Hawaiian City Garden

StopMoskowitz :: The Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem Support the Coalition with your Donation Donation Amount $25.00 $50.00 $100.00 $250.00 $500.00 $1000.00 thank you The Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem P.O. 67903, Los Angeles CA 90067 310 553-1146 email -- How Moskowitz Profits from his Hawaiian Gardens Non-profits A Detailed Analysis of Irving Moskowitz's Non-profit Operations in Hawaiian Gardens nonprofit (non·prof·it) adj. 1. not conducted or maintained for the purpose of making a profit <a nonprofit organization> - noun 2. a nonprofit organization, institution, corporation or entity. These days, Dr. Irving Moskowitz is seldom seen in Hawaiian Gardens but his presence is everywhere. A banner bears his name in a picture of the Little League team that runs in the local paper. Senior citizens attending a city council meeting sport t-shirts with Moskowitz's name emblazoned across the back. Moskowitz may be hundreds of miles away at his home in Miami Beach but he is ubiquitous in the community as a businessman and benefactor who has pumped millions of dollars into the city. And there is no question Hawaiian Gardens is in need of help. The unemployment rate is high in this largely immigrant slice of LA County where half of all adults lack a high school diploma. And where close to one out of every four Hawaiian Garden residents lives below the poverty line. 1 But Irving Moskowitz's track record of less-than-charitable activity in Hawaiian Gardens belies his image as a philanthropist - a careful examination of his financial records and those of his non-profit foundation show that the majority of his contributions resulted in either financial gain or increased political influence for himself. Dr. Moskowitz, it seems, has engaged in non-profit profiteering in Hawaiian Gardens. Since posting this report on our website, more information has come to light that strongly suggests that Moskowitz's non-profit Tri-City Regional Medical Center is in violation of Internal Revenue Service rules qualifying health care providers for tax-exemption. (Click here to read more) Putting the 'profit' in Non-profit healthcare Tri-City Hospital sign greets motorists entering Hawaiian Gardens saying the "community" facility serves all health needs - as long as you're not poor or pregnant. Take Tri-City Regional Medical Center in Hawaiian Gardens. In 1996, when its balance sheets were beginning to look less-than stellar, 2 Moskowitz decided to spin off this privately owned hospital as a non-profit, while retaining ownership of the building and land. 3 Immediately after converting Tri-City Regional Medical Center into a non-profit, the Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation 4 donated $4.9 million in tax-free proceeds from its Hawaiian Gardens bingo to the hospital. 5 Moskowitz then began collecting the money back by charging the hospital $95,000 a month in rent, payable to his private landlord company. 6 Those payments now exceed $110,000 per month. 7 California state financing records show that in 2000 the foundation made an additional transfer of funds to Tri-City. 8 The hospital's fidelity to the concept of charitable trust 9 is tenuous at best. This could perhaps be forgiven if the hospital was meeting the health care needs of the local community. But despite its non-profit status, Tri-City is less than solicitous when it comes to the health of Hawaiian Gardens. When the hospital applied for non-profit status in 1997, it made a commitment to provide pre-natal care. 10 Recent patient discharge data published by the state of California shows that Tri-City has stopped delivering babies - none were born at the hospital in either 2000 or 2001. 11 It isn't for lack of demand for services. Last year residents of Hawaiian Gardens brought home 98 newborn babies. 12 While small in size (the city's population is a little under 15,000 13 ), Hawaiian Gardens is a young, largely immigrant community - recent census data indicates the average age of its resident is 26. More than half of the households have children under the age of 18. And as of 2000, a little more than 10 percent of the population was under the age of 5. The women of Hawaiian Gardens are having babies - they are just not having them delivered at the hospital in their own neighborhood. Tri-City's failure to fully address the health care needs of the poor may be a factor. Again, nearly one out of every four resident of Hawaiian Gardens lives below the poverty line and many are immigrants who do not qualify for state programs such as MediCal (although MediCal is available to cover prenatal care and deliveries for undocumented immigrants, making the hospital's failure to provide these services all the more shocking). Stomach stapling accounts for a large part of Tri-City Hospital's tiny patient census. When it turned non-profit the hospital made a commitment to provide free or reduced cost care to the indigent 14 - and yet in recent years Tri-City has provided zero dollars in charity care. 15 State health care data shows the other four non-profit hospitals of comparable size in LA County provided a combined total of two million dollars in charity care in 2001 (the most recent year that statistics are publicly available). 16 Tri-City's failure to pull its own weight when it comes to helping out poor patients has little to do with its bottom line - in 2001 the hospital's gross patient revenue exceeded $72 million and its net income was slightly more than two million dollars - despite the fact that its occupancy rate in 2001 was an abysmally low 19.6 percent. 17 The average occupancy rate for other hospitals of comparable size in the state of California that year was 52.16 percent. 