VULTURES
of the
SANDWICH ISLES
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
~ o ~
July 21, 2007
From: SnowyOne, Kailua, HI
reply to nwrickert
If the telephone line is on Hawaiian Homelands the phish scam is peanuts to the real scam. The real scam is how Sandwich Isles Communications Company receives more than $16M dollars per year to service 1,238 customers.
Do the math.
That's $13,345.00 per year, per residential account! Sandwich Isles Communications also just received one-half Billion dollars to provide broadband to 5,400 homes.
Do the math.
That's $93,000 per home. All of those homes already have landlines and are eligible for DSL, which even including repeaters, would run around $600 per home.
Not that Sandwich Isles Communications is alone in raiding the "Universal Service Fee" fund for this scam. Mobi Communications is attempting to collect ~$1000.00 per month, per account to provide cell phone service to the same areas.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18702718-Telephone-phish
May 17, 2007
Three phone companies
rake in subsidies
By Sean Hao, Honolulu Advertiser
The tax you pay on your long-distance phone bill — $2 or more a month — is resulting in a major income boost for three Hawai'i phone operators.
Since 1998, Sandwich Isles Communications Inc. has been collecting $765 a month per customer for providing phone service to residents of Hawaiian Home Lands. Now two cell-phone companies — Sprint Nextel Corp. and Mobi PCS — have gotten in on the deal. Nextel and Mobi also get $765 a month per customer for extending their cell-phone service to Hawaiian Home Lands.
By September, the three companies will have received a combined $132 million in subsidies for servicing less than 3,500 residences.
The generous subsidies come from the Universal Service Fund, a federal program initially designed to ensure that phone companies would extend landlines to customers in high-cost rural areas. Later, the program was amended to allow cell-phone companies to collect the same subsidy as landline companies.
In Hawai'i, the program provides phone service to those living on Hawaiian Home Lands, the 200,000 acres of property formerly owned by the Hawaiian monarchs, which is set aside for use by eligible Hawaiians.
The national program is coming under increasing criticism as wasteful and inefficient, and the federal government is looking at ways to bring the subsidies under tighter control. The high-priced services in areas such as Hawai'i also lead to higher taxes for all long-distance users.
"This was a good idea that's gone terribly bad," said Mac Haddow, chairman of the policy advisory council for The Seniors Coalition, a Fairfax, Va.-based advocate for Universal Service Fund reforms.
The $765 per month subsidy for each qualifying rural phone line in Hawai'i is 36 times higher than the average national rural phone line subsidy, and the costliest subsidy in the nation.
The phone companies say they provide a valuable service in underserved areas, and at least one said there is no evidence of a windfall from the subsidies.
Still the mounting costs of the subsidies — especially those going to cell-phone companies — are driving a push to reform the program.
Earlier this month, a Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service recommended the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the program, take immediate action to rein in explosive growth in high-cost universal service fund reimbursements.
"Changes in technology and increases in the number of carriers who are receiving universal service support have ballooned, placing significant pressure on the stability of the fund," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said during a February speech in Washington, D.C. "The current trajectory is unsustainable."
Nationwide fund payments to the new companies serving rural areas — known as competitive eligible telecommunications carriers — soared from $16.9 million in 2001 to an estimated $1 billion last year, according to the FCC.
SUBSIDY COSTS TO GO UP
The cost of subsidizing phone service in Hawai'i is expected to climb further this year following a February decision by state regulators to allow Mobi, a Honolulu-based wireless phone company, to receive subsidies. Mobi will now compete for customers with Reston, Va.-based Sprint Nextel Corp. and Sandwich Isles.
Instead of getting reimbursed based on actual costs, Sprint and Mobi are reimbursed based on the costs of Sandwich Isles.
Sandwich Isles is installing the country's most expensive tele-communications network, burying fiber cable to connect homes on Hawaiian Home Lands on the Big Island, O'ahu, Maui, Moloka'i, Lana'i and Kaua'i.
Reforms being considered for the subsidy program include an immediate emergency cap on the support that cell-phone companies receive. Another alternative is to reimburse cell-phone companies based on their actual costs, rather than on the costs of wire-line companies. Other options being considered include the use of reverse auctions in which companies would submit competing bids to become eligible for reimbursements.
