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Ian Lind • Online daily from Kaaawa, Hawaii

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Exhibit celebrates 90 years of Ka Leo, the UH Manoa student newspaper

February 2nd, 2012 · History, Media

Celebrating 90 years of student journalism!

This in from Jay Hartwell, student media advisor at UH Manoa.

We have completed the installation of an exhibit at Hamilton Library’s bridge gallery that celebrates the 90 years that students have edited Ka Leo O Hawai`i for the University of Hawai`i at Manoa community. It will be open through May 11.

While going through old issues, I found an article about you that I have attached.

For the exhibit, the student curator Erica Lenentine suggested that we scan more than 70 articles, letters, editorials, commentaries, and a cartoon for one section (“The Right to Be”) that focuses on the 1990 controversy generated by Joey Carter, who wrote a commentary in which he objected to being called haole. All of the clips are viewable here, or can be accessed through a QR code.

State Representative K. Mark Takai, who was Ka Leo’s editor during 1990-1991, introduced a resolution honoring Ka Leo’s 90th anniversary, which will be presented to editor Will Caron about noon this Thursday, Feb. 2, at the state House.

The university has a release about the exhibit.

A slide show about the exhibit is also available.

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CIty Councilman Berg: “I am concerned for my safety….”

February 1st, 2012 · Media, Politics

In this morning’s email stack was an unsolicited message from City Councilmember Tom Berg, actually a copy of a message addressed to Honolulu Weekly. Subject: BERG AT APEC EVENT.

This email consisted of a rambling series of accusations against the Honolulu Police Department and federal agents based on what Berg says is the “truth” of his experience at APEC. It also includes accusations against the Star-Advertiser and two of its columnists for “patently false” (Berg’s term) reporting.

Reached by phone this afternoon, Berg confirmed he had sent the email.

Berg, in the mail, said: “I am concerned for my safety….”

And then it adds this sentence:

THIS EMAIL IS CONFIDENTIAL AND PRIVATE AND ITS CONTENTS CANNOT BE SHARED OR PUBLISHED OR DISSEMINATED.

I would say this. If you really want something to be “confidential and private,” then I don’t think you should be sending it out unsolicited to others who have no such agreement with you.

Let me ask readers: Do you think I have any obligation whatsoever to Berg’s demand to keep his unsolicited email confidential?

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The Candidates Report: Money, money everywhere

February 1st, 2012 · Campaigns, Politics

The new money figures are in.

Governor Abercrombie did quite well for himself, taking in $1.1 million during the latter half of 2011.

I originally wrote that as “raking in” rather than “taking in”, but decided it slighted changed the meaning of the sentence in a manner I’m not sure I meant. Language is a powerful and potentially dangerous thing, as I learned a few days ago in a post that brought beaucoup comments on “speculation” and its meanings.

In any case, here’s the top of the Governor’s dance card, as reported in his contribution list for the period. I know you probably can’t read that small print, but just click on it and you’ll see a larger version.

[text]

If corporate cash is free speech, as the Supreme Court seems to believe, then the First Amendment is alive and well in our state. Unfortunately, many of Governor Abercrombie’s supporters voted for him in order to keep corporate influence at bay, not embrace it so wholeheartedly.

It wouldn’t be so bad if this were done in that old cynical Texas style, described by the late Molly Ivins.

As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can’t drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against ‘em anyway, you don’t belong in office.

Instead, it appears the money flow is influencing policy in a way that is definitely giving many of the governor’s backers heartburn.

The regulars are there. The Kobayashi Group ($24,000), R M Towill Corp ($21,000), the former Campbell Estate companies (Aina Nui & the James Campbell Co. combined for at least $18,000), Blacksand Capital ($12,000), etc., etc., etc. And these figures don’t include spouses, subcontractors, attorneys, and others who bundled their contributions along with the Big Boys.

In any case, there are lots of interesting data to be pored over today.

Check the candidate reports at the Campaign Spending Commission’s web site.

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UH West Oahu chancellor sidestepped required financial disclosure

January 31st, 2012 · Ethics, Politics

Whenever I run across a blank financial disclosure form filed by a public official, my alarm bells go off.

That’s what happened yesterday when I happened to look at the disclosures filed with the State Ethics Commission by UH West Oahu Chancellor Gene Awakuni.

Awakuni filed a “Disclosure of Financial Interests (Long Form)” report on June 1, 2010. It was essentially blank. Other than his name, title, and campus, along with his signature at the bottom, it did not contain a single item. No income. No creditors or loans. No officerships in other organizations. No real estate.

He filed an abbreviated report in 2011, in which he reported no changes from the prior year.

Again, no income, no interests.

So I did a quick profile of Mr. Awakuni and found quite a number of things that apparently should have been reported.

First of all, his own salary, which didn’t appear on the disclosure form.

