UH-Hilo looks to trim $5.5M
HILO - University of Hawaii at Hilo officials are looking at ways to make the campus more energy efficient after under-estimating the utility budget by about a half million dollars.
Vice Chancellor for Administrative Affairs Marcia Sakai says the Big Island campus budgeted $5.1 million for utility costs in fiscal year 2011-12, but anticipated total spending is closer to $5.5 million.
She says the bulk of that spending is for electricity.
*****
Farmers' market relocated
HALEIWA - A popular farmers' market on Oahu's North Shore ordered by the state to shut down has found a new home.
Organizers say the Haleiwa Farmers' Market will take place every Thursday starting this week in Waimea Valley.
Since 2009, the market had been operating on Sundays on a parcel of land that's zoned for agricultural use and not business. The state Department of Transportation issued a cease and desist order after officials were told by the attorney general's office that vending is prohibited on the site.
*****
Foreclosure ad scrutinized
HONOLULU - Hawaii's foreclosure overhaul law is drawing new scrutiny over publishing requirements for foreclosure notices.
The law went into effect last month and allows ads to run in some weekly newspapers. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Monday there is also a conflict-of-interest issue involving Mainland businesses that helped change the law now standing to profit from it.
Proponents of the new requirements say it will increase competition for ads. That would allow legal firm RCO Hawaii, which has ties to a Mainland foreclosure mill, to direct ads to a startup publication called The Island Sun Weekly.
Other newspaper publishers say it would lead to the Island Sun Weekly to get a monopoly on ads.
