Sun shining here fair to middling

Sunshine Review, a nonprofit with a mission to boost easier public access to government, has published its 2013 Transparency Report Card, and Hawaii’s grades are hovering somewhere around fair to middling.

Based on a number of factors, the state of Hawaii earned a B, which Sunshine Review defines as "above average." But its county governments and school district (read: state Department of Education) get C’s, translated as "poor." Wow, tough grader.

Originally the report had included a "B-minus" in the "city government" category, but when it was pointed out that local governments here cover whole counties, that mark was deleted from the website (sunshinereview.org). At least they’re being accountable and transparent, right?

Good news is pain won’t be so bad

Kudos to the state’s consumer advocate for pressing Hawaiian Electric Co. to cut how much revenue it will seek to recover from ratepayers.

This makes perfect sense because the tab included cost overruns for its $195 million Campbell Industrial Park plant that started operations three years ago. Cost overruns on the bill? Hmm.

There was also the cost of a new customer information system that had to be covered. While it’s nice to see any improvement to customer information, the Public Utilities Commission, overseers of the utility, ought to think twice before letting all of that be rolled into a rate hike.

"Now bills will not go up as much," concluded Jeffrey Ono, executive director of the state Division of Consumer Advocacy.

It’s a sign of the times that we’d be encouraged at the notion of bills rising to a lesser extent.