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District 4 & 5 Candidate Forum Video
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07-11-2014, 11:23 AM
oink, I do believe you nailed it. (lol...) Quite a take on this forum, mahalo. Levity is good during trying times. Oy vey!
I think Greggor is a very smart and honorable young man. He is very young and will learn as he progresses, as we all did (and continue to). JMO.
07-11-2014, 01:33 PM
Not quite as entertaining as Hiccup Circus but close. Sockman Cunningham's vision of a biosphere, paradigm shift and cannabis based economy are certainly different. The good Doctor Lozano is a fervent one trick pony. Please, Madie, project a bit. I appreciate the heartfelt testimony of the ladies but hoping Puna gets "office jobs" and hoping we don't become Oahu is certainly nice. Mr. Paleka is clearly a sincere man but dealing with power brokers? RJ is another Puna character and you gotta love her. Greggor has become a bit too much of a glib politician but he is the best of the lot. I feel he has the best chance to work with the Hawaii island politicians to get something accomplished for Puna.
07-11-2014, 04:58 PM
The past experiences of never knowing what is going to pop out of the county council makes the choice of candidate almost irrelevant. It's kind of funny, the people that have been in Puna for over 20 years think the amount of change and infrastructure growth is phenomenal. Meanwhile, the people that have been here about 3 or 4 years think there is nothing being done.
People are already forgetting we are in a sequester budget and if the government isn't able to change it, that means massive federal cuts. Federal money to Hawaii is like heroin to an addict. He is only going to start thinking about it when he is out. "This island Hawaii on this island Earth"
*Japanese tourist on bus through Pahoa, "Is this still America?*
07-11-2014, 07:18 PM
Kathy H quote:
"I ran a search to get the right spelling of her first name, and I found an interesting column from early last year, when she announced, with lots of comments from RJ, Tiffany, Rene Siracusa and others. http://www.bigislandchronicle.com/2013/0...os-office/ It's interesting to revisit the conversation back before people were officially candidates. Honestly, I can't make out who is right in this back and forth, as someone who wasn't involved in any of these organizations, just reading the criticisms." Kathy H, I am very glad that you brought this up. I would like to give you the cliff notes to this nonprofit drama. When RJ was a legislative assistant one of the things that she came up with was to move the District council office to the old Pahoa Police Station which is owned by the County. This would save the taxpayers approximately $22,000 a year in rent and would add privacy and dignity to the council office instead of being located in a strip mall next to a clinic. There were two reasons why it did not happen on RJ's shift. Number one, the old Pahoa Police station was still being renovated and number two there was still a year on the lease for the District 5 office. In 2011, RJ discovered that Maddie Greene of Weed and Seed, Men of Pa'a and another organization had taken over the old police station. So RJ called the County to find out why they had been allowed to occupy that building instead of making it a County Council District 4 office. RJ was told by Ken Van Bergen that "the Mayor had just signed a 2 year lease and there was nothing she could do about it." So RJ did the research and found out that there was no record of 501c3 status by any of the 3 organizations that had signed the lease. This really compromises the county as they are not allowed to make leases with organizations that are not 501c3 especially when you are getting the rent for $1. per year! So, RJ called the newspaper which resulted in this front page article and the 3 groups were given notice. http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/sections...ioned.html That is why today the old Pahoa Police Station is the County Council District 4 office. Another victory for the community.
07-12-2014, 12:51 PM
Sativa, thanks for the link to that article. It was an interesting read.
Everything about Puna politics seems to have layers upon layers. I'm sure there are multiple sides to this story too. Thank you for your perspective. [  ]
07-12-2014, 12:55 PM
Here is what I was told about the socks. I thought about saying the source but I don't want to put anyone in the limelight, just someone who interacts with Cunningham regularly.
Supposedly he used to be a dermatologist and gave a lot of injections, and began giving his hands injections, and the result is they are "gnarly disturbing" to look at. I don't have first hand knowledge, but I think the story came from Cunningham to the person who explained it to my family member.
07-13-2014, 02:51 AM
quote: This is like an epidemic around Pahoa. It's almost like every other person is claiming to be a nonprofit "for the good of the people". Trouble, most of these yayhoos seem to interpret "good for the people" means "good for me", extremely selfish, self-centered and deceitful. The 501© scam is almost like the "ordained minister" scam. There are a lot of those around Pahoa also. It's too bad, the government tries to accommodate the citizens, and the citizens turn around and try to exploit and manipulate a privilege into a distorted perversion. Now, the government is tightening up the requirements for both non-profit and "ordained minister", so they are all disappearing. Funny, doesn't show a whole lot of commitment to their own causes. There are still lots of people around Pahoa claiming to be a "non-profit" and have not done the filing for about 3 years. It would probably be pretty funny if the IRS decided this was a snakes' nest and sent an investigative group in. IRS agents would probably love a month in paradise on official business. "This island Hawaii on this island Earth"
*Japanese tourist on bus through Pahoa, "Is this still America?*
07-13-2014, 03:07 AM
Oh please, This is not an epidemic and these outfits are not scam artists. If they were as scam oriented as you think why pick a poor town in a poor district on a poor island?
Men of Pa`a? Good outfit. Weed & Seed is a county operation. One thing that has happened is that the IRS changed it's rules. A local non-profit did not need to annually file with the IRS if their annual budgets were less than $25,000. Which describes most Puna 501s. Then the IRS changed the rules to require an annual notice to the IRS. Fine..... only the IRS didn't actually tell anyone or broadcast that news. So when a year or so went by the 501s that did not annually file got "suspended"... not shut down. It was an IRS created problem. But we can all be grateful that the Paperwork Police, in the guise of R.J. & Sativa, are there as volunteer IRS agents. You expect a tiny non-profit with no budget to be fully knowledgeable and compliant with IRS rules? $hit, the IRS isn't fully knowledgeable and compliant with IRS rules.
Assume the best and ask questions.
Punaweb moderator
07-13-2014, 04:17 AM
quote:[  ]. True.Clearly he's on the eccentric side. I can see how tubes would allow for finger dexterity that gloves don't and ventilation. The socks could be more presentable, but that does not seem to be his priority. I sat at a table with him in 2012 when he came to our Hilo-Hamakua forum and we did small group with candidate rotation. If you can imagine rotating mayoral candidates of Billy Kenoi, Harry Kim, and Dominic Yagong, with Cunningham in that mix, it was quite a contrast. Understatement. I don't think it's been said here that Cunningham has run for governor three times, last time in 2012. So from governor to mayor to county council, I guess one could say he's setting his sights lower with each recent election. http://m.westhawaiitoday.com/sections/ne...helco.html Sounds like he was a chiropractor doing injections, not dermatologist. |
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