"We're looking at all these proposals through a lens: is the proposal competitively neutral and technologically neutral," said Sprint spokesman John Taylor. "We do not believe that our company, because we are a wireless service, should be treated any different" than the wire-line phone service.
Gil Tam, Sandwich Isles vice president, referred questions about the reforms to the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies, which lobbies on behalf of rural phone companies such as Sandwich Isles.
Stuart Polikoff, director of government relations for the trade group, blamed wireless companies for taking advantage of the fund.
"The problem is the wireless carriers are able to get support based on the unrelated costs of the wire-line company," he said. "It's a windfall, and that's why they go after it. It's a pot of money. That's the crux of the problem, and that is what needs to be reformed."
DISPUTING 'WINDFALL'
Sprint's Taylor said there is no proof that wireless companies are making a windfall....
"There's no way for you to know what's costing what and whether the costs of the incumbent (wire-line phone company) are significantly higher or lower than the wireless companies," he said. "In some areas the costs may be higher and in some areas it may be lower."...
The subsidies are in part a result of the way companies are compensated for providing service. Under the Universal Service Fund, companies are guaranteed an 11.5 percent return on network expenses and face little scrutiny over how they spend money, according to critics.
In addition, neither the state Public Utilities Commission nor the Universal Service Administrative Co., a nonprofit corporation that administers the fund nationwide, has audited Sandwich Isles. And nearly all financial information, construction spending plans and other documents filed by Sandwich Isles, Nextel and Mobi to the state PUC are not available to the public.
"It really gives incentives for these local carriers to be very, very inefficient," said the Seniors Coalition's Haddow. "The solution has to come where we force them to be competitive in a bidding process.
"The pigs are getting fat. Somebody is going to have to put them on a diet."...
In 2005, Hawai'i phone users paid $28 million into the fund, which was up from $25 million in 2004, according to the FCC.
During the same period, USF reimbursements to local companies such as Sandwich Isles and Sprint rose from $12 million to $27 million.
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070527/NEWS01/705270372
Posted 2006-08-01 11:39:07 by Karl
FCC Cronyism Nets Big
Hawaii USF Payoff
$500 million to wire just 5,400 affluent homes
Telecom pundit Gordon Cook points to yet another example of waste in the USF system you pay into via your broadband, landline, and wireless phone bills. The idea is to help fill in the nation's rural telecom black holes, but instead the fund, as this Hawaii Free Press article explores, is sometimes used for political cronyism.
One of the last acts of former FCC chief Mike Powell was to approve a waiver that gave Sandwich Isles Communications in Hawaii $500 million to wire just 5,400 homes. The IP Inferno blog points out that the properties, which already have landlines, could get DSL for $600 or so; instead of the $93,000 per home this project will cost.
The rub: Michael Powell was a Naval Academy classmate of Al Hee, president of the company receiving the $500 million. Another reason critics like Cook argue that FCC statistics aim to show a rosy picture of American broadband, and why the USF system - long rife with fraud - has yet to be either scrapped or reformed by the FCC.
www.dslreports.com/shownews/76911
June 4, 2005
Sandwich Isles Communications:
Political Connections Pay Off
By Andrew Walden, Hawaii Reporter
Special from Hawaii Free Press
In a little-noticed May 16 ruling, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted a waiver necessary to allow Sandwich Isles Communications to complete construction of its $500 million project to link 69 Hawaiian Homelands properties with a fiber optic communications network.
Sandwich Isles, had completed about $160 million worth of construction bringing its network to all the islands except the Big Island, when in October, 2004 the FCC suddenly acted on a 6-year-old complaint from telecom rival Verizon. As a result of the October ruling, Sandwich Isles was forced to reapply for its FCC waiver which allowed SIC to receive $400 million in federal funds taken from the “Universal Service Fund” (USF) tax on consumers’ phone bills.
The Universal Service Fund tax is intended to subsidize telecommunications service to unserved rural areas. Verizon Hawaii, now re-named Hawaii Telecom after being purchased by the Carlyle Group, had argued the DHHL lots Sandwich Isles proposed to serve were not unserved because they were within Verizon territory. With the waiver granted, federal funds can once again flow into Sandwich Isles Communication’s coffers and construction can be completed on the Big Island.
