LC Watch Silva and Gold The good news is that Department of Liquor Control Director Franklyn Silva has finally gotten a raise. And it’s a good thing, too, since his old salary was actually so low it was illegal.
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Weinberg Foundation
“State law requires that the deputy earn no more than 95% of the department head’s salary,” Maui County Salary Commission Chairman Douglas Levin wrote to County Council Chairman Riki Hokama on Jan. 2, 2007. “The last salary increase for the Liquor Control Director and the Deputy did not properly comply with this rule, which the Commission discovered during its process of establishing salaries for 2007.”
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Maui Land & Pineapple Co.
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Dowling Co.
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Maui Electric Co.
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Makena Resort
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Tesoro Hawai`i
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Monsanto Hawai`i
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Alexander & Baldwin
This means Silva will be pulling down $87,400 a year, rather than the paltry $87,000 he was making. But that brings us to the bad news: a listing of proposed salaries recently approved by the Salary Commission makes clear that Silva’s salary will pale before those of other county department heads.
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Wailuku Water Co.
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Hawaiian Telcom
Even with his $400 a year salary increase, Silva will be the lowest paid of the 14 department directors working for the County of Maui. After Silva, the lowest paid director—the guy who runs the Transportation Department— makes $89,700 a year. What’s worse, 11 of the 13 deputy directors working for the county make more money than Silva—only the Deputy Personnel Director and Silva’s own deputy earn less money each year. How can this be? Doesn’t the county know how hard Silva works? Remember when all those seniors were complaining about getting carded at restaurants— it was Silva they were calling. You think it’s easy sending investigators out to enforce regulations prohibiting alcoholic beverages on dance floors or in restrooms? And those members of the Liquor Commission and Board of Adjudication aren’t pushovers, either—you think it’s easy going to work when some of them don’t actually worship the director, but merely revere him?
-Anthony Pignataro
FEBRUARY 8, 2007
BY ANTHONY PIGNATARO ANTHONY@MAUITIME.COM
RANK
Sometimes I think people just don’t take the LC seriously.
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RISE OF THE GMO BILLS Really bad news this week for Monsanto, the global herbicide/genetically modified food manufacturer. A bunch of anti-GMO bills are moving through the state Legislature this week. There’s HB 704, which “Provides a 10-year moratorium on testing, propagating, cultivating, growing, and raising genetically engineered coffee and taro.” There’s HB 1577, which “Temporarily prohibits the growing of genetically modified coffee” and “Allows research on genetically modified coffee in environmentally secure facilities.” Then there’s HB 1048, which “Prohibits the growing of crops that produce pharmaceuticals” and “prohibits laboratory work relating to biopharmaceutical crops.” And there’s SB 958, which calls for a moratorium on genetically modified taro production. None of these bills target Monsanto Hawai`i directly, but should they pass, they could foreshadow far more restrictive anti-GMO bills in the future. Monsanto would have fallen even further were it not for a Jan. 29, 2007 Pacific Business News story that said GMOs are now “the second biggest crop category in Hawai`i.”
BONE TO PICK Maui Land rises a notch this week on news that construction at two sites of the former Kapalua Bay Hotel—soon to be The Residences at Kapalua Bay—has stopped after crews uncovered ancient Hawaiian remains. “That whole area, that Kapalua area, is considered sacred because of the thousands of remains on the sand dunes,” Maui Island Burial Council Chairman Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell, Sr. said in a Jan. 29, 2007 online Pacific Business News story. After the remains have been handled in the most appropriate way possible, construction will resume. Man, Maui Land gets to build anywhere! MTW