Maui News

Voter turnout in Maui County was 34.8% for the 2022 Primary Election, with 39,493 ballots cast out of 113,427 registered voters.  

Maui Obituaries for the week ending Aug. 14, 2022. May they rest in peace.

Mālama Maui Nui’s monthly Go Green Recycling event for West Maui residents will take place in Lahaina on Aug. 20 from 9 am to noon at 1870 Honoapi’ilani Highway. 

Maui fire crews were called to an afternoon brush fire off of the Hāna Highway in Kahului at around 12:30 p.m. The fire was reported in the vicinity of Hoʻokele Street behind the Safeway grocery store.

The team will digitize and catalog more than 55,000 plant specimens, many of which are extinct, to preserve and improve access worldwide to one of the oldest collections of Pacific plants.

There is no tsunami threat to Hawaiʻi following a preliminary magnitude 6.8 earthquake reported at 3:44 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022 in the area south of the Kermadec Islands.

Late Saturday night, Maui native Nohe U’u-Hodgins was ahead in the race for the Maui County Council Makawao-Haʻikū-Pāʻia residency seat, which is being vacated by Council Member Mike Molina, who is running for mayor. Both the Makawao-Haʻikū-Pāