Green Party activist to visit Kailua-Kona
The Green Party of Hawaii will host a community forum at 7 p.m. Saturday at the West Hawaii Civic Center. Guest speaker David Cobb, of the Move to Amend campaign, will speak on on “Creating Democracy and Challenging Corporate Rule.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC allowed unlimited corporate spending on elections. Cobb, an attorney and national leadership member for Move to Amend, will explain the history behind the recent decision and how they can work to abolish “Corporate Personhood.”
“Corporate personhood is not an inconsequential legal technicality,” Cobb said. “The Supreme Court ruled that a corporation was a ‘legal person’ with 14th Amendment protections before they granted full personhood to African-Americans, immigrants, natives, or women.”
Cobb served as the Green Party’s presidential candidate in 2004.
The forum will focus on how Hawaii can join the national movement against corporate personhood. Cobb will provide information about the issue and facilitate a discussion about local action in Kailua-Kona and in communities across the United States to win the amendment campaign through grassroots mobilization.
More than 328,000 people have signed an online petition supporting a constitutional amendment at movetoamend.org.
For more information, call Brian Alenduff at 707-269-0984.
Floriculture survey going on now
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service will spend the next several months gathering information for the 2014 Commercial Floriculture and Nursery Survey. NASS will collect data on production area, sales of floriculture and nursery products, and the number of agricultural workers from producers in Hawaii, California and other major floriculture and nursery states across the nation.
“The data we collect in this survey will help the growers make vital business decisions and evaluate the results of the growing season,” said Mark Hudson, state statistician of the NASS Hawaii Field Office. “The new report will also give us a chance to pinpoint new trends within the floriculture and nursery industry and ensure that policy decisions are made based only on factual information provided directly from producers.”
Once the survey is mailed, growers will have until Monday to respond. After that, NASS representatives may be contacting those who did not respond to collect the information over the phone or in a face-to-face interview.
All information NASS collects in this survey will be kept strictly confidential, as required by federal law. The results of this survey will be made available in June in the annual Floriculture Crops report in aggregate form only, without revealing any information that may identify individual operations. All reports are available on the NASS web site at nass.usda.gov.
Prostate cancer support group meets
The Prostate Cancer Information and Support Group meets from noon to 1 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month at King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel pool bar. Newly diagnosed, survivors and their caregivers are welcome. There are no fees or dues.
For more information, call Alapaki Tampos at 326-1888 or 987-6776.
Naturopath physician addresses Rotary Club
Denisa Maruyama, a naturopath physician at Kona Wellness Center, will speak at the Rotary Club of Kona Sunrise breakfast meeting Wednesday. She will discuss integrative approaches for health and wellness.
Rotary Club of Kona Sunrise holds weekly breakfast meetings at 6:45 a.m. Wednesdays at Hale Halawai. Breakfast is $10. For more information, call Lisa Moore at 896-8697.
Seniors plan special event day
Kailua-Kona Seniors will hold a “Members Special Event Day” at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Hale Halawai in Kailua-Kona. There will be no regular meeting this week.
For more information, call Billie at 315-8367 or Pat at 329-2424.