Like many others, I’m sliding into an early start on the holiday and won’t see you again until next week. But I wanted to leave something to help you get into the spirit and what better way than “Rave On Buddy Holly,” a new tribute to the late rock legend with 19 tracks by the [...]
Archive for June 2011
Fading away into the Fourth
June 29, 2011The chicken and egg of tourism promotion
June 28, 2011Gov. Neil Abercrombie raised hackles in the local visitor industry when he proposed to cut $10 million from the Hawai‘i Tourism’s Authority’s $81 million allocation to help balance the state budget, and again when he specifically criticized the $4 million HTA spends to bring the Pro Bowl to Honolulu. The Legislature got in on the [...]
Superferry still clouds Hawai‘i’s business image
June 27, 2011I have to admit to a twinge of sadness when I read that the sorry saga of the Hawaii Superferry appears to be in its final act with the announcement by the U.S. Maritime Administration that it’s selling the two Superferry vessels, the Alakai and Huakai. The federal agency ended up owning the ships when [...]
Abercrombie’s budget strategy is on target
June 24, 2011Gov. Neil Abercrombie is on the right track in ordering state departments to cover the remaining $50 million budget shortfall for 2012 by finding entire programs that can be eliminated instead of making across-the-board cuts. Slashing across the board is a poor management practice that sidesteps any setting of priorities and bleeds every program equally [...]
WTF on sandbar dogs?
June 23, 2011Apparently there will be no serious sanctions filed against the 130-pound bull mastiff that mauled a woman on the Kaneohe Bay sandbar or the dog’s owner. The unleashed animal was returned to the owner with a warning from the city under Honolulu’s dangerous dogs law, but no citation was issued or criminal case opened. The [...]
Mayor, council heading to court on rail
June 22, 2011Mayor Peter Carlisle and the City Council appear headed to court in a battle over fiscal control of O‘ahu’s $5.3 billion rail project. Carlisle yesterday vetoed the $17.5 budget the council passed for 2012 operations of the new Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit, arguing that the City Charter amendment creating HART gives the semi-autonomous agency [...]
Fix system for appointing UH regents
June 21, 2011The discussion following yesterday’s post on Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s requests for the resignations of board and commission members took a turn to the selection process for University of Hawai’i regents, so let’s stick with that for another day. The governor used to appoint regents of his or her choosing, subject to confirmation by the Senate [...]
Abercrombie stirs the political pot with resignation demands
June 20, 2011Give Gov. Neil Abercrombie credit for audacity in his attempt to get resignations from former Gov. Linda Lingle’s appointees to the Public Utilities Commission, Land Use Commission, Public Housing Authority, Board of Land and Natural Resources and Stadium Authority. If they comply and allow Abercrombie to name his own people, it’ll vastly increase his control [...]
A Father’s Day tie
June 17, 2011I’m taking the day off in honor of Father’s Day, and I leave you with a timeless Groucho Marx tribute to the occasion:
Shakeup could toughen up City Council
June 16, 2011There’s not much to do except shake our heads at the abrupt leadership change at the City Council until what seems best described as a semi-friendly coup fully plays out with the appointment of committee chairs. Council Chairman Nestor Garcia announced he was stepping down after only six months as the council’s leader and handing [...]
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