Those attending the OIA Athletic Foundation’s fundraising dinner Tuesday night honoring House Speaker Calvin Say walked away with copies of a 106-page full color photo book featuring Say’s life in photos and accompanying essays. The glossy book, “Calvin: Blueprint for a Better Hawaii”, sure looks more like the launch of a campaign for higher office rather than a career-capping retrospective. Title sponsors of the event at the Sheraton Waikiki’s Hawaii Ballroom were Honolulu Disposal Service and Stanford Carr Development LLC, certainly no strangers to the political world.
For a bit of history, check a mention of Honolulu Disposal Service and its president, Clyde Kaneshiro, on these pages back in 2004.
Meanwhile, those stepping up as so-called Platinum sponsors were listed:
Alexander & Baldwin
Altria Corporate Services
Kurisu & Fergus
Kyo-Ya hotels and resorts
McDonalds Restaurants of Hawaii
Dr Edison Miyawaki/Cincinnati Bengals
Oceanic Time Warner
Paradise Beverages
The Honolulu Advertiser
Wal-Mart Stores
In addition to seeing the Advertiser on this short list, the Star-Bulletin was represented by two members of the board of its parent company, Oahu Publications, Inc. Colbert Matsumoto was one of the dinner committee co-chairs, while Duane Kurisu was a featured speaker.
Some believe Say is being positioned to run for Honolulu mayor in 2010 if Hannemann decides to make a run for governor, although other scenarios are certainly possible.
The House Ways & Means Committee voted yesterday in favor of HB 661, HD1, SD1, which would set up a pilot program of public funding covering candidates for the Hawaii County Council during the 2010-2014 elections. WAM recommended further amendments, although I haven’t seen what those are as yet.
To appreciate some of the complexities created if this bill eventually passes in anything like the HD1 form, I would recommend a close reading of the lengthy testimony presented by Barbara Wong, director of the Campaign Spending Commission, during the WAM hearing.
And this Feline Friday features a few fotos of Mr. Toby, back by popular demand, and Ms. Kili, who caught my attention digging around in the toy basket again. As usual, just click for more.
And I need to mention that Ms. Annie, who was missing on Wednesday morning, quickly showed up after I put on my shoes and started down the hill behind the house to search for her. In fact, I was just starting down the little trail when something ran between my legs. Sure enough, she was playing in the tall grass there and apparently thought my arrival was a great game. Anyway, all’s well that ends well.
While she does have some very good edits throughout her 25 pages of testimony- much of which would tighten up the full public finance bill- Barbara Wong apparently opposes the whole new system- nominally because it’s more expensive, but primarily because the Commission bureaucracy has always done it the old way, likes doing it the old way, knows how to do the old way and doesn’t want to have to go through the hassle of creating brand new administrative rulemaking and learning a new way of accounting, doing all the extra work, hiring new people and implementing all the other changes to the old broken system of partial public financing.
It’s the testimony of a archetypical bureaucrat whose fiefdom is being challenged.
Perhaps the best thing is that she just resign when this program is instituted rather than allow her sabotage it because she apparently has a commitment to making sure it fails. We are going to need a Commission that will enthusiastically work toward making sure the new system works rather than assuring its failure.