18 How does the hospital manage to stay afloat with such low patient volume? The answer may be as close as the sign in front of Tri-City's main entrance announcing it is also the home of "The Center for the Surgical Treatment of Obesity." Tri-City, it seems, has gotten into the lucrative business of stomach stapling. The Center, run by the somewhat famous Dr. Mathias Fobi provides surgical stomach shrinking services to patients clinically termed morbidly obese, that is, those who are 75 to 100 pounds or more overweight. (In what is perhaps an unfortunate display of poor taste, his website's motto is "lighten up." 19 ) According to a CBS News Report profiling his practice, Fobi performs surgery on up to 600 patients a year. 20 While Fobi charges for the surgeries he performs, the hospital also bills patients for the use of its operating and recovery rooms and other medical services it provides. In 2002 patients who underwent the surgical procedure at Tri-City, on average, racked up $50,000 in hospital charges. 21 State health care data shows that at least 439 Tri-City patients underwent the stomach stapling procedure last year, that is, more than one out of every four patients that received some sort of surgical treatment at the hospital had their stomach stapled. 22 Total charges for those patients was $21,936,400 - representing close to a third of the hospital's gross charges for the year. Tri-City's 2001 income tax forms (the most recent that are publicly available) indicate that by far its highest paid independent contractor that year was FOCA Management Company, a private company registered to Dr. Mathias Fobi. 23 Tri-City paid Fobi's firm $2,293,044 - more than its next four highest paid contractors combined. 24 Dr. Fobi has made numerous national television and radio appearances touting his surgical techniques and his patients come from as far away as Alaska, 25 but the obesity center appears to be of little value to the community where it is based: last year not one Hawaiian Gardens resident made the short trek across this mile-wide city to receive the procedure. 26 One former City Council member recalls that when the hospital was first built, Hawaiian Gardens welcomed it as the solution to the community's unmet health care needs. But citing the high cost of treatment at Tri-City and the lack of charity care, he said few use the hospital now. State health care data backs that assertion up - despite its proximity only 13.7 percent of all Hawaiian Gardens residents who were hospitalized in Los Angeles County last year were admitted to Tri-City Regional Medical Center. 27 Hawaiian Garden residents admitted to the hospital represented an even smaller percentage of Tri-City's total patient census - just 5.4 percent. 28 Since posting this report on our website, more information has come to light that strongly suggests that Moskowitz's non-profit Tri-City Regional Medical Center is in violation of Internal Revenue Service rules qualifying health care providers for tax-exemption. (Click here to read more) Banking on Bingo Bucks Moskowitz earns more than $1.3 million dollars annually as landlord of what is ostensibly a non-profit hospital. But his money-making off non-profits doesn't end there. In 1988, the city of Hawaiian Gardens granted the Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation a license to operate a non-profit bingo within its city limits in exchange for a commitment to spend the majority of the funds generated by the bingo on the local community. The foundation, which had existed mainly to own a piece of land in Northern California and seldom got much cash, was suddenly taking in more than $30 million annually from bingo games. But the foundation's bottom line wasn't the only beneficiary. 29 Moskowitz is the managing general partner (for practical purposes, the sole owner) of Cerritos General Hospital Company, the private firm that owns the land where his bingo is situated and the building in which the game is played. 30 It is not possible to tell from the foundation's IRS 990 forms (which non-profits file instead of income tax returns), exactly how much Moskowitz's foundation is paying him for use of the land, but even by conservative estimates, the total comes to several hundred thousand dollars a year. The Moskowitz Foundation's 2000 and 2001 990 forms show that in both years it paid total occupancy costs (defined by the IRS as rent and utilities) of over $900,000 for services and programs. The bingo is the foundation's only activity -- apart from writing checks. If even half its occupancy costs went to paying rent on the bingo hall as opposed to covering the costs of electricity, gas and water, it's safe to say Moskowitz is paying himself roughly $450,000 a year for the privilege of holding his own bingo games. On top of the bingo's rental payments, Moskowitz also drew more than half a million dollars in salary ($322,880 in 1999 and $184,503 in 2000, respectively) from the Moskowitz Foundation. 31 By contrast, the Moskowitz Foundation takes advantage of a state law requiring bingo workers to be volunteers for the non-profit operating the bingo. To run the bingo, Moskowitz uses mostly immigrant workers who have no ties to, or even knowledge of, the aims of his foundation, compensating them with nothing but the opportunity to get tips from bingo winners. 32 Workers say that their nightly shifts sometimes bring in as little as $20, even though the "volunteers" essentially function as full-time employees. 33 The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund is currently suing Moskowitz's bingo on behalf of 24 unpaid bingo workers. 34 continued on page two View all news reports 2003 the Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem

