i L i n d . n e t

Ian Lind online daily from Kaaawa, Hawaii

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Money, money, money

February 2nd, 2010 · Campaigns, Politics

Both daily newspapers report today on the money raised for what is expected to be a hotly contested campaign for governor.

Poor Star-Bulletin. Richard Borreca’s story was accompanied by a table that transposed the two columns of figures, so that candidates appear to have all spent more than they have raised. Definitely a painful beginning their reporting on money and politics in 2010. The Advertiser story avoided that kind of problem, but neither newspaper did much more than report totals raised and spent, although Derrick DePledge provided a listing of top contributors on his The Notebook blog. Neither newspaper included links to the candidate reports themselves, which can easily be found on the Campaign Spending Commission web site.

I did take a quick look at the contributions to Mufi Hannemann and Neil Abercrombie, and quickly compiled a list of their top contributors, those contributing $5,000 or more to the respective campaigns.
Hannemann reports the usual suspects–developers, hotel execs, and consultants. But those school bus contracts we’ve been hearing about must involve a lot of dough, because the owners of Gomes School Bus Service and Roberts Hawaii, along with family members, combined to drop $48,000 into the Hannemann coffers. I guess they are hoping that a new governor will keep those buses rolling. Officers of Kobayashi Development Group combined to give more than $32,000. Also noted–a $6,000 contribution from Pam Omidyar. I’ll have to take a longer look at the list as I have time.

Over on the Abercrombie side of the ledger, I was surprised to see Joe Pickard, president of Environet Inc and a former Hannemann backer, along with other members of Pickard’s family, give a total of $24,000. There must be an interesting political story there!

I’m out of time this morning, so I’ll just have to return to this topic later.

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Duke cried all the way to the vet

February 1st, 2010 · General

After Mr. Duke’s sister died of diabetes last week, we decided to be proactive and do a diabetes test and a general exam. He took the long ride to the vet late yesterday afternoon, crying the whole way from his carrier safely in the back of our little VW Jetta station wagon.

Duke at the vetThat’s Duke, under the towel, on the examination table at VCA Animal Hospital in Kaneohe. Ann Sakamoto, our regular vet, is on the left with her hands under the towel, while her assistant watches. Duke was a pretty good patient, but he did seem to appreciate being able to hide under the towel. Dr. Sakamoto had to lift the one end so that Duke could get in the picture.

The towel wasn’t to hold onto Duke, it was just to give him a nice, dark place to “hide”.

Anyway, besides a physical exam, Duke had to give up a bit of blood and some urine. Test results won’t be back until later this week.

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Star-Bulletin gets the story of Waianae teacher’s death, and an Advertiser newsroom “restructure”, Okinawa in the news

February 1st, 2010 · Media

Credit to the Star-Bulletin for getting Rob Shikina’s story about the Waianae teacher killed in a fall while hiking in Makaha Valley into Sunday’s print edition. The Star-Bulletin had the details on the victim while the Advertiser’s Sunday edition was still reporting that the identify of the victim was unknown. It isn’t clear whether the Advertiser held back because an “official” identification hadn’t been made yet, or whether they just hadn’t pursued the story.

And speaking of the Advertiser, it looks like there are changes in the works.

The Advertiser announced last week that former managing editor Jim Kelly will be returning to the newspaper as editorial and opinion editor. Kelly returns to the Gannett fold after five years as editor of Pacific Business News. His departure from PBN comes just a month after the retirement of PBN publisher Larry Fuller, another former Gannett newsman and executive.

Meanwhile, an internal memo from Mark Platte announced a newsroom “restructure”. Maui Bureau Chief Christie Wilson will be relocating to Honolulu later this month. Platte doesn’t mention whether the Advertiser will replace Wilson or simply drop the Maui Bureau, as it previously shut down its Big Island bureau.

Wilson will now join editors David Butts and Dan Woods. The three “will work as a team to develop strong
beat coverage and enterprise both online and in print,” according to Platte’s memo.

The impetus for the change is to have editors work much more closely with reporters than occurs now and to build the strongest possible stories, graphics, photos and online posts for our readers.

Some beats will change and discussions have already begun with those reporters involved but most are staying the same.

Platte then describes how three teams of reporters.

David Butts will oversee a team that includes Greg Wiles, Robbie Dingeman, Andrew Gomes, Rick Daysog, Sean Hao, Rob Perez and Alan Yonan.

Dan Woods will continue to supervise Will Hoover, Eloise Aguiar, Mary Vorsino, Michael Tsai, Suzanne Roig and Diane Leone. He will add Loren Moreno to his team.

Christie will have a team of Jim Dooley, Dan Nakaso, Derrick DePledge, William Cole, Gordon Pang, David Waite and columnist Lee Cataluna.

