Maui News

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) has filled two more positions on its executive leadership team. Kēhaulani Puʻu began her new role as chief operating officer on July 1, while Kuʻuleianuhea Awo-Chun began serving as director of education and culture-based learning – a newly created position – on June 17.

A Maui Healthcare Career Fair—presented by Maui Health—will take place in the main lobby of Maui Memorial Medical Center in Wailuku on Friday, July 12 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Hawai’i Department of the Attorney General and the Hawai’i Department of Human Services today announced the results of a multiagency child recovery operation conducted over the past weekend, known as Operation Shine the Light. The state agencies worked jointly with the Honolulu Police Department, as well as the US Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Susannah Wesley Community Center, to locate, recover and provide immediate services to endangered missing children and youth reported as “runaways” across Oʻahu. 

The Hawaiʻi Department of Health Food and Drug Branch is alerting residents to a recall issued by Viva Raw, LLC of raw dog and cat food products due to potential listeria monocytogenes contamination. 

The ‘Ohana Assistance Pilot Project launched on Monday to provide grants of up to $100,000 to Maui County homeowners toward the cost of design and construction of attached or detached ʻohana units.

With the Fourth of July holiday approaching, the Maui Police Department is reminding the public to be mindful of the dangers of fireworks and their surroundings, given the current hot and dry summer conditions. The Maui Police Department is seeking continued assistance from the community in reporting illegal fireworks violations.

Hula Grill Kāʻanapali has named Amy Hānaialiʻi Gilliom as the recipient of its annual E Ola Mau Ka Mele award for her efforts to preserve and perpetuate Hawaiian culture through song.

Gov. Josh Green, M.D., signed Senate Bill 2305 into law on Monday, establishing a Silver Alert Program within the Department of Law Enforcement. SB 2305 implements a Silver Alert Program to help locate and safeguard missing persons who are 65 years of age or older, cognitively impaired, or developmentally disabled.

Starting this Thursday, July 4, and continuing through the Fourth of July weekend, the Maui Police Department’s Traffic Division will conduct sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols at various locations to address impaired driving over the holiday weekend.

The public is invited to attend the Maui Emergency Management Agency Disaster Preparedness Expo on Saturday, July 13, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Queen Kaʻahumanu Center in Kahului.

Maui County’s Department of Finance has made some progress by fully staffing a section devoted to managing and collecting payments of transient accommodations taxes that began in November 2021. However, the department has not yet acquired computer software needed as a long-term solution to what auditor N&K CPAs Inc. determined as a “material weakness” among findings of an annual comprehensive financial audit completed in March.

Last fall, the telescope was removed and this spring and summer all buildings on the site were removed, the foundation demolished, and active restoration of the site was undertaken in accordance with approved plans and permits.

The additional jewel in the Northern Crown constellation isn’t actually a star. It’s the light from an astronomical thermonuclear explosion caused by the buildup of pressure and heat in the binary system T Coronae Borealis, also dubbed the “Blaze Star,” 3,000 light-years away from Earth.

Hawaiʻi’s parking lots, roadways, parks and neighborhoods have become hangouts for fine-feathered flocks of roosters and chickens. They’re a noisy, dirty nuisance, destroying gardens and farm crops. A bill signed today by Gov. Josh Green requires the state Department of Agriculture and the counties to implement feral chicken control programs.

The Shift and Save pilot, which incorporates time-of-use rates that are lower in the daytime when cheaper solar energy is abundant, went live in February with 16,000 homes and businesses on Oʻahu and Hawaiʻi Island. Customers enrolled since February must decide whether they will continue beyond the six-month bill protection period.

The Board of Land and Natural Resources voted unanimously to issue an after-the-fact revocable permit to Nā ʻAikāne o Maui, Inc. (NAOMI) for its Community Resource Center, which was destroyed in the Lahaina wildfires. In its vote on Friday, June 28, the board also voted to change the rent from $40 per month to gratis (free).

A swarm of earthquakes that began June 27 at the upper East Rift Zone of Kīlauea volcano — just southeast of the summit region — abated on Monday, according to a Hawaiian Volcano Observatory daily status report given at 7:35 a.m. Tuesday morning.

The Maui Tenants and Workers Association (MTWA), a project of the Hawaiʻi Workers Center (HWC), held a press conference urging Governor Josh Green to extend the Emergency Proclamation on Wildfires for Maui set to expire today.

Interim housing sites include 450 modular homes under construction at Ka Laʻi Ola in West Maui, and 150 units at Hale ‘O Lā‛ie (formerly the Haggai Institute in Kīhei).

Update: The Ukumehame brush fire was declared 75% contained by nightfall on Tuesday. A Maui Fire Department crew remained on scene throughout the night to monitor the area. Emergency managers say the fire was initially reported as being in Olowalu, but was updated to better reflect the area of Ukumehame, further south.