Hawaiian Clothes, swim suits,

JobsHawaii.com new & need id? CAREER CORNER EMAIL PASSWORD forgot id? hot jobs Customer Service Rep - Homeworld Pearlridge Challenging opportunity for a full-time front office/retail support for HomeWorld in Aiea. Administrative Assistant Searching for a positive, team oriented individual to work as an Administrative Assistant at our Main office in Downtown, Honolulu. Nursing Supervisor - F/T (Pearl City Nursing Home) Knowledgable RN needed to direct daily floor operations. Aloha! Wednesday, January 25, 2006 Ask Bro Kini Discussion Forum Ask Bro Kini Bro Kini, aka Gene Moore, SPHR, is available to answer questions from Jobseekers who are looking for work in Hawaii. As a California transplant, he has been there and done that when it comes to securing a job from from across the Pacific in the place he now calls home. Click Here to See All Discussion Topics: International Jobseekers Click Here to See All Messages under this Topic: hi there...i was wondering how the fashion industrie in hawaii is...im a german fashion designer and would love to move to hawaii this summer...i allready have a green card but have to check up first if theres any chance for me to work in my sector cos i dont want to give it up!!....it would be realy nice if you could give me some information about it...best regardsjacqueline Ask Your Question Now > We have a very big fashion industry here, but it is mostly in Hawaiian Clothes, swim suits, high end Pacific ware, and some lingerie. The best bet is to do a search of Hawaiian clothing and see what comes up. The one thing I could suggest is to have you portfolio of work on a CD. I coached a client one time into making her on CD Fashion show with all the designs she had done. Got here in the front door and in the long run got her the job. Bro Kini Date Posted : 11/26/2004 Posted By: Bro Kini ID: 1212 Ask Your Question Now JobsHawaii.com | Honolulu, Hawaii 808.595.3737 voice info@jobshawaii.com