Curtis Lum will continue to report to Andy Yamaguchi.

Here’s another little media question–With the latest clash over U.S. bases in Okinawa putting U.S.-Japan political relations under so much pressure and drawing such extensive international news coverage, why is the issue pretty much off the radar in Honolulu, despite the fact that Oahu is “home” to the U.S. military’s Pacific Command and economically dependent on good U.S.-Japan relations. It’s a reminder that although there’s a lot of local news coverage of local military activity and lots of reporting of military public relations efforts, that hasn’t translated into the kinds of sources that support reporting of hard news about military-political issues.

And so it goes on this Monday morning.

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Saturday night in the kitchen–Chicken Curry

January 31st, 2010 · Food, video

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Another strange twist in the tale of the city’s “disclosure” of personal services contracts

January 31st, 2010 · Politics, Sunshine

Hold on to your seats! Here we go on the latest round in the sunshine saga of how the city handles disclosure of a quarterly report of personal services contracts required since a 1997 city council resolution was adopted..

Document missingThe latest twist. The personal services contracts listing for the October-December 2009 period was released earlier this month, on schedule. It appears in the Docushare system under Department Communications for 2010. Well, actually, it doesn’t appear. The transmittal letter accompanying the listing is logged into the system as Dept. Com. 30, but the document itself is not included. No public viewing via Docushare, although virtually all other city documents of this kind are readily available. Instead, the transmittal letter bears a new and highly unusual stamp: “Document(s) on file with clerk’s office.”

Meaning: “Yeah, you win. It’s a public record. But we’re not going to roll over and make it easy for the public to actually see it. You’ll have to come and get it.”

And I’m guessing that when I show up at the City Clerk’s office, they’ll make me pay to get a copy.

Now, a review of the background on this issue.

Last summer, during my brief period of employment at City Hall, I noticed a discrepancy between the version of this contracts list that was sent to the city council and distributed to council offices, and the version that was made public via the city’s online Docushare system.

The problem: The original version produced by the city’s Department of Human Resources and circulated within the city council lists out each contract, the name of the person receiving the contract, and information about the position, duration, etc. But the names of those holding contracts were stripped out of the version made available to the public. It was as if they didn’t exist.

There really shouldn’t be any problem. The underlying personal services contracts themselves must be publicly disclosed since state law specifically makes all government contracts a matter of public record.

When I dug into the archive, I found the reports done from 1997 up until Mayor Hannemann’s election in 2004 made public properly, complete with names. But beginning with the first report issued after Hannemann’s election, the names went missing.

There was no response from the city after I first raised the question. When the next report was made public without names, I requested a copy of the original from Human Resources. It was produced, names intact, but, once again, the version of the same document that was made public via Docushare was altered to remove the names.

I noted that the situation raises legal questions:

State law (Section 710-1017 HRS) defines the offense of tampering to include:

(a) The person knowingly and falsely makes, completes, or alters, or knowingly makes a false entry in, a written instrument which is or purports to be a government record or a true copy thereof;

As the legal commentary to the statute notes:

This section is intended to penalize conduct which undermines confidence in the accuracy of public records. The accuracy of public records is essential to efficient public administration and, beyond the immediate context of public administration, the government has an interest in protecting public confidence in its records.

Apparently worried about the “altering a government record” problem, the city–or someone in the city–is now simply holding this document behind the counter, like stores used to do with adult magazines. But unlilke adult magazines, this listing is required to be a public record.

And still unknown: Why is this happening? Is the fact that it started as soon as Mayor Hannemann took office simply a coincidence?

Stay tuned.

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Candidate filing begins on Monday, despite what the Office of Elections web site advises

January 30th, 2010 · Campaigns, Politics

I hope this isn’t an indication of things to come!

This notice to candidates was copied this morning directly from the “Candidates” page on the Office of Elections web site:

[text]

Actually, I think candidate filing begins this coming Monday, February 1. Will there be a rush of early filers?

In any case, they’ll soon be off and running.

Hey, it looks like candidates are making more use of the preemptive press release.

The Honolulu Advertiser reported Friday evening that Honolulu Managing Director Kirk Caldwell has raised $327,928 towards a potential mayoral campaign.

The Advertiser also reported on Thursday evening that Senate President Colleen Hanabusa raised $252,812 for her 1st Congressional District race during the last three months of 2009.

Based on the lack of detail in these stories, I would have to guess that copies of the candidates actual reports were not immediately available. If the documents were available, then they were just ignored. That would be more troubling.

As of this morning, Caldwell’s campaign report has not shown up in the Campaign Spending Commission’s online reporting system.

Hanabusa’s report to the FEC was filed yesterday.

