Tag Archives: Neil Abercrombie

Where in the world is Larry Harmon?

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Who is Larry Harmon and where in the world is he?

Those are questions that are going to be asked at a hearing scheduled early next month on a complaint filed by the Hawaii Venture Capital Association, which is asking the state to reject the business name of the “Venture Capital Association of Hawaii.” The latter group was hastily formed during the campaign season to endorse Mufi Hannemann’s run for governor.

The well-established Hawaii Venture Capital Association, which has been around since 1988, objected to the use of such a similar name and filed a complaint with the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

The whole flap arose after the HVCA endorsed Neil Abercrombie for governor, and shortly afterwards the new group was formed to endorse Hannemann.

Questions were raised at the time about the new group, which had no track record. No one had ever heard of the new Venture Capital Association of Hawaii or Larry Harmon, the person listed as its incorporator on the articles of incorporation submitted to the state.

Harmon did not provide a personal or business address, only the address of Incorp Services, Inc., a Nevada-based firm that specializes in processing paperwork for others.

HVCA immediately sent a “cease and desist” letter to the new VCAH organization demanding that it stop using the name, and issued a press release alleging the new group was linked to the Hannemann campaign.

According to HVCA, the new group used an address of a company linked to a key Hannemann campaign supporter.

In addition, Harmon’s group is represented by attorney Mark Mukai, who happen’s to be on the board of directors of Mufi Hannemann’s Fund for the Pacific Century, which sponsors the Pacific Century Fellows.

Harmon seemed to surface briefly the next day with a response that was emailed to dozens of reporters. The letter was modeled after Neil Abercrombie’s somewhat infamous F-You letter of 30 years ago, and included digital links back to a copy of that letter.

But since then, no further information about the mysterious Larry Harmon has been turned up. In documents filed in the complaint pending before DCCA, attorneys for the Hawaii Venture Capital Association say no one in the organization has heard of or met Mr. Harmon.

A search of public records failed to turn up any record of Harmon owning property in Hawaii, being an officer of any other business or registered organization in Hawaii, or holding any professional or vocational license. Harmon hasn’t been cited for a traffic violation, and doesn’t appear as plaintiff or defendant in any lawsuits.

It’s as if he doesn’t really exist.

Yesterday I noticed this interesting factoid in Wikipedia:

Lawrence Weiss (January 2, 1925 – July 3, 2008), better known by the stage name Larry Harmon and as his alter-ego Bozo the Clown, was a Jewish American entertainer.

Maybe the joke’s on us??

If so, this case will lead to further and perhaps more serious questions for the former mayor and his campaign.

The background on Neil Abercrombie’s 1977 F-U letter

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It looks like both Hannemann and Abercrombie are having to deal with items from the past.

In Neil’s case, it’s his somewhat infamous September 1977 “F*** you” letter addressed to then-Board of Education Chairman Noboru Yonamine.

In today’s climate, I would guess that a lot of people would agree with Neil’s concisely expressed sentiment about the DOE bureaucracy.

Back in 1977, the Board of Education suggested he should apologize, according to a Star-Bulletin story

“Apologize for what?” said Abercrombie.

“It’s the normal reaction of a red-blooded American to bureaucratic arrogance,” said the Makiki Democrat.

At issue was the Makiki Community Library, staffed by volunteers and located in the old Hawaii Sugar Planters Association building on Keeaumoku Street, in what is now Makiki District Park.

Abercrombie was backing a proposal by then-Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi to turn the building over to the state library system. The proposal had initially received the backing of the Board of Education, but then bogged down in politics and red tape.

His curt letter was in response to an letter from Yonamine which said legal issues and budget problems prevented the board from pursuing the library plan, despite its earlier vote.

Through a spokesman, Abercrombie recalls being told privately that the library might be considered if he lined up with the administration on several other key issues. Abercrombie, who was first elected in 1974 as an outspoken outsider, said he objected to that kind of horse-trading on an issue that had so much public support.

The issue was also caught in the political war between the Democratic establishment and Mayor Fasi, like Abercrombie an outsider in the back rooms of political power. It was likely political opposition to anything associated with Fasi that doomed the library proposal from the start, and the whole situation made Neil mad.

Of course, that was all a long time ago, before Neil’s terms in the State Senate, City Council, and his 20 years in Congress. It’s not the kind of letter he would write today.

Oh, the end of the story? The Makiki Community Library is still funded and run by the community independent of the state library system, which still doesn’t have a facility in the densely populated Makiki area.

And in July 2009, Yonamine contributed $500 to Abercrombie’s gubernatorial campaign, accompanied by a note: “Neil will be a Great Governor!”

The Neil-Mufi rematch could reflect more than a little of 1986

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This early phase of the Abercrombie-Hannemann 2010 gubernatorial battle royal is already giving me the creeps.

Do you remember what happened the last time around?

It was 1986, and Congressman Cec Heftel resigned in order to come back and run for governor.

A special election to fill the short remainder of Heftel’s term was scheduled for the same day as the primary election.

