The daily newspapers aren’t the only ones facing tough times, it seems. Two Honolulu Weekly staffers were laid off last week, including a section editor, and remaining staff face a pay cut, according to several people familiar with the situation.

Meanwhile, former managing editor and interim editor Travis Quezon is pursuing claims against the Weekly for what he says are wages due but never paid. Quezon says a promised boost in pay during the period he served as interim editor and worked long hours to keep the Weekly in print was never delivered. Instead, he was later fired and given less than 15 minutes to clear out his desk.

I was unable to reach publisher Laurie Carlson yesterday afternoon for comment.

It isn’t the first time the Weekly has faced criticism. Back in 2001, I noted that the Weekly was paying freelance writers 10 cents a word, the same rate it had paid since its founding a decade before. I’ve lost track of the current Weekly offering, but wouldn’t be surprised if it has remained the same. However, they have increased the lag between publication and when payment is made, and that doesn’t count the additional period between submission and publication. Freelancers now wait almost two months to get paid for their work.

Ah, it’s the time of year for “Now you see it, now you don’t” at the Legislature, Yesterday the House Committee on Water, Land & Ocean Resources considered SB 378 SD1, which set bag limits for catching uhu and goatfish on Maui, a move backed by those concerned about depletion of Maui’s reef fish. The committee, chaired by Windward rep Ken Ito, gutted the bill and replaced it with the language of HB 1712 HD2, which would set up virtually impossible conditions before any conservation measures could be implemented. Similar attempts to place roadblocks in the way of conservation have failed the past several years. This latest move looks an awful lot like a bargaining chip in the making.

Meanwhile, the Grassroot Institute has put a nice front end on legislative voting data at a new web site, HawaiiVotes.org.

According to the group’s press release:

Citizens now have a powerful, online tool to track the actions of Hawaii’s state legislature and individual legislators. HawaiiVotes.org is a free website that provides concise, non-partisan, plain-English descriptions of every bill, amendment and vote in the Hawaii House and Senate. These are all sortable by legislator, issue category, keyword and more, allowing a citizen to quickly create a custom “voting record guide” for any legislator on any issue.

And the Attorney General’s office has launched its new web site providing the public a way to track information on charitable organizations that solicit funds in Hawaii. You can look up information that includes background on each organization and specifics on the percentage of your contributions that will actually be spent for the group’s charitable purpose versus amounts spent simply to pay for the fundraising costs. These proportions vary greatly and are worth checking out before you give generously to any cause.