You can see how the preemptive press release strategy works. Put out a favorable press release that touts overall fundraising without pesky details that could raise problems (special interest money, etc). If they’re lucky, when actual reports are made public, all those details (their major contributors, etc) will go unreported because these early stories have already reported overall results. No need to get mired in specifics. And if there is another round of reporting as documents become available, these candidates will have already gotten fluff coverage and nice headlines recognizing their fundraising.

Win, win! For the candidates, that is.

In the crowded field for the Democratic nomination for Lt. Governor, data is still coming in. Here’s how the latest fundraising reports for the 2nd half of 2009 shape up so far:

Berg–raised $900. Year end surplus: $1,881.62
Bunda–has not filed.
Hooser–has not filed.
Karamatsu–has not filed.
Sakamoto–raised $6,438.16. Year end surplus: $236,078.90
Schatz–raised $120,531.72. Year end surplus: $209,478.56

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A wet Saturday morning in Kaaawa

January 30th, 2010 · Kaaawa, Photographs

We managed to make it almost all the way through our walk this morning before the rain really started falling. We were within a block of home when it finally got quite wet.

This was how it looked about 7:23 a.m. down on the beach in Kaaawa. Not much sun in evidence, but lots of threatening clouds out there.

Rain

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Responding to thorny questions about blogging and bias

January 30th, 2010 · Politics

I suppose I should take the time to reply to two recent critical comments received in response to my query about whether or not to accept political advertising on this site. Both appear bothered by the fact that I’ve continued to blog even during periods where I’ve been employed at the legislature. And both were more than a little, well, prickly. The comments are reprinted below.

The first came in earlier in the week:

Honestly, I think that since you work on the inside you shouldn’t blog period. If I were an elected official, I would a) never hire you or your relatives b) Never respond to any question you posed. How do we know if the person who’s signing your checks does something unethical you’re not looking the other way? How do we know your questions aren’t being written by your employer in a biased way?
I say stop working at the leg and blog full time. And then you can advertise all you want…

The second was left yesterday:

Surprised nobody has responded to “The Truth”. Here are some questions for you Ian:

Will you accept ads for a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor? What if that candidate is not your current boss? Is your political coverage slanted based on your job (i.e. working for a specific legislator)? Is your political coverage objective and unbiased now? Have you ever reported anything unfavorable or favorable concerning your current boss?

This pretend transparency is unnecessary as long as you are working for a specific politician during the legislative session. Go ahead and accept advertising and slant your blogging in favor of the advertiser.

I don’t feel defensive about my situation, but other readers deserve to hear my views on this. While there’s probably no satisfying someone seeking ultimate guarantees of “objectivity”, and I’m not convinced that any of us can, or should, be totally “objective”, whatever that means, I’ll try to respond, despite the early hour on this damp Saturday morning.

I hope you would agree–The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and I’ve built a track record over time. I’m not a “hired gun” type of consultant paid to parrot what my employer says. Frankly, I’m not good at following orders or hiding behind the “I’m just doing my job” approach. For several decades, I’ve built a reputation for independence, for speaking truth to power, as my Quaker friends would say. As state director of Common Cause, I pushed hard to extend the sunshine law and make public agencies more open, accessible, and accountable, and challenged improper political activities of the state Judiciary, a challenge that led to major reforms. As the publisher of a small newsletter, I investigated the influence of money in politics. As a reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, I pursued investigations of business dealings of national Democratic Party fundraisers, a powerful public employee union leader, corporate fraud and corruption, judicial conflicts, etc.

Did I go easy on Democrats because I’m a member of the Democratic Party and political aligned with its values? I’m able to answer that directly: “No way”. Check the record.

As to working at the legislature while blogging, I’ve been fortunate to have connected with people who haven’t been afraid to invite me inside their offices. For the past four sessions, I was a legislative aide for Rep. Lyla Berg, whose 18th House District includes the area where I grew up and where my mother and sister still live. This year, I’m a part-time employee of Rep. Jessica Wooley, who represents the 47th House District, which includes our home in Kaaawa.

Having one foot inside the legislature has given me a vantage point for observing the political process, and reminded me of the issues and pressures faced by everyone jumping into that caldron of political activity. And it has given me an excuse to spend more time around the Capitol than I might have otherwise.

Does that skew my perspective? Obviously, it does in some ways. I’ve been working in House offices on the third floor. That’s a “bias”, a perspective. Things look different from the second floor, I’m sure, as they do from other vantage points. A debilitating bias? Don’t think so.

And, if you’ve been around for a while, you know that I’ve staked out positions on issues that have occasionally been directly at odds with either political allies or even (gasp!) those signing my paychecks (meager though they are). At one point last year, I even surprised myself and had to take note: “Oh, my. Did I really say all that? Perhaps I was too candid.”

As to the original questions about advertising raised in my entry on Wednesday, there’s still time for you to comment.

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