[text]It was a nasty campaign, with Mufi hurling drug-innuendo and long-haired-haole stereotypes at Neil (who was already many years past his “Super Senator” persona, having served in both the state Houswe and Senate) and rumors/attacks/smears undermining Heftel’s effort.

When the votes were counted, Neil won the special election and spent several months as a member of Congress, but Mufi won the primary election and the right to face the Republican opponent in November.

Mufi’s negative campaigning had alienated a hefty chunk of Democratic voters, and in the general election face-off moderate republican Pat Saiki beat Mufi for the right to represent Honolulu’s normally Democratic 1st Congressional District.

Okay. Here we are 24 years later, and the Office of Elections says there’s no money for a special election, so it might be delayed until September’s primary.

Charles Djou is no Pat Saiki. But you can see various ways this year’s election can end up with strange results.

In the Congressional race, could strong Democratic candidates split the field and allow a Republican to carry the special election and take that mantle of incumbency into the general election? Actually, Democrat Ed Case seems more likely to take votes from Djou, giving Senate President Hanabusa a strong race. It’s a race that could turn nasty, with overtones of the original Neil-Mufi fight.

Could a candidate repeat Neil’s feat and win the special election but lose the general? At this point, anything seems possible.

Then there’s the Neil v. Mufi rematch. Could the primary campaign exacerbate divisions among Democrats and cause enough to withhold their votes in the general to give the GOP candidate a winning boost in the process?

Much of this, of course, is really positioning for those two U.S. Senate seats which will be open, one way or another, within the next few years.

What a wild year it’s going to be.

Media matters: Neither Honolulu daily newspaper reports on large rally on state’s largest university campus, Abercrombie won or lost depending on your choice of newspaper, missed online opportunities

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March & Teach-inThe crowd at yesterday’s teach-in on the budget crisis at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa Campus was estimated at “over 500”, while organizers said they signed up 700 people who provided email addresses to be notified of future actions.

Please click on the photo for more views of the event.

After a march through the heart of the campus by as many as 100 students, the crowed gathered and grew in the hot noon sun on the lawn in front of Hawaii Hall to listen to 90 minutes of speakers. Offices of the Manoa Chancellor and her staff are located it the building. It was the largest, or at least one of the largest campus gatherings in years, according to observers.

There was a real sense of unity, some not apparent to casual observers. For example, although Hawaiian programs have so far been exempt from budget cuts, faculty and students from Hawaiian Studies were prominent on the program and among the organizers of the event, a powerful political statement.

But despite the high level of campus interest and the high stakes involved for higher education statewide, and implications for the UHPA contract negotiations, neither Honolulu daily appears to have reported on the event today.

Lingle was called a “liar” by several speakers as a result of her claims about the budget, including a professor of accounting. His speech drew loud applause and comments (“That’s an accounting professor! I’m gonna change my major!”).

But you won’t read about it in our daily newspapers today. You can read a bit more in the UH campus newspaper, Ka Leo.

This really is a puzzle. Newspapers (and other advertising vehicles) claim to be desperate to attract the college/university student demographic, but they ignore news relevant to exactly that group of potential readers. Cutting out the higher education beat means far less hard news that could accustom students to reading newspapers. Students have interests that go beyond clubs and music. Hello?

Meanwhile, we have another two-newspaper morning to report, with parallel stories left wondering if they’re covering the same bill.

From today’s Honolulu Advertiser:

Deal ensures Guam jobs will go to U.S. workers

By John Yaukey
Advertiser Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Congressional negotiators reached agreement yesterday on legislation that would ensure that many of the jobs created on Guam by the transfer of Marines to the island will go to American workers from Hawai’i and the Mainland.
Advertisement

The 2010 defense authorization bill contains provisions by Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai’i, that would strip away some incentives for bringing foreign workers to Guam, while establishing greater federal oversight of the massive project there.

But from today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin:

Abercrombie loses Guam wage fight

U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie has lost a battle with the Navy over workers’ wages.

House and Senate converees yesterday rejected his proposal to require contractors to hire Americans for 70 percent of the jobs created on Guam to accommodate the move of 8,000 Marines and their families being relocated from Okinawa.

And in other media trivia, yesterday’s Honolulu Advertiser also contained a correction:

The final six paragraphs about safety requirements in a story on Page B1 yesterday (Tuesday) on the death of a diver were copied from a June 9 Department of Land and Natural Resources press release and did not have attribution.

The original story has been corrected to add contain the proper attribution, and the updated version of the story is available online with the correction noted at the bottom.

That appears to be a good way to handle an embarrassing slip-up.

And here’s another of my ongoing media gripes. I thought newspapers are supposed to be trying to make highest and best use of the opportunities created by the web to provided additional information to readers.

So why do they continue to ignore the opportunity to provide primary documents to readers?

It’s happened again with the lawsuit by a Honolulu police officer alleging test recruitment test results have been altered or “fixed”, and that the department retaliated when the problems were reported.

I’ll pick on the Advertiser, but only because I have Rick Daysog’s story on the lawsuit open on my desktop. How hard would it be to provide a simple link to the document?

In any case, if you would like to look at the actual complaint filed in court, just click here.