HONOLULU — Hawaii Senate President Donna Mercado Kim says she will run for a U.S. House seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa.
Kim announces candidacy for
US House
HONOLULU — Hawaii Senate President Donna Mercado Kim says she will run for a U.S. House seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa.
Kim announced her candidacy on Wednesday for the open seat in Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District, which covers urban Honolulu.
Kim said stalemate in Washington is affecting everyone. She said Congress needs leaders who understand local and state government.
Kim has served in the state Senate since 2000, after holding a seat on the Honolulu City Council from 1985 to 2000.
Kim is one of several Democrats who have announced they will run for the seat, including state Rep. Mark Takai, state Sen. Will Espero, Honolulu City Council members Ikaika Anderson and Stanley Chang, and Kathryn Xian.
Audit faults state beverage container recycling program
HONOLULU — Hawaii’s beverage container recycling program continues to lack effective inspection and enforcement and its financial viability could be undermined as a result, according to a state audit.
The audit made public Tuesday said state payments to redemption centers continue to be based on what centers claim to have received from consumers and not what they send to recyclers.
“Management has known about its flawed payment system for years but has done little to address the defect,” the report said.
Department of Health Deputy Director for the Environment Gary Gill, who oversees the HI-5 program, said the audit did a good job of presenting the details. He questioned how the overall findings were laid out.
“I dispute the sensationalism they use,” Gill told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
The program has had phenomenal success keeping soda cans and other containers from landfills despite staff and funding challenges, Gill said. Consumers recycled nearly 75 percent of the 911.8 million containers sold in the state in fiscal 2013.
Acting Auditor Jan K. Yamane, however, concluded that problems identified in past audits are still around.
For two years ending in fiscal year 2012, the program paid $6.2 million in deposit refunds for nearly 7.5 million pounds of materials that could not be tracked, the audit said.
The state pays 5 cents per container to redemption centers. Claimed amounts are not validated. That can mean overpayments, according to the audit.
The department lacks adequate management to provide effective oversight, the audit said. One redemption center may have been overpaid by $2.2 million in deposit fees and could not account for a discrepancy involving more than 2 million pounds of claimed material, according to the audit.
Auditors said a priority should be a “back-end” payment system based on shipped totals of recyclable containers instead of claimed amounts.
That’s a goal, Gill said, but the change could undermine the stability of the industry. Redemption centers, he said, would have to carry the debt for nickels paid to consumers for weeks longer than they do now.
House vote on gay marriage to be televised
HONOLULU — Hawaii House officials say the chamber’s final vote on a bill to legalize gay marriage will be broadcast live on television across the state.
The special session vote scheduled for Friday will be broadcast on Olelo Channel 54 on Oahu and community stations on Kauai, the Big Island and Maui.
The Oahu broadcaster also plans to stream the final debate and vote through a live webcast at www.olelo.org.
The live coverage comes after several lawmakers complained on the House floor Wednesday night that their debate was only carried on closed-circuit TV at the Hawaii Capitol.
Crowds gathered in the chamber and outside in the Capitol rotunda, with many people huddling around a television to catch what lawmakers were saying.
By wire sources