A Dash of Calabash

Blogs sponsored by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii (GRIH) include:

This one, A Dash of Calabash. It is our central blog, so to speak. Your thoughts and comments are so important to us that we have put your ability to interact with us as the centerpiece of our website.

Your Voice Matters.

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Akaka Talka. As you might guess this one is focused on the proposed Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005 (S147 H309) otherwise referred to as the Akaka Bill. It is a part of "Sunshine on the Akaka Bill" on the upper left of this homepage.

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Education Beat Hawaii is a separate website that invites your comments. Click here to get the latest on Education Reform.

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Feature - Projected State Spending Growth

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Grass In Review - Fall 2004

I. Events:

• Geoff Segal, Director of Government Reform and Privatization, Reason Foundation was hosted during the last week of September for a series of panels and talks with policy makers and others. He was on a panel on privatization which included representatives from the Governor's office industry, and labor. He also spoke to the Hawaii Economics Association, a small boat-owners Association, Small Business Hawaii, a group of "no new taxes" legislators and our GRIH Board of Directors. Two cabinet members and the Governor's Senior Policy Advisor have expressed keen interest in additional work and interface with GRIH and Reason.



• Annual Awards Dinner, October 1, 2004, went very well. Attendance was up 20 percent (to 120) attracting 38 new, non-member faces. Keynote speaker was Geoff Segal. Others were Dr. David Tuerck of Beacon Hill Institute and Tim Goeglein from the White House.



• GRIH brought Lawrence W. Reed, President of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (MCPP) to Hawaii for a series of speaking engagements the week of November 15. He gave two major speeches (Small Business Hawaii and Aiea-Pearl City Business Association), motivated our Board, inspired new supporters for our Votes project and taught two classes at Hawaii Pacific University. In all, he had eight appearances in two-plus days.
  

• "Grassroot Perspective" continues to be published five days per week in hawaiireporter.com Hits are now almost 20,000 per day.



• In conjunction with Larry Reed's visit, we developed and published a poster "Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy" which has been a hit. Larry was signing autographs for 30 minutes after his presentation at SBH.



• "Fresh Perspective", an opinion piece by a young person with ties to Hawaii, is published each Friday in hawaiireporter.com.



• GRIH letters to the editor and op-eds published in print media were:
  
• September: 30
  
• October: 28
  
• November: 25
  
• December: 29



• Our website average daily hits continue to rise, now up 3 times over last year's figures.
  

• We are formulating a plan to use the local Economic Education organization as a spring board to entering our high schools with a working, useful teaching model which may include the use of Ken Schoolland's Jonathan Gullible in economic classes.



• Coordinated a meeting with the Senior Policy Advisor to the Governor and John Rutledge of Rutledge Capitol. John, a working advisor to Reagan and both Bush Presidencies, will become what he calls an unpaid "uncle advisor" to our Governor. Because of John's free-market orientation and his extraordinary ability to simplify complex subjects (like telecom deregulation), this has major possibilities.



• Three staff members attended the State Policy Network Meeting in Austin in October. The knowledge gained and networking accomplished was awesome.



• Terri Rudacille was our representative at the December SPN networking conference in Washington, DC.



• GRIH President Richard Rowland addressed the annual meeting of the Hawaii Rifle Association in November.
  

• We have started a strategic three year plan for education reform in Hawaii, which continues to evolve. A meeting with the President of the Business Roundtable on November 24 and a review of performance audits by Evergreen Freedom Foundation's Bob Williams on November 23 helped clarify key areas. Gisele Huff of the Jaquelin Hume Foundation has been invaluable for advice and guidance, as has Lynn Harsh of EFF.



• Dick Rowland continues to collaborate with Americans for Tax Reform in encouraging elected officials to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, coordinate and support the monthly center-right coalition meetings, and coordinate the caucus of legislators in support of pledge signers. A coalition meeting has been started on the Big Island and one on Maui is under development.



• Because of Larry Reed's recent visit, our plans for getting the High School Debate training program were enhanced.



• As a direct result of Larry Reed’s visit, we have the agreement of Hawaii Pacific University President, Chatt Wright, to collaborate as sponsors of speakers and events. Details are being worked out.



• We added a new staff member, Terri Rudacille, in September. She came to us courtesy of our close relationship with the Evergreen Freedom Foundation.



• Collaboration with American Institute for Full Employment (AIFE) continues as they assist and advise Hawaii's Departments of Human Services and Labor with regard to employment issues. Based on our original request, we guess they have spent $250,000 helping Hawaii



• As a direct result of the visit by Geoff Segal of Reason in September, we are engaged in discussion with the Governor's office on the idea of undertaking a major government functions review similar to those of California and Florida.



• The networking from the monthly center-right coalition meetings has resulted in a partnership of GRIH and the local Trimble Foundation for a $20,000 program for special scholarship awards for college and high school students.



• We continue to promote all four of Heartland's excellent monthly publications; School Reform News, Budget and Tax News, Environment and Climate News, and Healthcare News.



• John Woodyard is helping us with designing and implementing our fundraising programs. This is a direct result of the SPN Austin meeting.
  

• Hillsdale College, at our request, conducted a two day Freedom Forum In Honolulu using four top professors, January 5th - 6th. Four well-renowned professors gave eye-opening lectures titled "What is America".



• Our education reform plans will proceed apace. We will soon have a very dynamic, active section of our website on this subject and, based on that, a periodic publication much as MCPP does.



• Working with the Hawaii Pacific University's student club, The Reason Club, we plan to expand attendance/membership to other students, members of the business/professional community and others. The club will be one of our base sources for finding summer interns to sponsor to ATR, etc., authors for Fresh Perspective, winners for the Trimble Awards and injecting economics and Stossel programs into high school debate program. Over time this effort will move liberty giant steps forward. We have met with The Reason Club faculty advisor and are ready to move forward.



• We plan to publish a book about the late, great Herb Cornuelle, a magnificent major business leader here in Hawaii, but also an unsung hero and national leader on freedom. Herb was a key to the start of FEE, helped edit "Alas Shrugged", was the decision maker and funder for Murray Rothbard's works when he ran the Volcker Fund etc. To get that started, we will have a section on our website for anecdotes about Herb, a hero of liberty.



• We will intensify donor recruitment and grant making with the addition of Terri Rudacille to our staff. That will allow us to flush out and implement our education reform plan led by Laura Brown.



• The government functions review with Reason Foundation will be underway within the next 12 months.


• Preliminary planning for a Pacific Rim freedom conference is underway.



• Plans for sponsoring former Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico to Hawaii have started.