, Hawaii’s first electronic daily newspaper begun almost 10 years ago, still is free to all readers. Hawaii Reporter’s Malia Zimmerman reports daily (M-F) on the Rick Hamada Show, KHVH radio on 830 AM at, 7:40 am. Malia will report the news behind the news for you.
Want more local business information? Please visit the several SBH websites at:: http://www.smartbusinesshawaii.com, http://www.educate808.com and http://www.sbhfoundation.org.
Aloha,
Sam