Phone software glitch interrupts services
A software computer glitch caused downtown Honolulu phone callers to lose local and long-distance service from Hawaiian Telephone Co. yesterday, according to a spokesman.People in the downtown area trying to call phone numbers with 538 to 832 prefixes or area codes randomly couldn't get through, said Keith Kamisugi, Hawaiian Tel spokesman.
"They would get a fast busy tone," he said.
"Sometimes you got in and sometimes you didn't."
Service went down at 9:45 a.m. and was restored by 12:07 p.m., Kamisugi said.
The company received about 200 customer complaints about the interrupted service, Kamisugi said.
"We want to let customers know we apologize for the inconvenience and we're making efforts to ensure it doesn't happen again," he said.
The company is doing a cause analysis to determine what caused the problem to prevent it from occurring in the future.
Koko Head surfaces as a prison site
As legislators and the Cayetano administration moved closer to making a prison at Kau on the Big Island a reality, talk surfaced in the state Senate over another prison possibility -- Koko Head crater in east Honolulu.That surprised Hawaii Kai Republican Sen. Sam Slom, who represents the area and heard about it for the first time yesterday.
"If this was April 1st, I would think someone is kidding me," said Slom.
"It's totally inappropriate use . . . this community is so wedded to open space and park usage for that area."
Although other sites are being proposed, both the Senate and the House seem to agree that the remote southern region of the Big Island, an area more than 1.5 times as large as Oahu, may be the best location.
The two chambers, along with Gov. Ben Cayetano, also agree that the $120 million facility should be built by a private developer and leased back to the state.
The roadblock, however, is the growing opposition of many area residents. There is overwhelming support from Big Island labor and business concerns, who believe the construction and operation of a prison would provide the economic stimulus needed on an island where unemployment is averaging near 10 percent.
The task was further complicated because there appeared to be some support last year among Kau's 6,000 residents, who believed that the correctional facility only would house 1,000 beds.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate now tend to agree that Cayetano may have to scale back the 2,300-bed facility to 1,000 or 1,300 beds as originally envisioned, and expand Kulani Correctional Facility outside of Hilo.
Cayetano yesterday told reporters he still intends to go the Big Island before the end of the month to make his case.
Extended health coverage to be repaid by public workers
About 30 public employees will have to repay the state for health coverage they signed up for under the state's act to extend benefits to adults who can't legally marry.The Hawaii Public Employees Health Fund sent a letter March 13 asking for repayment, Cenric Ho, fund administrator, said yesterday .
Ho said employees who extended medical coverage from self to family will have to repay about $164 for each month of additional coverage. He also said they have about 10 months to repay it.
The reciprocal beneficiaries law was intended in part to extend benefits to same-sex couples, but it applies to family members as well. Health benefits became a foundation of the bill.
The state has registered 354 relationships under the law since it took effect in July and an estimated 75 percent represent same-sex couples, according to the state Health Department.
Ho said those public employees who extended coverage knew they may have to repay the state. The Health Fund had asked the state last year for an opinion on what it should pay and had been awaiting an answer.
Cynthia Quinn, spokeswoman for state Attorney General Margery Bronster, could not be reached for comment.
"I am disappointed for those that were trying to take advantage of this benefit and now are unable to," said Senate Judiciary Co-Chairman Matt Matsunaga (D, Waialae).
"We had hoped by this law, while certainly not providing equality, at least provided something similar. And that was the intent of the law."
Dan Foley, attorney for three same-sex couples who sued the state for the right to marry, said refusing to pay for extended coverage for state employees undermines the intent of the law.
He said it was a legislative attempt to equalize benefits for same-sex couples. He also said it takes away the balance from a constitutional amendment on the ballot this fall on whether lawmakers should decide who can marry.
"This is a reminder from the attorney general that same-sex couples are not equal," he said. "It shows the only way to get equal treatment is not through the legislative or executive branches, but through the courts."
In September, the state and seven companies who sued over the reciprocal beneficiaries act agreed that the law didn't apply to most private employers. The companies sued alleging that a federal law addressing health benefits to most private employees pre-empted the new one.