Then there’s his wife, Maui realtor Leslie-Ann Yokouchi, who owns and operates her own real estate firm, MSY Corp., operating under the trade name, Windermere Valley Isle Properties.

Yokouchi is the daughter of influential Maui developer, political organizer, and philanthropist, Masaru “Pundy” Yokouchi, who died in 2006.

The state’s professional and vocational licensing database lists 50 real estate brokers and salespersons working for Windermere, including former Maui Mayor James Kimo Apana.

Awakuni did not include his wife’s company or her income on his financial disclosures, as required.

With all of the wheeling and dealing over establishment of the new UH West Oahu campus, and its relationship to land development in the leeward Oahu area, these would certainly seem to be relevant.

Real estate records show Awakuni and Yokouchi own several properties on Maui and Oahu. He is not required to list personal residences on his disclosure, and it isn’t clear whether any of the properties should have been publicly disclosed.

Then there’s Awakuni’s mortgage. According to public real estate records, Awakuni has a mortgage of $877,500 from Central Pacific Homeloans originated in 2008 for a condominium apartment in Honolulu. It was not reported on his financial disclosure.

Awakuni is a director of the state’s largest health insurer, Hawaii Medical Service Association, according to the HMSA web site and state business registration records. He is also a director of the Kapolei Chamber of Commerce. Neither of these positions has been reported on his financial disclosures.

Last year, State Ethics Commission Director Les Kondo told me that his office was going to start scrutinizing financial disclosures that fail to report basic items. I think this one qualifies for that additional review.

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Alert: Another bill would strip consumers right to know about current and past complaints

January 30th, 2012 · Consumer issues, Legislature, Politics

Here we go again. Another year, another bill to secret away important information about consumer complaints against licensed professionals, from real estate agents to auto mechanics to travel agents to massage therapists and more.

HB 2298, “Relating to Privacy Rights,” is scheduled to be heard at 8:30 tomorrow morning (Tuesday, Jan. 31) before Rep. McKelvey’s Committee on Economic Revitalization & Business. The hearing notice is available here.

The bill would set a new and far higher threshold that would have to be crossed before any information about consumer complaints could be made public. If this bill passes, only complaints that had been “referred for legal action” would become public, and then only if the person complained against had a chance to reply.

You’ll have to guess what “referred for legal action” means, as it isn’t spelled out in the bill.

I wouldn’t mind a simple Step One–if the complaint is frivolous, it doesn’t become public, except maybe in a category of “# of frivolous complaints filed against this entity….” It’s the kind of determination that could be made quickly and with a minimum of administrative overhead, perhaps even with a very short deadline. Beyond that, however, I think it’s clear that consumers need and deserve access to as much information as possible both in finding the most qualified professionals, and in avoiding being ripped off or simply unhappy with the service they receive.

This is another one of those areas where the law was pretty carefully written to balance the rights of all parties involved. This appears to be another in a long line of bills, over a period of years, to roll back consumer protections in this important area.

And despite all those bills being pushed by particular interest groups, there’s been no showing of a serious problem that is so unfair to licensees that it requires hobbling the public’s right to know.

Testimony can easily be submitted via the web.

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A few examples of good investigative reporting

January 30th, 2012 · Media

Trolling through the web this morning, I ran into an article by Arizona Republic reporter Craig Harris describing the development of what eventually became an award-winning eight-part series on public pensions. It’s always fun to read good reporting, and the inside story on the series is an added bonus.

You might also want to check out a couple of university-based investigative reporting projects. First, “Watchdog New England” at Northeastern University.

One of their recent stories was an eye opener, especially in context of discussions here of the foreclosure mess: “New Haven Independent Report Uncovers Slumlord Section 8 Scam.”

Here’s the summary:

A recent New Haven Independent report has taken the concept of the “slum landlord” to a new level. The Independent found that landlords Janet Dawson and Michael Steinbach were letting their low-income properties fall into disrepair and foreclosure for nonpayment while they continued to collect Section 8 federal rent subsidy dollars from the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH). In October alone, almost $80,000 was paid to the pair’s various corporate entities for 73 of their properties.

The Independent focused on five of the hundreds of properties owned by Dawson and Steinbach. Visits to the properties and a close examination of public records by an Independent reporter revealed that in each case, Dawson and Steinbach had taken out mortgages 10 or more times the property’s worth, never paid on those mortgages to lenders, and continued to collect rent from tenants – most of which was paid by the federal government under the Section 8 program.

Could it happen here? I doubt the economics of Section 8 in Hawaii would turn out as well for the property owners, but I could certainly be wrong.

How likely is it that we’ll see this kind of reporting? You know the answer.

Back to growing. The second stop is the New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR) based at Boston University.

Their mission: “…to ensure the survival of serious, in-depth investigative journalism in New England and to train a new generation of investigative reporters.”

