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Mayor Richard Bissen and members of his Lahaina Advisory Team have shaped a phased approach to the reopening of West Maui to visitors following an announcement by Gov. Josh Green that West Maui will reopen on Oct. 8, 2023.

The Nature Conservancy, Hawai’i and Palmyra announced that artificial intelligence or AI powered imagery analysis detected two more seabird species at Palmyra Atoll that hadn’t been seen in decades.

More than 800 ‘ukulele will be donated to various organizations, institutions and community groups on Maui to assist with distribution to the affected children and families so that they may find healing and comfort through the sound of music and through the ‘ukulele.

The Nāʻiwa Homesteaders Program will host a two-day workshop for Molokaʻi’s Nā‘iwa Homesteaders Community on Thur., Sept. 28, and Fri., Sept. 29, 2023, starting at 5 p.m. HST. The workshop will take place at Kulana ʻŌiwi, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs / Department of Hawaiian Homelands Conference Room on Molokaʻi.

The US House Committee on Energy & Commerce is holding a subcommittee fact-finding hearing on Thursday in Washington, D.C., to investigate the role of electric infrastructure in the “catastrophic Maui fire” in Lahaina on Aug. 8 that killed at least 97 people.

West Maui residents can update their voter registration in-person at the Government Relations, Ethics, and Transparency Committee on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, at the Westin Maui’s Honoapiʻilani Ballroom, starting at 8:30 a.m.

The Maui Police Department identified six more victims of the Aug. 8 Lahaina fire on Tuesday: Felimon Quijano, 61; Luz Bernabe, 64; Joel Villegas, 55; Adela Villegas, 53; Angelica Baclig, 31; and Junmark Quijano, 30. All are from Lahaina.

By order of the Public Utilities Commission, Hawaiian Electric has postponed the start of the new Shift and Save pilot program for approximately 17,000 residential and business customers who were selected at random to test time-of-use rates on O‘ahu, Hawai‘i Island and Maui.

The Unified Command and the primary contractor, Global Diving & Salvage, have removed, to date, over 2100 gallons of product from vessels in the vicinity of Lahaina Harbor.

Natalie Ai Kamauu is a Grammy-nominated artist, four-time “Female Vocalist of the Year” Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awardee, and was named “Miss Aloha Hula” at the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival.

FEMA will be fronting the initial $5.36 million in funding for a temporary campus on 10.2 acres in Honokōwai below the Kapalua Airport. The build time for the temporary site will be around 95 days.

Federal grant opportunities to assist landowners in reducing fire risk in Hawaiʻi include Landscape Scale Restoration grants, Community Wildfire Defense grants, and Wildland-Urban Interface grants.

Island Grocery Depot in Lahaina reopened Tuesday with modified business hours. The store will not have ice, fresh meat and select produce items until water is safe.

Three Soil & Water Conservation Districts and the County of Maui are working with the federal Emergency Watershed Protection Program to quickly address widescale environmental damage caused by the August wildfires.

The University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization launched a publicly available, interactive housing data dashboard on Sept. 26, that allows users to customize their data reports based on location, with information such as property and rental market, demographics, zoning and housing stock. UHERO designed the dashboard to inform discussions on the way forward for housing in Hawaiʻi.

In response to the devastating impact of the recent wildfires, Haku Baldwin Center, a Makawao-based nonprofit specializing in therapeutic and educational equine-assisted services, announced the opening of a free mental health and wellness program for Maui’s first responders and their families.

“Although our clinic was spared from the fire, that wasn’t the case for three of our staff members who have been displaced. The most difficult news is that our Patient Service Coordinator Laurie Allen remains in critical condition in Straub Hospital with the burn wounds she sustained in her evacuation from her home,” said Director of Clinics Tiffany Prangnell. 

The Maui County Council’s Government Relations, Ethics and Transparency Committee will meet on Wednesday at 9 a.m. at The Westin Maui Resort and Spa in Kāʻanapali in the Honoapi‘ilani Ballroom, to receive testimony on a resolution to develop a comprehensive recovery and resiliency plan in response to the August wildfires.

Residents in all but one of the affected homes in Zone 1C of the Maui Wildfire Disaster Area applied for and received vehicle passes to return to their properties Monday on Kaniau Road in Lahaina.

Recognizing that the road to recovery and healing on Maui will be long, the American Resort Development Association, Hawaiʻi chapter (ARDA-Hawaiʻi) has refocused its 19th Annual Memorial Scholarship Golf Tournament to benefit Maui Strong. The tournament is scheduled to take place on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, at Hoakalei Country Club on Oʻahu, with a shotgun start at 12 noon.