State boating chief sees good criticism in auditor's report
The new man in charge of the state's boating program says a state auditor's report critical of the management of Hawaii's small boat harbors will help him make the harbors shipshape again."In boating terms, I'm here to take the slack out of the mooring lines and provide good, safe, secure harbors for ocean recreation and our boating public," said Howard Gehring, a retired Coast Guard admiral.
Gehring said he has been on the job only seven months and has ordered his own financial audit of the harbors.
State auditor Marion Higa's report said the state's small boat harbors and boat ramps are an important resource that is being poorly managed and maintained. The audit said the harbors are in desperate need of repair.
"Some of the problems include the lack of a comprehensive boating program for the state, unsafe conditions in the small boat harbors, inadequate security and unreliable financial information on the revenues and expenditures," Higa wrote in the report's overview.
The audit suggested problems with the harbors should be addressed and the department should come up with a statewide comprehensive boating program before proceeding with privatization or other alternative management practices.
But Gehring believes privatization should remain an option.
"I would like to develop a strategic plan that would allow us to make use of privatization community based management, the Hawaii Maritime Authority, or doing it ourselves," he said.
Critics of the department said privatization appears to be the only option the department is pursuing.
Rep. Thielen argues in D.C. for legal hemp
WASHINGTON -- Hawaii Rep. Cynthia Thielen brought her campaign to make industrial hemp a cash crop in Hawaii here today, joining a national effort to persuade the Drug Enforcement Administration to drop hemp from its list of controlled substances."In Hawaii this is economic development," said Thielen, arguing that hemp would be an ideal replacement for such declining crops as sugar and pineapple. "And the stumbling block to this economic development is the lobbying effort by the DEA."
Although it has been grown for thousands of years and used for a wide range of products from shirts to particle board, industrial hemp has fallen out of favor in recent decades because of its link to marijuana.
Both plants are from the same "cannabis" species, although experts say hemp, unlike its cousin, has so little of the hallucinogenic substance THC that it cannot be used to get high.
Hemp advocates like Thielen say that rather than condemned as a dangerous drug, hemp should be prized as a versatile, environmentally friendly crop.
Today they unveiled a plan to formally petition the DEA to stop classifying industrial hemp as an illegal drug, and to ask the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create a licensing system to permit the cultivation of hemp.
"The U.S. needs a new fiber crop. It needs new crops, period," said Jeff W. Gain, a director of the North American Industrial Hemp Council.
But the effort faces strong opposition. Both the DEA and President Clinton's drug control policy director, Barry McCaffrey, contend that legalizing hemp would damage the government's anti-drug campaign.
See expanded coverage in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
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Police/Fire
By Star-Bulletin staffWoman is carjacked, robbed, but unharmed
Police are searching for a man who carjacked a woman in downtown this morning.The suspect jumped into the driver's-side door of the woman's 1993 Subaru in front of 1212 Nuuanu Ave. at about 4:30 a.m., police said. The man reportedly threatened the woman with a screwdriver and then drove to Houghtailing Street in Kalihi.
After taking the woman's jewelry and purse, the suspect told her to get out of the car, police said.
No injuries were reported.
Suspect held in robbery of Big Island Coffee Co.
HILO -- Police are holding an 18-year-old man of no permanent address who is suspected in the armed robbery of a Banyan Drive business last night, they said.A robber, wearing a ski mask and carrying a rifle, entered the Big Island Coffee Co. shortly before 7:30 p.m.
After receiving money, the suspect fled in a maroon sedan. Witnesses got the car's license number, and the suspect was arrested a short time later when the car was seen parked on Banyan Drive.
Charges are pending against the suspect. A second person in the car was not arrested.
Man with knife robs vending coin collector
Police are investigating the robbery of a newspaper coin collector in Salt Lake this morning.The man, 30, was retrieving money from newspaper stands near Ala Ole Street and Haloa Drive at 4:08 a.m. when he was approached by a man with a knife.
The suspect then fled with an undisclosed amount of cash, police said.
Crash during car race leaves man, 35, critical
A 35-year-old man was in critical condition at Queen's Hospital after his car crashed into a tree early yesterday morning in Wahiawa.Police said the man was involved in a car race on Kamehameha Highway near Whitmore Village.
The 21-year-old man driving the second car was arrested in connection with drunken driving.
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