Gilbert Tam, Sandwich Isles Communications Vice President for government and community relations, says the company “is pleased with the FCC order” which “allows SIC to fulfill its commitment and efforts to provide modern and affordable telecommunications services to residents of Hawaiian Home lands.”
At an estimated of $500 million, if Sandwich Isles Communications were to serve all 20,000 DHHL lots, the cost would be $25,000 per lot. But DHHL has only about 5,400 lots occupied by leaseholders.
At current build-out rates it would be about 40 years until all 20,000 lots are filled. $500 million to wire 5,400 lots averages out to about $93,000 per lot - the construction cost of a house - just for high speed internet and phone service.
Further, there is no reason to believe that all 5,400 DHHL leaseholders would want to pay Sandwich Isles Communication’s monthly fees for high speed internet service.
Many DHHL homesteaders already have land lines from Verizon. In the United States, about 33 percent of households have high speed internet connections.
If DHHL leaseholders have the same level of interest in high speed internet connections, Sandwich Isles Communications would serve about 1,800 lots at an average cost to the taxpayers of about $278,000 per lot.
Currently, Sandwich Isles Communications is reported to serve about 1,300 customers.
These figures compare unfavorably to the $600 or less setup cost of many commercially available high-speed satellite internet connections.
Internet satellite providers’ monthly charges are competitive with those of Sandwich Isles Communications. With inexpensive, commercially available “VOIP” technology, high quality internet based telephone service can be included.
Satellite technology requires no digging to lay cables, thus minimizing environmental damage and disruption of Hawaiian sites.
Unsurprisingly, Sandwich Isles is led by many politically connected directors and corporate officers.
Robert Kihune, retired vice admiral and Vice-Chair of the Kamehameha Schools Board of Trustees, is Sandwich Isles Communications Chief Executive Officer. Kihune, who is also Chairman of the USS Missouri Memorial Association, was keynote speaker at the Hawaii County Council inauguration in December.
Al Hee, brother of former Office of Hawaiian Affairs Chairman (and current Democrat State Senator) Clayton Hee, is Sandwich Isles Communications President.
Sandwich Isles Vice president, Gilbert Tam is a former Director of P&C Insurance Company, Inc. and the former Administrative Group Director for Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate (KSBE). Tam was formerly an officer with Bank of Hawaii, which has substantial financial connections with KSBE.
As a Dec. 31, 2001, article in The Honolulu Advertiser explained:
Part of the reason Sandwich Isles Communications has attracted interest in Hawaii political circles is that the company has ties to a variety of politicians and current or former executives involved with Kamehameha Schools, another politically influential local institution.
Al Hee says his brother Clayton, then chairman of the board of trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, is not involved in the project. Sandwich Isles did hire Clayton Hee’s wife, Lynne Waters, to produce videos for presentations to business leaders, homesteaders and others on the company’s operations.
Among (Sandwich Isles’)... 22 employees are former Democratic House Majority Leader Tom Okamura and former Rep. Devon Nekoba, who both carry the title of agency coordination officer. (Al) Hee says the two advise company executives on government policy matters.
Ties to Kamehameha Schools, formerly known as the Bishop Estate, include Gil Tam, the company’s vice president of government and community relations, formerly director of administration and interim chief executive officer for Bishop Estate, and Robert Kihune, chief executive officer, now a Kamehameha Schools trustee.
The Hawaiian Homes Commission chairwoman in 1994, when the commission approved Hee’s license (to provide communications services), was Hoaliku Drake, the mother of former Bishop Estate trustee Henry Peters.
Clayton Hee is a friend of Peters and was hired as a cultural affairs researcher for the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, a subsidiary of the former Bishop Estate/Kamehameha Schools (KSBE).
(See article and related materials posted at www.the-catbird-seat.net/SandwichIsles.htm)
(Catbird Note: This site has since been terminated by the U.S. Department of Justice by Order of Judge David A. Ezra. It can now be found at http://67.15.255.19/~thecatbi/SandwichIsles.htm )
Henry Peters was one of the Bishop Estates Trustees named in the infamous “Broken Trust” case. Gilbert Tam was also a co-investor in KSBE’s McKenzie Methane deal at the time he was a KSBE manager.
