News, notes and anecdotes
on government and politics
Dinner to honor reform pioneer Gill
Tom Gill, 81, a pioneer in social and environmental reform in Hawaii, will be honored at a 5:30 p.m. dinner Nov. 2 at the Hale Koa Hotel.
Gill, a Democrat who served as a congressman from Hawaii and as lieutenant governor, was also chairman of the Oahu Democratic County Committee and a territorial and state representative.
Gill's two unsuccessful campaigns for governor in 1970 and 1974 helped to organize and identify the causes that many young Democrats would support when they were eventually successful in the Legislature.
His supporters credit Gill with being the moving force that brought about territorial and state legislation such as the Antitrust Act, the Administrative Procedures Act and the Greenbelt law.
For more information about the $50-a-plate dinner, call Marion Shim at 988-1781 or Walter Heen at 373-4258.
Weed and Seed project expands to Ala Moana
The federal Weed and Seed program has been expanded from the Kalihi-Chinatown area to cover the Ala Moana area, according to state Sen. Carol Fukunaga.A meeting on the new designation will be held 6:30 to 8 p.m. Sept. 30 at Makiki Christian Church, Fukunaga said.
The briefing will feature presentations by the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Honolulu Police Department.
"This briefing is intended to raise community awareness and participation by showing residents how they can get involved in this proven method of crime reduction," Fukunaga said.
Thielen offers isles as site for energy meeting
State Rep. Cynthia Thielen on her "own dime" attended the Fifth European Wave Energy Conference at University College Cork in Ireland last week, she said.Thielen (R, Kaneohe-Kailua) said she went to encourage conference delegates to hold a future conference in Hawaii, which she said has the highest recorded average wave power in the world.
She took with her a message from Gov. Linda Lingle that notes Hawaii is an ideal location for the application of wave energy to replace the islands' dependence of fossil fuels with an alternative source of power.
"We would like to suggest that Hawaii could be the site of a future wave energy conference, whether it is the sixth or seventh European Wave Energy Conference or the first Pacific Wave Energy Conference," Lingle said.
She noted that many of those who attended the four-day Cork conference are active in the Pacific area.
Lingle and Thielen both noted that waters off Kaneohe are the site of a project for the Navy's Office of Naval Research by Ocean Power Technologies Inc. of New Jersey, testing if the bobbing of subsurface buoys tethered to the ocean floor can efficiently generate electricity for Marine Corps Base Hawaii.
"There may be other systems that also can operate efficiently in Hawaiian waters," Lingle said.
Hawaii "is stuck in the dinosaur age, with its 92 percent dependence on fossil-fuel products to product electricity," Thielen said. "In contrast, natural wave energy can be used to light our islands for one-third the cost of fossil fuel based systems."
Thielen, the Hawaii member of the Boards of National Environmental Legislators Council, said she is spending her personal funds for the trip.
Legislature Directory
Legislature Bills & Hawaii Revised Statutes
