Hawaii’s Police Corruption Scandal: Cash Flow to Crooks Continues
July 7, 1935: Moscow orders first Communists to Hawaii
Building New Schools
Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted July 3, 2025
Only 48% of Hawaiʻi HS Seniors Apply for College Financial Aid –Sharply Down After COVID
CB: … This year, roughly 48% of Hawaiʻi public school graduates completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which is required to qualify for federal grants and certain scholarships from colleges, state agencies and private foundations.
(CLUE: The DoE’s COVID generation didn’t even bother showing up for school. Now they are being ‘graduated’. Can you guess what they will do next?)
That rate remains lower than the pre-pandemic level, when roughly 60% of the public school class of 2019 filled out the FAFSA and the state education department set an ambitious goal of having 90% of all graduates submit the form.
(DO THE MATH: 60-48 = 12/60 = 20% decline.)
Including students from private schools improved the state’s FAFSA ranking: Hawaiʻi ranked 14th nationally, with 54% of all graduates applying for federal financial aid this year. …
April 3, 2025: Report: 34% of DoE Students 'Chronically Absentee'
Read … Data Dive: Only Half Of Hawaiʻi High School Seniors Apply For Financial Aid - Honolulu Civil Beat
Maui County Gears Up For Legal Challenges From Former Employees
CB: … Council members also recommended spending up to $150,000 to hire Kobayashi Sugita & Goda to represent a county auditor in negotiations related to a Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs complaint filed in May by Christopher Salem, a Napili resident who worked for the county during Mayor Michael Victorino’s administration.
Council members had previously agreed in 2024 to pay the Honolulu-based law firm up to $450,000 to defend the county against Salem’s allegations of wrongful termination and government corruption. The firm also represented the county in a 2021 lawsuit filed by Salem in Hawaiʻi’s Second Circuit Court on Maui, again taking over for Corporation Counsel to avoid any conflicts of interest.
According to the lawsuit, county officials including individuals from Corporation Counsel colluded with private developers to allow certain coastal building projects to circumvent some permitting requirements. Salem was fired by then-Mayor Victorino, Salem stated in the lawsuit, because he publicly shared details about that misconduct and blew the whistle on local government corruption.
The county has denied the allegations.
In Salem’s May complaint, he accuses county Auditor Lance Taguchi of using his official position to shield evidence of unethical and unlawful conduct by county attorneys who participated in the alleged scheme laid out in his lawsuit.….
Read … Maui County Gears Up For Legal Challenges From Former Employees
Happy News: With No Federal Halfway House in Hawaiʻi, Inmates Remain Far From Home
CB: … When Ken Lawson was released from federal prison after serving two years for fraudulently obtaining prescription medications, he returned to Hawaiʻi to finish out his sentence in a halfway house.
For seven months in 2010, Lawson lived at the Mahoney Hale facility in Kalihi. He took a bus to his job as a research assistant at the University of Hawaiʻi’s William S. Richardson School of Law, checked in with the halfway house by phone during the day and returned there at night. After a few weeks he was even allowed to spend weekends at home.
(Then he brought pimp McCoy to Hawaii.)
The state’s only halfway house for people convicted of federal crimes closed six years ago so those who qualify for supervised release must stay on the mainland….
2018: UH: Ken Lawson Admits his “Innocence Project” Brought Alleged Pimp to Hawaii
Read … With No Federal Halfway House in Hawaiʻi, Inmates Remain Far From Home - Honolulu Civil Beat
Maili wildfire –Many did not receive Evacuation Notice
SA: … “I live pretty close to the fire and I did not get an evacuation order,” Tupola said. “I heard there was a radio announcement and some people got texts. But it mostly spread on social media.”
If she had not been contacted by state Rep. Darius Kila (D, Nanakuli-Maili) or Gov. Josh Green, Tupola said, “I don’t think I would have known about the fire.”
But Kevin Miller, 58, was awakened by his cellphone with an alert to evacuate at 3:37 p.m.
He was napping inside a house on Kulaaupuni Street, which began filling with smoke.
A Honolulu Police Department officer then arrived and told everyone to leave.
“So I got out of there,” Miller later said Sunday night at the Waianae Intermediate School cafeteria that had been pressed into service as an emergency evacuation center, while vehicles continued to pour out of the Leeward Coast along Farrington Highway and Paakea Road.
Miller was one of about 20 evacuees at Waianae Intermediate School, including Abdallah Mwamakatwe, 53, who also said he had received no evacuation order.
He lives on the grounds of the Samoan Methodist Church on Paakea Road with an extended family that began to smell — and then see — smoke in the home about 3 p.m.
Three cousins — ages 9, 12 and 17 — tried to escape by climbing over the backyard fence, which neighbors had to break down to give them an escape route.
“I never yelled that loud for help in my life,” Laina Tuinavave, 17, said at the evacuation center.
The cousins said they were still shocked and traumatized Sunday night and had not had time to cry.
Mwamakatwe, 53, was the last to flee the home and drove his Ford Bronco to reunite with his family at Maili Beach Park with only his cellphone.
“I’m glad we’re all alive,” he said. “I didn’t take anything. I’m just happy we came alive.”
Kila said that two Maili homes may have burned, and Council member Tupola said that she understood that at least “one family had lost everything.”….
Read … Maili wildfire prompts mass evacuation on Leeward Coast | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Waianae lunch turns into fast exit as diners flee from Maili wildfire
SA: … Koehler said, “The police were quick to respond, directing traffic, helping people get through quickly, super efficient.”
Police were directing traffic in both directions, “navigating to keep the traffic going smoothly, not like in Lahaina.”
The fire was burning mauka to makai, they said.
Koehler estimated flames were 40-feet high. “It looked like a funnel cloud, like a tornado. Wind was whipping around in a circle,” she said.
Because they were quick to leave, they counted 12 fire trucks racing to the fire, a helicopter making water drops, many police cars.
Foti said police had blocked off the hillside where Waianae Comprehensive Health Center is located, and it appeared fire trucks had stationed themselves there.
She said the fire was close to the health center side of Maili Bay on the Makaha side of Maili….
Read … Waianae lunch turns into fast exit as diners flee from Maili wildfire | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
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