(Articles reprinted at: www.the-catbird-seat.net/Methane.htm)
In Harmon vs. Federal, et al, a lawsuit stemming from the Broken Trust expose, plaintiff Bobby Harmon, former P&C President, alleged “Tam’s actions, through his complicity, deceptions, and breach of fiduciary duties, in collusion with some or all of the trustees of KSBE, with other managers and employees of KSBE, with other officers and directors of P&C, and with outside contractors, attorneys, politicians and others, constituted a conspiracy to defraud P&C and the beneficiaries of the Estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop; racketeering; mail fraud; wire fraud; extortion; and violation of IRS interim sanctions regulations....”
(See Harmon vs. Federal reprinted at www.the-catbird-seat.net/RICO-BH.htm)
(Catbird Note: This page can now be found at http://67.255.19/~thecatbi/RICO-BH.htm )
In addition to “Broken Trust” connections, Sandwich Isles also benefits from a connection with former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, son of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and a mid-1970s Annapolis Naval Academy classmate of SIC President Al Hee. The FCC’s sudden decision to rule on Verizon’s complaint corresponds in time closely to Michael Powell’s resignation as FCC chair.
There is also a correspondence in timing between the purchase of Verizon Hawaii’s assets by the Carlyle Group, with many well-known connections to both Democrat and Republican national political leaders and appointees, and the FCC’s subsequent ruling in SIC’s favor.
Sandwich Isles Communication’s cable-laying contractor is MasTec, named for its founder the late Jorge Mas Canoza, Cuban exile leader. On the Mas Tec board, in Joseph Kennedy II, whose family connections with Mas Canoza go back to the Bay of Pigs.
Amazingly for a $500 million fiber-optic communications company, Sandwich Isles does not have a web site.
Sandwich Isles Communications shares offices with Waimana, Inc., Richardson-Luke, and Ku’iwalu.
As of today, June 2, 2005, Sandwich Isles Communications has not released to this writer a complete list of company officers and directors and their total remuneration....
Andrew Walden is the publisher and editor of Hawaii Free Press, a Big Island based newspaper. He can be reached via email at andrewwalden@email.com
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Catbird Note: See also Hawaiian Telcom Communications, Inc. Application For Review In the Matter of Sandwich Isles Communications, Inc., Before the Federal Communications Commission, Washington, D.C. - CC Docket No. 96-45 - Filed on June 15, 2005: http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6517689577
For more, GO TO > > > Vultures in Hawaiian Home Lands
$ $ $
Ms. Mariene Dortch
Office of the Secretary
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street S.W.
Washington, DC 20554
RE: Support of Hawaiian Telcom’s Request for Reconsideration of Sandwich Isles Communications Study Area Waiver - CC Docket 96-45
Dear Ms. Dortch,
I urge you to support Hawaiian Telecom’s request of reconsideration of Sandwich Isles Communications study area waiver. I believe wholeheartedly that it is not in the best interests of the Universal Service Fund to be supporting this project. Most of the DHHL areas are unoccupied and will be for the foreseeable future. Thus I have some real serious issues with the USF subsidizing this boondoggle at a cost of nearly $14,000 per customer.
On top of that, some of the DHHL areas are being serviced by Hawaiian Telcom currently, e.g. Hilo Hawaii DHHL lands. From my view there will be serious issues arising from Hawaiian Telcom’s ability to service these customers in the future. I urge you to take a close look at this. Along with the fact that Sandwich Isles Communications will be skirting the rules of their licenses and service non-DHHL areas through their sister company ClearCom Inc. Thus going head to head with Hawaiian Telcom etc.
You can read evidence of this dream of SIC in numerous publications, like Forbes “Dreaming and Scheming Hawaiian Style, 10/2002,” Maui News www.the-catbird-seat.net/SandwichIsles.htm, Hawaii Business News www.hawaiibusiness.cc/hb42001/default.cfm?articleid=6
Thank you for your time in this matter.
Sincerely,
< Name Withheld By Request >
< < < FLASHBACK < < <
June 4, 2002
Fiber-optic firm taps
federal gold mine
A Hawaii company will get $500 million to lay
a rural network that may see little use
By Anthony Sommer, Honolulu Star-Bulletin
LIHUE – Work has begun on a privately owned $500 million fiber-optic cable telecommunications system ultimately linking all Department of Hawaiian Home Lands residents currently without telephone service. Even if it services all the homes possible, the price tag will be $25,000 per home.
