By now it’s no news that things have changed on the top floors of the Kalana O Maui (County) Building. On Jan. 2, Mayor Mike Victorino was inaugurated along with members of the Maui County Council, followed by the first meeting of the new council, which elected Councilmember Kelly King to serve as chair, Keani […]
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New Appraisals For Arakawa Administration West Maui Land Deal Come In While Maui Police Officer Nelson Johnson Gets Busted Again And LC Defers Profanity Prosecution Of Lifes A Beach
NEW WEST MAUI LAND APPRAISALS IN! If Maui County Council Member Mike White’s mission was to gum up Mayor Alan Arakawa’s proposal to buy 186 acres of Launiupoko land, then he’s well on his way to success. If you’ll recall, back in November Arakawa announced that he’d struck a deal with Makila Land Co. (Peter […]
Joe Pontanilla Wants His Old Maui County Council Job Back While The LC Brings The Profanity Hammer Down On Lifes A Beach In Kihei
PONTANILLA WANTS OLD JOB BACK So apparently life in the mayor’s office isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. According to the Nov. 27 Maui News, former Maui County Council Member Joe Pontanilla wants his old job back. “I know the district very well,” he told the paper. “I can help Maui, Molokai and Lanai.” […]
Maui Police Officer Nelson Johnson Arrested For Assault While Governor Neil Abercrombie Appoints Media Attorney Jeff Portnoy To UH Board Of Regents
MAUI POLICE OFFICER NELSON JOHNSON ARRESTED FOR ASSAULT Shortly before noon on Wednesday, Nov. 20, the Maui Police arrested one of their own–Nelson Johnson–for allegedly assaulting his teenage daughter the night before, according to a Maui PD press release written by Maui PD Lt. Jayson Rego. Here’s how Rego’s press statement described Johnson’s alleged actions: […]
Mayor Alan Arakawa and Councilman Mike White Fight A Land War Over West Maui Coast While Hawaii Health Connector Is On Life Support
ARAKAWA AND WHITE FIGHT A LAND WAR! The ongoing war between Maui County Mayor Alan Arakawa and the bulk of the Maui County Council really got heated today over a huge stretch of West Maui coast. At issue is the Arakawa Administration’s proposed purchase of 186 acres of oceanfront property stretching from the Pali to […]
State of Hawaii Finally Legalizes Same Sex Marriage
On Tuesday, Nov. 12, the state Senate voted again on SB1, the bill legalizing same-sex marriage. The vote was 19-4 with two excused, which came as no surprise given that Senate Judiciary Chairman Clayton Hee had predicted an easy passage the week before. On the morning of Nov. 13, Governor Neil Abercrombie–who had called the […]
Scary House Testimony On Hawaii Same Sex Marriage Bill and Not So Scary Lahaina Halloween Arrest Figures While Maui County Council Votes To Demolish The Old Montana House
THE HORROR I don’t know about you, but I’ve been hiding under my desk since Halloween night. Usually, the evening passes uneventfully for me each year, with minimal frights and few true scares. But this year was different. That’s what I get for monitoring the state House of Representatives Special Session hearing on SB1, the […]
Hawaii Legislative Special Session On Same Sex Marriage Begins while More Precious Molasses Gets Spilled Into Kahului Harbor
SPECIAL SESSION BEGINS Well, this is it. At 10am on the morning of Monday, Oct. 28, the Hawaii State Legislature went into Special Session to deal with, among other things, the issue of same-sex marriage. Ironically, after all the decades of controversy and missed opportunities, the issue today seems not to be if Governor Neil […]
All Hail Our New Boat Drone Overlords Courtesy Of University Of Hawaii
Hawaii stands at the forefront of a new technological revolution in the field of boat drones, states an Oct. 16 press release from the University of Hawaii. The release came emailed with plenty of full-color photos of a new experimental boat drone (sorry–“robotic platform”) that the university hopes will “support maritime missions in harbor and […]
Oceanic Time Warner Cable Would Like To Continue Its Maui County Monopoly Another 20 Years While Hawaiian Commercial And Sugar Burns Residents And Its Own Mill
OCEANIC WANTS CABLE MONOPOLY FOR 20 MORE YEARS For the last 15 years, Oceanic Time Warner Cable has been Maui County’s sole cable TV provider. And it’s been pretty cool, right? They provide us whatever broadband speeds they like in exchange for whatever they wish to charge us, and if we don’t like it we […]
Speaker Joe Souki Shows His Loyalty While The County Of Maui Does Government At Its Best And Hawaii Health Connector Sort Of Goes Online
LOYALTY GONE MAD AT HAWAII STATE HOUSE? Loyalty, especially in local politics, is a strange thing. At first glance, it seems to be among the most important qualities for those seeking to climb the ladder in a political arena like a state Legislature. And yet journalist Jacob Weisberg has called loyalty “the most overrated virtue […]
Alan Arakawa Scores Another Labor Endorsement While Joe Blackburn Decides to Run For County Council Again and Maui Tomorrow Launches Cane Smoke Reporting App
ARAKAWA WINS ANOTHER LABOR ENDORSEMENT Looks like Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa, who I guess is technically still a Republican even though the local elections are nonpartisan–has racked up another labor endorsement. Last year, it was Willie Kennison of ILWU Local 142 who posed for a grip-n-grin shot with Arakawa. This year, it’s William “Willy” Greig […]
Maui Molasses Makes Mess Of Matson While FBI Files On Daniel Inouye Exemplify J Edgar Hoover Era Paranoia
YOU CAN’T SPELL ‘MOLASSES’ WITHOUT ‘ASSES’ The Associated Press reported on Saturday, Sept. 21 that 233,000 gallons of molasses–“equivalent to what would fill about seven rail cars”–spilled into Honolulu Harbor from a Matson Navigation Co. pipe earlier this month. So far, 26,000 fish have died as a result of that molasses, which, of course, came […]
Newly Released FBI Files On Late Senator Daniel Inouye Detail 1989 Investigation Into Unsubstantiated Payoff Charge Involving Matson Navigation Company
The late Democratic U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye had a long and fascinating career in national public service, spanning the birth of Hawaii’s statehood in 1959 to his death, at age 88, in late 2012. Given that, it’s only natural that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would also have long and fascinating files on him. […]
Hawaii Congressional Representatives Weigh In On Possible Military Attack On Syria While Female Tiger Sharks Enjoy Rearing Pups In Hawaiian Waters
WHEN WILL MAZIE HIRONO SPEAK OUT ON SYRIA? Wow, I seriously cannot believe we’re not already lobbing bombs and cruise missiles at Syria. I mean, that’s how the U.S. solves humanitarian disasters like chemical attacks in vicious civil wars, right? Our invasion and occupation Iraq was a decade ago–more than enough time for everyone to […]
Possible End Game For WMSA While We Get More Climate Change Bad News
END GAME FOR WMSA? And now friends, it seems that we’ve finally come to the closing act of that great Shakespearean tragedy known as the Wailuku Main Street Association (WMSA). At 8:30am on Wed., Sept. 4, Deputy Attorney General Hugh Jones and architect Tom Cannon–the last man standing from the old WMSA hierarchy–are scheduled to […]