One of the latest stories: “Suspended! Thousands of Massachusetts Students Tossed Out of School for Minor Offenses.”

Thousands of Massachusetts public school students were suspended during the 2009-2010 school year for smoking, skipping class, tardiness and other minor infractions under “zero tolerance” discipline policies that are creating what critics call a “cradle to prison” pipeline.

From Boston to the Berkshires, the numbers reflect a troubling trend that appears to have continued into the following school year.

Massachusetts logged more than 75,000 in-school and out-of school suspensions in the 2010-2011 school year, a study of state education data by the New England Center for Investigative Journalism has found. Details on the particulars of those suspensions is not yet available, but they do account for thousands of days of lost classroom time for students, many of whom are in danger of dropping out of school, critics say.

Or browse through the latest from California Watch for more stories that dig into the news.

Good reading to start the week.

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Speculators scoop up Kaaawa foreclosures

January 29th, 2012 · Business, Consumer issues, Politics

So what happens to all the foreclosed properties we read about in the news?

ForeclosuresThree foreclosed homes located behind the Kaaawa post office were recently bought by a real estate group specializing in buying and “flipping” depressed properties. The same group is already targeting two more homes in the neighborhood.

Get Tubed LLC, owned by investors Travis Wittmeyer and Kanoa Bristol, closed the deal on the three foreclosed homes on November 25, 2011, real estate records show.

Wittmeyer and Bristol are also partners in Blue Wave Investment Solutions LLC, according to state business registration records.

Wittmeyer, in a telephone interview, said Blue Wave is their primary company, which then sets up spin-off companies for each separate deal involving a set of properties.

Two of the Kaaawa houses are on Kekio Road, just behind the Kaaawa Post Office. The other is just around the corner, at the intersection of Lihimauna and Hiiaka.

The homes were built in 2007-2008 by the former owners of the properties, Michael and Daniel Sessions, and were taken back by the lender in 2010.

The original lender was IndyMac Bank, which later which was reopened as OneWest Bank after being taken over by federal regulators. None of the homes has ever been lived in, and reportedly need substantial repairs before being ready for occupancy.

The houses are on portions of two larger lots that were registered as condominiums in order to build multiple structures in an area zoned for single family homes. Wittmeyer said they found a number of problems with the original CPR, including confusion over exact property lines and differences in property records between various agencies.

Wittmeyer and Bristol were able to buy the three homes together for a total of $861,520.

According to real estate records, the three properties are:

1-5-1-11-19-1
Kekio Road Estates II, Apt. 1
2 bd, 2 bath
7,442 land area
1,442 living area
$267,368

1-5-1-11-19-2
Kekio Road Estates II, Apt 2
3 bd, 2 bath
8,083 land area
1,582 living area
$297,076

1-5-1-11-20-1
Kekio Road Estates I
2 bd, 2 bath
12,487 land area
1,442 living area
$297,076

Private 100% financing for the deal came from ITI Enterprises LLC, registered with the state just days before the closing of this deal, business registration records show.

ITI is made up of Turtle Bay Land Company, headed by Michael Mazzella; Intelligent Investments LLC, with members Christopher Jay and Tiffany Jay, who in an online video is introduced as vice-president of Turtle Bay Land; and Ionsolutions LLC, controlled by Raymond WM Kong.

Mazzella’s profile on LinkedIn describes him as “Millionaire Mentor & Best-selling Author of the book “Win!”

Mazzella also markets intensive training courses in real estate through another company, Honolulu Mentor.

Wittmeyer said his company often buys several homes in an area, and he is already looking to buy two additional Kaaawa homes, with one already in escrow. Last year, the company turned over ten homes in Wahiawa, he said.

Wittmeyer said his company specializes in finding under-market values, “something we can improve and put back on the market.”

He said the Kaaawa homes are “pretty typical” of what the company looks for.

The company will do necessary repairs and improvements on the three homes in phases over the next several months, and put each on the market as repairs are completed.

“We don’t want to put all three on the market at one time,” he said.

Wittmeyer said they will be addressing several issues, including drainage problems in the area. Owning the three properties will aid them in making necessary adjustments, Wittmeyer said.

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A surprise in the back yard

January 29th, 2012 · General, Kaaawa

When I’m short of cat photos for Feline Friday, I take a camera with me out into the yard in the mid-to-late afternoon. The cats follow. I feel liked the Pied Piper, with the camera as my magic instrument. The cats seem to know that they’re going to be on camera, and they enjoy it. Or maybe they just enjoy getting crazy in the afternoon sun. Who knows?

In any case, it’s nice to discover other things out there in the yard, like this beautiful heleconia. Conditions must be just right over in that corner of the yard, because this plant is large, thick, and obviously very happy.

Heleconia

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