Of the total cost, $400 million will be paid through a loan from one federal agency that will be almost entirely repaid by another federal agency that assesses a fee on every telephone user in the United States.
The company building the system is Sandwich Isles Communications Corp. Wiring of Hawaiian Homes properties from Anahola to Kekaha, a total of 51 miles, began in Anahola in March.
Over the next five years, Sandwich Isles plans to lay 1,500 miles of fiber-optic cable linking the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands' 69 housing developments scattered across six major islands. Included are undersea cables between the islands.
The plan is to provide state-of-the-art telecommunications to 20,000 homes.
But the 20,000 homes do not yet exist. The number represents the families who are on the Hawaiian Homes waiting list for new home.
At the current rate of DHHL home construction (about 500 new homes per year), the 20,000 dwellings will not be completed for another 40 years.
The initial service will reach less than 5 percent of the existing 5,400 DHHL homes statewide: only those that do not have existing service from Verizon.
Many of those who know about it think it is huge investment to provide services that will be rarely, if ever, used.
"Our question is, How do they make money with this thing?" said Kevin Kotsura, chief legal counsel of the Public Utilities Commission.
"Someone spotted a big pot of federal money just sitting there and went out and grabbed it," said one Kauai official with extensive experience in applying for and receiving government grants.
"The money isn't in operating the system, it is in building it."
Neither Sandwich Isles nor the federal agencies providing the funding would say how much of the funding is for administrative costs and how much profit the company will be allowed on construction.
That information would give an edge to competitors, they said, even though there don't appear to be any companies interested in serving Hawaiian Homes properties. Verizon officials said they don't intend to compete with Sandwich Isles for the service the new company wants to provide.
Sandwich Isles comes equipped with a high-profile political pedigree. Robert Kihune, retired vice admiral and recently appointed Kamehameha Schools trustee, is chief executive officer.
Al Hee, brother of Office of Hawaiian Affairs Chairman Clayton Hee, is president.
In 1995, it made an agreement with Hawaiian Homes to build the system. There was no bidding and the project costs the department nothing.
Under the 1996 Federal Telecommunications Act, which encourages new companies, Sandwich Isles' rates will not be regulated by the state Public Utilities Commission.
The financing includes $400 million in loans from the U.S. Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service and perhaps another $100 million from unnamed "private investors."
Most of the federal loan will be paid off by another federal agency, the Federal Communications Commission, through the Universal Service Fund, administered by the National Exchange Carriers Association.
The money comes from a federal charge on every monthly bill for every telephone user in the United States. For a residential customer, it works out to about $10 a year.
How much of the $400 million debt will be paid by DHHL customers and how much by every other telephone user in the United States through the Universal Service Fund?
Sandwich Isles has been tight-lipped about how its debt will be structured. But it says that's because it doesn't really know how the system will evolve.
"We have kind of a social mission," said Gil Tam, Sandwich Isles vice president for government and community relations. "We don't want to be a big telephone company like Verizon. Our mission is to serve Hawaiian Home Lands.”
"We definitely believe it will be utilized, but we don't know yet what businesses the availability of the system will attract," said Tam.
"I think it is clear to everyone that we need a first-class infrastructure to attract high-tech businesses to Hawaii and our mission is to build that infrastructure on Hawaiian Home Lands," he added.
When the Star-Bulletin asked Roberta Purcell, administrator of the Telecommunications Division of the Rural Utilities Service (which is making the loan available) how much of the debt service would come from the Universal Service Fund, she responded: "Much of the information you are seeking is either proprietary or must be obtained directly from Sandwich Isles itself."
Purcell refused to discuss the justification for spending a half billion dollars when there is no indication any significant number of Hawaiian Homes residents has been underserved by Verizon.
Asked how many of her acquaintances in Anahola currently lack service from Verizon, longtime Anahola resident Sondra Grace had to pause a minute.
"I can think of one old guy who doesn't have a telephone and he lives out in an isolated valley," she said.
"I'm not sure he'd want it even if it were available."
* * * * *
January 16, 2003
Letters to the Editor - West Hawaii Today
High tech folly?
Editor:
One day the white trucks and heavy equipment arrived. Most were bearing addresses of MasTec Oklahoma and MasTec Minnesota. All were flying Old Glory. My initial reaction was the Big Island is being invaded by mid-American oil drilling wildcatters.
