i L i n d . n e t

I finally found a way to read and print the emails received in response to my recent request for emails sent and received by the governor’s office over a randomly selected weekend. The breakthrough came late yesterday after a couple of weeks of trial-and-error experiments (more the latter than the former).

The problem is that the file I received is in Lotus Notes format, which turns out to be one of the most difficult formats to translate into a more common file type. Nothing really worked except to find a copy of the Lotus Notes client, install it on my MacBook Pro, and then copy the email messages into a series of PDF documents.

Unfortunately, this process strips out any attachments that were part of the original mail. I’ll go back later and save copies of at least any really interesting attachments, if any rise to that level.

The lesson for anyone contemplating a future request for email is to keep in mind that it may be necessary to ask for the documents in a format that can be read or translated by your own computer system without a huge amount of work. This may take some negotiation to find a mutually agreeable solution.

Today I can offer the first three folders of mail, each identified as the inbox of a different member of the governor’s staff. I haven’t reviewed all of the materials yet, so just about all I can say for now is “what you see is what you get”.

Corrie Heck, communications officer, had the most incoming messages. Most appear quite routine. Various draft responses to MidWeek columns by Dan Boylan are there, as is a very rough draft of a reponse to my Honolulu Weekly column about Gov. Lingle’s State of the State speech. There’s a memo advising staff that the reimbursement rate for mileage is now 50.5 cents per mile.

There’s a message from a frustrated senior communications officer Lenny Klompus after getting last minute word of a legislative hearing on an administration bill. After directing someone to rush there and at least take notes, Klompus exclaims: “WE NEED A INTERN ~!!!!!”

Christine Hironaka’s inbox doesn’t have many messages, but several include administration missives to the business community attempting to drum up support for several bills.

In one message, Elizabeth Fletcher from the Dept. of Human Resources Development describes their efforts, which appear to have started weeks after the legislative session got underway. That sounds a bit late to get started if the bills were really considered important to the administration.

Christine,

The email that I forwarded to you (below) has already been sent to the 9 Chambers of Commerce, Small Business Hawaii, and the Realtor Association.

A letter was faxed out to them on DHRD letterhead under the Director’s signature, and then the fax was followed up by an email from me so that they could forward it on to their members.

Thank you for sending out the email for further distribution. The message will have more impact coming from the Governor’s Policy Office. As stated below, decision making is scheduled on the House bills for Tuesday, February 5, 2008. You may wish to add to the subject line: [Time Sensitive].

Call me on my cell if you need anything further: 783-6199.

Elizabeth

P.S. I am in the process of requesting that Marie to sign letters to send to the Healthcare Association of Hawaii (its members are affected by the HGEA’s grievance over the Nursing Home without Walls program) and to the General Contractors Association of Hawaii (its members are affected by the UPW grievance RE: privatization of state contracts affecting Bargaining Units 1 and Bargaining Units 10– in particular, refuse removal, landscapers, and janitorial services).

The third batch is from the inbox of Celine Ferreira. Mostly routine stuff, but have a look anyway.

Hopefully I’ll find time to process the rest of these email files tonight.