Hawaii Cruise

Chang Family Foundation Hawaii Cruise WAYNE OGIMACHI Senior Pastor of Lighthouse Christian Church in Bellevue, Washington STEVE GREEN Christian Music Artist, Former Dove Awards Artist of the Year MICHAEL CHANG Professional Tennis Player, 1989 French Open Champion JULY 4-11 2004 FRIENDS AND FAMILY CRUISE IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS with MICHAEL CHANG & STEVE GREEN Dear Friends, My family and I would like to invite you to spend a week with us experiencing one of the most stunning places on earth. We're taking an exciting cruise to the Hawaiian Islands and would love for you to join us! Departing from Honolulu, we will discover the exotic paradise islands of Kauai, Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu. Not only will this be a wonderful opportunity for you to build new friendships, it will also be a special time to gather with family and old friends. It'll be a great time of fellowship on top of some fun-filled, refreshing times of worship. I will also be sharing about my experiences both on and off the court, and I hope that the time you share with us will be a good time of encouragement and blessing. God has been incredibly faithful over the years and it's my hope that you would come away with a greater understanding of how much each of you are dearly loved by Christ. So come join our family as we take a break from our busy lives and enjoy a time of relaxation and renewal. After all, life is not just about hard work. It's about love and finding fulfillment in life! Take care and we hope to see you and your family in Hawaii!!! Sponsored by the Chang Family Foundation For seven days next July, there will be a touch of excitement in the sea air, as each day will be filled with adventure touring the Hawaiian Islands. You will be able to experience the beauty of the Islands while sailing in the comfort of the Norwegian Cruise Lines Pride of Aloha. Norwegian Cruise Lines is one of the top rated cruise lines in the industry. You will sure to be treated with the best service, food and entertainment the cruising industry has to offer! There is something for everyone on this cruise. Picture yourself in any one of these fabulous activities offered: Learn the latest tennis serving techniques from Michael and Carl Chang Challenge others in basketball, volleyball and/or the golf tournament Take part in the special Children's Program preformed by Dove Award artist Steve Green Participate in daily morning devotionals led by Pastor Wayne Ogimachi Join in the many Inspirational Topics and Seminars Be a part of the professional exercise classes Join us on this once in a lifetime cruise around the Hawaiian Islands! This cruise is sponsored by the Chang Family Foundation. The mission of the Chang Family Foundation is to introduce the good news of Jesus Christ to the World through local and international program, and to grow and nurture people in their personal relationship with God. About the Ship | Itinerary | Cruise prices | Terms & Conditions | Reservation | FAQ | Hotels | Transportation

Lanai Travel Go Hawaii

All About Maui, Molokai and Lanai Hawaii  You are here: About > Travel > Hawaii / South Pacific for Visitors > Maui / Molokai / Lanai Travel Go Hawaii Essentials Which Hawaiian Island Suits You Best? Clickable Map of the Hawaiian Islands Beach Guide Hawaii Pictures Clickable Map of Maui, Hawaii Topics A Hawaii Vacation Planner Big Island of Hawaii Kauai Maui / Molokai / Lanai Oahu / Honolulu / Waikiki South Pacific Culture, History & Language Hawaii Lodging Hula Luau Maps and Weather Pearl Harbor Photos, Video & Cams Recipes Shopping and Gifts Buyer's Guide Tastes of Paradise from Hilo Hattie HilHilo Hattie Dresses and Sarongs Multi-Day Guided Tours Top Hawaii Guidebooks Top Maui / Molokai / Lanai Guidebooks Forums Help FREE Newsletter Sign Up Now for the Hawaii / South Pacific for Visitors newsletter! See Online Courses   Search Hawaii / South Pacific for Visitors > Maui / Molokai / Lanai All About Maui, Molokai, and Lanai Our picks for the best accommodations, activities, sightseeing, dining, entertainment, and luaus on Maui, Molokai and Lanai. We also include our picks for the best live cams and maps of Maui, Molokai and Lanai. We offer hundreds of photos of each of these islands. Subtopics Lanai (59) Molokai (50) Maui (328)   Topic Index | Email to a Friend Our Story | Be a Guide | Advertising Info | Work at About | Site Map | Icons | Help User Agreement | Ethics Policy | Patent Info. | Privacy Policy | Kids' Privacy Policy ©2006 About, Inc., A part of The New York Times Company . All rights reserved. Around About Tips to Losing Weight Guide to Distance Learning How to Travel for Less PHOTOS: Italy PHOTOS: Hybrid Cars What's Hot Top Picks in Hawaiian Coffee Kamehameha the Great Kalua Pig Waikiki Beach, Oahu - Life's a Beach in Hawaii - Hawaii Beac... Best Beaches 1999 Headlines 2006 Special Packages on Kauai For travelers considering a visit to the Garden Isle of... Plumeria Photos from Hawaii Plumeria is the most common flower that you'll find in... You Won't See This Sign at Home! This certainly isn't a sign that you've ever seen near... Atlantis Submarine Tour Maui Since I had just experienced the Atlantis Submarine Tour on...

HAWAII CONDO EXCHANGE Stunning

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