Quickly the flags came down and the addresses were covered over with magnetic MasTec Hawaii signs. There followed a brief WHT article heralding the coming good a half billion dollar deal to provide free Internet access for Hawaiians.
As my esteemed, late Auntie Sheila used to say, "I smell a fish." How long before this half billion dollar projection escalates due to unforeseen conditions (i.e. blue rock).
My observation is that putting six large strands of fibre-optic wire underground adjacent to our only highway will limit future lane expansion. How long until buried cable is obsolete, replaced by wireless technology?
Please, someone out there enlighten me. I fail to see the upside. This island is paradise on Earth. We have the best weather and the cleanest/warmest ocean. A great environment that also happens to be in the richest/most stable country.
I find it amazing that I haven't read anything questioning this colossal project except for an letter penned by B. Houser. Basically, Houser said "imagine the beauty when all our infrastructure is underground." Am I dreaming to think that these six large wires have so much over-capacity that they will be able to replace all the existing electric and cable poles?
My self-righteous indignation is based on fear that a few individuals and companies are using taxpayer's funds for their own feeding frenzy.
I called my local representative, Leningrad Elarionoff, for information and he said something ironical. He is part Hawaiian, but won't have access, because it is limited only to the people living in designated Hawaiian Homelands areas.
As you read this, traffic on the Kawaihae Road is delayed because there are so many telephone poles in the way of the digging.
Imagine how many thousands of homes for local Hawaiians can be built with a billion dollars.
Hopefully, after our new governor breaks up the airline monopoly, she can explore this issue. We deserve better.
Ron Roberts, Waimea
* * * * *
Response to a Letter from a Concerned Citizen
USDA
United States Department of Agriculture
Rural Development
Rural Business-Cooperative Service-Rural Housing Service-Rural Utilities Service
Washington, DC 20250
December 30, 2002
Dear (Name Withheld):
Thank you for your E-mail to Ann M. Veneman, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. On behalf of the Secretary, we are responding to you E-mail concerning the funding of Sandwich Isles Communications, Inc. (Sandwich Isles).
Sandwich Isles has received loans totaling $167 million from the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), Telecommunications Program. The loans to Sandwich Isles are unique in that funding is provided to establish an intra-island and an inter-island fiber optic network to serve subscribers on the Hawaiian Homelands situated on six different islands. Due to the high cost of plant per subscriber, a large portion of the revenues will come from the Universal Service Fund (USF) and access charges. The USF is administered by the National Exchange Carrier Association. USF funds will be made available to Sandwich Isles on the same basis as to any other qualified recipient.
The Department of Hawaiian Homelands has licensed Sandwich Isles to serve the Hawaiian Homelands. Similarly, the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission issued a Certificate of Authority restricting Sandwich Isles to serving the Hawaiian Homelands. Therefore, it appears that Sandwich Isles would exceed the authority given to it by the duly authorized Hawaiian authorities if it expanded its service territory.
All RUS borrowers are subject to the nondiscrimination provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended. To date, we have no evidence that indicates Sandwich Isles has acted in a discriminatory manner.
We hope that this information is helpful.
Sincerely,
< Signed >
Hilda Gay Legg
Administrator
Rural Utilities Service
=========
The Citizen’s Answer
To: Hilda Gay-Leggr.com>
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 00:19:14 -1000
Ms. Hilda Gay-Legg
United States Department of Agriculture
Rural Utilities Service
STOP# 1510
Washington DC 20250
Dear Ms. Hilda Gay-Legg,
As far as I'm aware of the of funding of this project is going to eventually total 400 million dollars in USDA RUS loans over the life of this activity. These loans are going to be paid off by the Universal Service Fund. The problem I have with this project is not with the Universal Service Fund paying off the loans. It’s with the USDA RUS providing loans to SIC to build this project which is violating Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
When this project is complete, only native Hawaiians living on Department of Hawaiian Homelands can access this network.
Quoting from the United States Department of Justice web site in regards to Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance."
Quoting from the letter you sent me "Sandwich Isles has received loans totaling 167 million from the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), Telecommunications Program." Last I checked this is a federal government entity. Since this project is for Native Hawaiians only, despite your claims that all RUS borrowers must conform to the nondiscrimination provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as far as I can see USDA RUS in this matter is violating federal law.
