First things first. Happy Birthday to my sister, Bonnie! We went out to dinner in Kaimuki last night for an early celebration. No photo of last night is ready yet–but here’s one of Bonnie and I with our dad back in 1953.

I can’t figure this one out. Star-Bulletin owner David Black seems the consummate gentleman. He runs in classy social circles. So why does his company handle their staff terminations so poorly?

After my comment on this week’s MidWeek layoffs, I received this email comment:

Regarding your post on the Midweek carnage, the editorial butchering was poorly handled as well.
Dedicated reporters who spent most of their lives inside an already-crippled newsroom to put out a good product were simply sent an e-mail with the subject line: POSITION ELIMINATED. The body of the message only told terminated workers to call HR if they had questions. No “thanks, congratulations, good work, we’ll miss you, sorry,” mention of notable stories … nothing. It was as if they were eliminating machines in an assembly line instead of real people who have families to feed and bills to pay.

Layoffs are a difficult time for any company and its workers, I’m sure, but to let people go the way the SB did was insulating.

That’s not a pretty picture.

For that, you’ll have to turn to YouTube for a sneak preview of a new Star-Bulletin promo for their latest format change.

And yesterday was the end of the Star-Bulletin’s long run as an afternoon newspaper. My mother, who turns 95 next month, commented on it. Now it will be interesting to see what she does. My parents have subscribed to the Star-Bulletin for as long as I can remember. Now both the Advertiser and Bulletin are delivered to the house. With both now to be delivered in the morning, I wonder if she will keep both? I’ll try to keep track.

I love checking the regular traps and so often finding tasty things there. The State Procurement Office regularly produces interesting items.

The Attorney General is seeking an exemption under the state’s procurement law to give a $50,000 nonbid contract to Honolulu attorney Cuyler Shaw, who previously represented the state in the Aloha Airlines bankruptcy case. According to the attached justification, the state failed to anticipate that there would be a dispute over the several million dollars it is owed in landing fees and rents, and that further legal action might be necessary to collect. Shaw’s contract expired, and now the state is in a bind and needs to renew it in order to try to pursue the outstanding debts. Nothing fishy there, just a bit of a look behind the scenes.

Then there’s another exemption request for a three-month, $265,000 street sweeping contract for work required under an EPA consent decree. The exemption is needed, according to the justification, because a bid protest was lodged that has delayed the award of a longer-term contract.

Then there’s an exemption request for a $5,000 1-year contract with Hawaii Public Radio to support Bytemarks Cafe, the weekly program highlighting Hawaii’s high tech industry.

It looks like the House has spiked SB 1141, the bill that would have required the state to sell the Sand Island Industrial Park to the existing group of tenants. It made it quietly all the way to it’s final referral, where House Finance Committee chairman Marcus Oshiro apparently let it die without action.

My earlier entry about McDonald’s failure to disclose the costs of its annual legislative reception was noted by the Sunlight Foundation Blog in an update on local issues.