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Maui County
The Maui 10
Who's the county's most powerful player?
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January 04, 2007
RANK PREVIOUS COMPANY
1
1 Dowling Co.
2
2
Weinberg Foundation
3
3
Monsanto Hawai`i
4
4
Maui Electric Co.
5
5
Makena Resort
6
6
Maui Land & Pineapple Co.
7
10 Hawaiian Telcom
8
7
Alexander & Baldwin
9
8
Tesoro Hawai`i
10
9
Wailuku Water Co.
DOWLING IS PBN'S DARLING
Got an email this week from former Akaku president Sean McLaughlin,
livid at his recent discovery that in mid-November Pacific Business
News gave uber-developer Everett Dowling its "2006 Community Spirit
Award" for "leading the way in developing 'green' buildings for the
Valley Isle that use less energy and resources while minimizing their
impact on the environment." McLaughlin's still steamed at Dowling for
his lobbying last year to cut the state funding the Akaku public access
cable channel receives (the Akaku board is still in chaos, with its
most recent CEO resigning after just a few weeks in office). But
Dowling's trumpeting of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)'s green
construction techniques and standards is a good thing. New homes and
buildings should use captured rainwater; roofs should hold photovoltaic
cells; big windows should maximize sunlight to reduce power
consumption. And Dowling isn't shy about publicizing the fact that the
USGBC's Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) program—a
voluntary list of dos and don'ts in building construction—has certified
a quarter of his new buildings. This is good, though I suppose
questioning whether the fact that 75 percent of his developments don't
qualify under LEED actually makes him award-worthy is a matter of
opinion. Or the fact that LEED's very first measure on its most recent
home building checklist is "Avoid Environmentally Sensitive Sites and
Farmland"—a directive Dowling boldly ignored when he pushed through his
big project to build 70-plus ultra-expensive condos right on the Makena
coastline.
PHONE COMPANY RISES!
After many, many weeks at the bottom of the Maui 10 ladder, Hawaiian
Telcom finally climbs a couple notches this week. Not for anything the
troubled phone company did, though—it rises on news that its corporate
owner, the hideously rich and powerful private equity fund Carlyle
Group, has helped create the Private Equity Council. This new group
will, according to the Dec. 27 Pacific Business News, "launch outreach
efforts in research, public affairs and government relations to
increase public awareness of private equity." Put simply, it's the
lobbying arm of the richest and most powerful fund managers in the
world, who apparently aren't yet rich or powerful enough. MTW
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