I am aware the Sandwich Isles Communications’ license from the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission allows SIC to operate only on Department of Hawaiian Homelands.
Since this is the case, why did USDA RUS loan this money to SIC when its obvious it would violate federal law.
I am going to be sending your letter and my response to Mr. John Ashcroft, Attorney General of the United States among others and see what he has to say about this project.
Sincerely,
< Name Withheld by Request>
May 14, 2003
Summit loans questioned
Money loaned to the bankrupt firm's CEO resulted
in improper payments, a new lawsuit contends
By Tim Ruel, Honolulu Star-Bulletin
A politically adept telecommunications company financed primarily by the federal government has several connections to troubled firm Summit Communications Inc., including a $456,793 loan that is being questioned by a bankruptcy trustee.
Sandwich Isles Communications Inc., headed by Al Hee, loaned the money in March 1998 to Summit through Summit's then-chief executive and part-owner, Harold C. Johnston, according to a lawsuit.
In 2001, Harold Johnston received $8,400 in interest payments from Summit for the loan.
Harold Johnston denied loaning the money to Summit....
~ ~ ~
For more, GO TO > > > The Rise and Fall of Summit Communications
* * *
July 9, 2003
Audit spurs criminal probe
The Attorney General's Office is investigating issues
raised at the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau
By Tim Ruel, Honolulu Star-Bulletin
The state Attorney General's Office has opened a criminal review into points raised by the critical audit of the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau.
The criminal justice unit of the Attorney General's Office is looking into the matter, said Linden Joesting, a deputy attorney general. Joesting declined to say what aspects of the audit are being probed, because it's an internal matter....
... continued at Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau
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April 27, 2001
Burial Council questions need
for fiber optics system
By VALERIE MONSON, The Maui News
WAILUKU –– A proposed $500 million fiber optics cable system that would provide high-tech hookups to every parcel of Hawaiian Homes land on six islands was met with criticism – and suspicion – by the Maui/Lanai Islands Burial Council Thursday.
"These lines are telling a different story," said Leslie Kuloloio, a former member of the council who was testifying on his own behalf, as he pointed to a map covered with red lines over land and under the ocean that would connect the project.
"These lines aren't geared for Hawaiian Homes - they're geared for a big picture 50 years from now," he said.
The system has been proposed by Sandwich Isle Communications, an Oahu-based public utility company certified as a rural telephone company by the state Public Utilities Commission and Federal Communications Commission. The company, formed in 1995, is owned and operated by Native Hawaiians.
Although Sandwich Isle spokesman Gil Tam insisted the main purpose of the project was to offer state-of-the-art communications to Hawaiian homesteaders, the Native Hawaiians of the Burial Council feared their lands were being used to create a huge network for the public at large as well as commercial ventures and, possibly, the military.
"What about the Department of Defense? The Department of Energy?" wondered Kuloloio.
"Are they another part of the big picture that we don't see? How many Hawaiians have computers and Microsoft? We're at the bottom. What we need is water. I'd like to see all these lines be waterlines."
Chairman Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell Sr. and Vice Chairwoman Dana Naone Hall were especially surprised that the cable would run all the way to LaPerouse Bay just to connect a small piece of Hawaiian Homes land that no one on the council even knew was part of the trust.
"I'm shocked, I've never even heard of that being homelands," said Maxwell.
"There's nothing there but lava. There's no water there. People won't be able to live there for at least 50 or 100 years."
Maxwell pointed out that costs for the project will soar even more because of all the archaeological work that will be needed to address the expected concentration of ancient graves and historic sites through the South Maui corridor to connect LaPerouse. He said it would also needlessly disturb the bones of the ancestors.
"How is this (project) practical?" he asked. "I can't see digging through intense, intense (layers) of archaeological sites and burials for (a community) that might not even occur."
Hall called the draft environmental assessment prepared for the project "premature," because the system would be built in phases and things would inevitably change over the years.
She also called the archaeological assessment prepared by Cultural Surveys Hawaii Inc. of Oahu "extremely inadequate" in describing the minimal impacts on burials that would result from widespread trenching.
Maxwell said the Burial Council has "had a lot of problems" with work done by Cultural Surveys Hawaii in the past and suggested that Sandwich Isle hire a Maui firm.