---

Dems tap former
TV reporter as
spokeswoman

---

The Democratic Party of Hawaii has hired former television reporter Donalyn Dela Cruz as its communications director.

State Party Chairman Brickwood Galuteria said he chose Dela Cruz because of her media experience.

"I feel it's necessary to get somebody on board to articulate a consistent message from the party," Galuteria said.

Galuteria said Democrats were sending the public mixed messages.

As a reporter, Dela Cruz said, she noticed the public was getting only one point of view because Republican Gov. Linda Lingle was more effective in conveying her message through the media than Democrats.

"With my experience covering politics, I feel I have the skills to better communicate with the media."

Dela Cruz is the sister of City Council Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz.

Honolulu, Alaska?

Possible confusion with the city in the 49th state is part of the reason the city here in the 50th state had trouble getting federal approval to use honolulu.gov as its official Web site.

"I understand that (Alaskan) town is very, very small," said Councilman Charles Djou, who introduced a resolution seeking the address change. "But this is not unprecedented. ... Other cities have been able to get approval of it even though there are other cities with similar names."

But at the end of the week, the city will switch to the new, less cumbersome Web site.

"The dot-gov name is much easier and intuitive for people to use in finding our Web site," said Courtney Harrington, director of the city Department of Information Technology, which first asked for an exemption three years ago to use the ".gov" address.

The city's Web site is currently co.honolulu.hi.us, but after the three-year effort to petition the federal government for the change, the General Services Administration, which oversees the use of all ".gov" Internet addresses, gave the green light last month for the city to now use honolulu.gov.

U.S. Rep. Ed Case, who is being credited for helping to open the door for the federal approval, said, "The federal government has been struggling justly with the fact that there are a number of municipalities with the same name."

Case said there are about 50 such municipalities who were grandfathered in to the federal rules and allowed to use the dot-gov extension. "Honolulu should've been grandfathered at the same time."

3 join East-West board

Gov. Linda Lingle has made three appointments to the East-West Center Board of Governors.

They are Jean Rolles, vice president of community affairs at Outrigger Enterprises Inc.; Puongpun Sananikone, president of Pacific Management Resources; and Paul Smith, owner of Tyrolian Investments LLC.

---

Legislature Directory
Legislature Bills & Hawaii Revised Statutes