Monthly Archives: March 2009

Wednesday…More on McDonalds’ reception for legislators and staff, illegal gambling, bills crossing over, etc.

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[text]This is the front cover of the card mailed out earlier this year on behalf of McDonalds Corporation inviting legislators and staff to attend the company’s 2009 Legislative Reception scheduled for this afternoon.

Inside the card, the invitation lists a group of the company’s suppliers that will be present, and requests RSVPs be sent to the public relations firm Communications Pacific.

Last year, I complained that Hawaii Superferry had failed to disclose substantial lobbying expenses, and the company later admitted to hundreds of thousands in previously unreported costs.

[text]I have no reason to think that McDonalds lobbying efforts are in the same league as those of the Superferry, but the company’s legislative reception has become an annual event at the Capitol, while its related expenses have not been reported on lobbyist reports filed with the State Ethics Commission.

This small photo, taken with a cell phone during the 2007 Macdonalds reception, shows Ronald McDonald clowning around in the hallway while displays and tables by the company and its many suppliers display their goods and services.

I expect this afternoon’s reception will feature more of the same.

Jim Dooley has a good wrap-up in today’s Advertiser on the Pali Golf Course shooting trial and the look it provides at local organized crime. The case involves “protection” offered to illegal gambling games back in 2003-2004.

But those gambling operations are still flourishing despite this prosecution. News coverage of this often-quite-visible gambling is nil until or unless a case comes to court. There have been several gaming operations over the past couple of years in older buildings along Kalakaua Avenue in the area from Kapiolani up to Fern Street. They are active in one location for a short period of time, then move on. At least two have been raided by police. Other gambling operations allegedly have moved a few blocks way to the Sheridan Street-Keeaumoku area, residents of the area say.

Click here for a list of bills that have passed through the House or Senate and moved along to the other side. Tomorrow is the deadline for all but the budget bills, which will follow shortly. Bills still alive after this “first crossover” deadline deserve your more serious attention to weed out the undesirable or dangerous measures.

News junkies will want to read this interview with business reporter David Milstead about the demise of the Rocky Mountain News.

Tuesday…McDonalds’ off-the-books legislative event, McCartney at the HTA, RoadRunner’s running meter, and the most incredible flush

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Two nice women were making the rounds of House offices at the Capitol yesterday offering coffee and cookies to staff and announcing McDonald’s legislative reception to be held Wednesday from 4-6 p.m, if I heard them correctly.

This has become an annual event, featuring displays by McDonalds and its vendors, along with lots of giveaways to legislators and staff.

The interesting thing is that I don’t see anything in McDonalds’ lobbyist expenditure reports that reflect these annual events.

During 2008, for example, McDonalds reported spending just $786.58 in each of the reporting periods during the legislative session, with each of five lobbyists getting just $157.31. No other expenses are reported. Nothing for organizing time. Nothing for giveaways, food and beverages, etc.

Here’s a link to the McDonalds expenditure reports for January and February 2008, and for March-April 2008. No evidence here that MacDonalds ever put on an event during the session.

It’s another case illustrating that either our lobbyist disclosure laws are either too vague, not communicated clearly enough, or just not adequately enforced.

PBN’s “Business Pulse Survey” asked this question of the week: “What do you think of Mike McCartney as new CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority?”

A bare majority were favorable or luke warm, while one-third of those answering said it was a bad move.

The vote count as of early this morning:
Great choice, 16%
Safe but uninspired choice 36%
Bad Choice 33%
Don’t know 14%

McCartney has bounced around from the legislature to the Democratic Party to HSTA to public television and so on. It would be interesting to see the list of minimum qualifications and desired qualifications for this position at the Hawaii Tourism Authority to see how well McCartney’s background matches the demands of the job.

I like Mike. But I also think that our visitor industry deserves someone with deeper personal experience, education, and training in the industry to run this agency. If it’s all about politics, hire a good lobbyist to handle that side of things and get a tourism heavyweight to lead the agency. At least that’s my view.

In any case, though, we had best wish Mike the best because it’s certainly a tough point in history to be taking on this task.

As a subscriber to Oceanic Cable’s RoadRunner service, I’m watching carefully as the company experiments with metered use. Here’s a somewhat unsettling consumer review from Texas. Fair warning.

And then…you really don’t have to watch this. Really you don’t. But it is quite amazing. I’ll say no more.

Tuesday…late start, late entry

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How weird do you have to be when 5:45 a.m. seems like a late start to the day?

Well, count me in that select group. I was surprised to look at the clock when the cat wake-up call went off.

My excuse: I was up late last night cooking a pot of habenero beef curry for today’s House staff potluck. The House goes into session this morning and will continue through a long legislative day as they work through some 300 bills on 3rd reading. Meanwhile, staff will be upstairs midday eating our way through a vast and diverse menu spread out across several conference room tables.

I planned on doing my cooking on Sunday, and then just reheating today. I thought there was some stew meat in the freezer. As I set up to start cooking, though, I discovered I was wrong. So good intentions (and a sensible schedule) went out the window. Instead, we didn’t make it home through rapidly flooding roads until just after 8 p.m. Then it was eat and cook. I’m not sure what time I put the curry to bed. Probably just on the right side of midnight.

That’s a long way to say that today’s substantive entry will be delayed until after we get back from this morning’s walk.

Please check back later.

And I did manage to get those photos of Marty McClain’s Sunday sendoff posted. Just click on yesterday’s photo of Wendy in the canoe, and you’ll get the whole batch.

Monday…The world of newspapers in freefall, Twitter and social media expanding impact

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It seems impossible, but Gannett’s stock fell more than 30 percent last week, dropping below $2 per share on Friday before closing at $2.20, and it has started today down a bit further. Those heady days when shares topped $80 and stories went around about Gannett millionaires working in newsrooms don’t seem all that long ago, do they?

What impact that will eventually have on the Honolulu Advertiser remains to be seen.

Meanwhile San Francisco Weekly is reporting that the Newspaper Guild has proposed a series of initiatives for the San Francisco Chronicle, including the “intention to form a public-labor partnership to explore the possibility of acquiring the Chronicle should the paper be offered for sale.”

One Chronicle employee took matters into his own hands and placed a long ad in the San Francisco Examiner highly critical of the Chronicle’s management for considering the closing of the newspaper.

And there’s more of the same up in Seattle, where the Post Intelligencer is on temporary life support and the Times struggles for survival. According to Crosscut.com:

Meanwhile, the Times Co.’s pension problems were underscored by its minority partner, McClatchy, which announced in a federal securities filing late Monday that it had written down the value of its 49.5 percent share of the Times Co. to zero. Two and a half years ago, when it acquired Knight Ridder and its stake in the Times Co., McClatchy valued the holding at about $102 million. In its filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday, McClatchy blamed the writedown on the Times Co.’s “retirement plan liabilities.”

Let’s see. Maui News reporter Ilima Loomis devoted an entry in her blog last week to her assessment of the direction of journalism, made in response to questions from a student.

Hawaii Congressman and now gubernatorial candidate Neil Abercrombie made his official announcement on Saturday via networking sites Twitter and Utterli. It’s going to be interesting to see how effective these can be as campaign tools in a statewide election.

And a reporter in Wichita has been using Twitter to cover trials in state courts, and recently extended his Tweets into a federal court trial. He reports via his cell phone, according to an AP story last week.

The last time I was in Honolulu’s federal court, however, court rules prohibited cell phones, which have to be checked and left at a security station downstairs. Perhaps its time for a serious talk with Judge Ezra about how to bring these new options to reporting from Honolulu courts.

And so it goes.