[MauiTime first broke the story of the sale of Alexander & Baldwin’s old sugarcane lands in November 2018. Our ongoing Changing Maui: Mahi Pono series investigates the new owners of these massive land holdings and the changes they will bring to Maui. It is part of Changing Maui, a larger series on the changes facing […]
Mahi Pono Purchase Agreement: Lots of legalese with a few tasty nuggets
Here’s a link to the Alexander & Baldwin/Mahi Pono purchase and sales agreement, filed by A&B as part of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Form 8K filing. The 50-plus pages are long on Real Estate legalese and short on what everyone really wants to see – any kind of listing of which A&B […]
Two Activists and a Lt. Governor: Mahi Pono’s first hires seem long on charm and short on farm
Mahi Pono, the island’s newest and largest landowner, has acquired some Maui employees. Former Hawai‘i Lt. Governor Shan Tsutsui and longtime island activist Sean Lester have signed on with the subsidiary of California-based Pomona Farming, which acquired more than 41,000 acres of former sugarcane land from Alexander & Baldwin last month. Currently a vice […]
Who Are These Guys? Enthusiasm over the new owners of A&B’s agricultural lands runs high, though almost nothing is known about them
[Editor’s note: This story has been updated since its first posting. This is the version that ran in our Jan. 3 print edition.] To hear the hosannas from members of Maui’s progressive community, Christmas came early this year with Alexander & Baldwin’s sale of some 41,000 acres of former sugarcane lands to a mainland company […]
Where Are the Whales? Scientists Address Humpback Mystery
For years, the news about humpbacks was positive. Rebounding from near decimation after landing on the endangered species list in 1973, more and more whales came to Maui each winter from their feeding grounds in Southeast Alaska to breed and give birth. The Northern Pacific humpbacks were “de-listed” in 2016. Ironically, that’s the year things […]
Maui’s Music Man: Steve Grimes makes music as a songwriter and – literally – as an instrument builder
In April, before his concert at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, Jackson Browne traveled to Kula to see a man about a guitar. The man is Steve Grimes, who, in addition to being a longtime Maui musician and songwriter, is a renowned luthier – a builder of stringed instruments. Grimes has spent the last […]
Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa complains about County Council cutting $2.5 million Project Aloha–which still has no plan
What is it with Mayor Alan Arakawa’s obsession about banishing Maui’s homeless to Old Maui High School, a 23-acre venue on the far side of traffic-clogged Paia with no sewer, water or social services? The lame duck mayor emphasized the “lame” part of that title this week by pontificating in a May 4 Maui News opinion piece […]
Mayor Alan Arakawa wants to move homeless to Old Maui High, but there’s no actual plan to do so
Mayor Alan Arakawa made some news this week with his announcement during his State of the County address that he wants to move Maui’s homeless population—at last count numbering 800-plus—to the Old Maui High School Hamakuapoko campus outside Paia. Of course, this should come as no surprise to MauiTime readers. Last year, after the TEACH […]
What do Maui’s legislators think of the NRA?
In the weeks following Florida’s Parkland high school massacre, a new fervor has set in when it comes to challenging the formerly bulletproof National Rifle Association (NRA)–and the organization is beginning to take some significant hits. Whether it’s the powerful emotions created by angry, grieving Parkland students, or a collective consciousness snap at the news […]
Author Susan Casey’s fascination with oceans shows no sign of ebbing
Last fall, Oahu’s Kimi Werner was featured in Outside magazine, a thrill for anyone. But when the spearfishing champion and waterwoman highlighted it on social media, her excitement was not as much about the article, but about its author, Susan Casey. When she learned that Casey would be writing the story, Werner posted, “I just […]
Maui News publishes wacky Las Vegas shooting letter, wackier note to readers
One of the best entertainment sources in The Maui News on a daily basis isn’t the comics, it’s the Letters to the Editor. In other newspapers, that space is usually filled with fairly earnest discourse. But in The Maui News, civic discussions are amply supplemented by missives on God, the apocalypse, Mauitopia and government cover-ups, […]
Did the County of Maui learn anything from TEACH’s failure?
The organization formerly known as TEACH (Technology, Education, Agriculture, Community, Health) disappeared so quickly this week that the door couldn’t even hit its butt on the way out. In much the same way as it arrived last year, TEACH vanished in a haze of hubris and new age babble. Frontmen Mark Chasan and Jason Hobson […]
Dolphin researcher Denise Herzing will speak at Whale Tales
Jane Goodall and chimpanzees; Dian Fossey and gorillas; Denise Herzing and dolphins. While that final name may not be as well known as those of the famed primate observers, Dr. Denise Herzing certainly deserves her place in that respected triumvirate of behavioral biologists. Now in her fourth decade of studying wild cetacean behavior–specifically spotted dolphins […]
Community Flunks TEACH: North Shore residents speak out against plans for Old Maui High
How to put this nicely? TEACH executives Mark Chasan and Jason Hobson had their asses handed to them by an angry, raucous crowd at the Paia Community Center Monday night ,who told them to take their idea to turn the 23.5 acre Old Maui High School campus into a for-profit “regenerative” Eden and go back […]
Alexander and Baldwin quietly sells 339 acres of Paia cane land to mainland businessman
Paia Town has a new neighbor–a big one. In December, Alexander & Baldwin quietly sold a 339-acre parcel of land that cups the entire west side of Paia to a California businessman for just $9.9 million, or a little more than $29,000 per acre. Located across the street from the Paia Youth & Cultural Center, […]
Carly Scott murder trial ends with guilty verdict for Steven Capobianco
A wall-pulsating gasp shook a standing-room-only courtroom Wednesday as one of Maui’s longest and most lurid trials concluded with a unanimous guilty verdict returned against Steven Capobianco for the murder of Carly “Charli” Scott and the burning of her truck in February 2014. It was as if Scott’s family and friends had been holding their […]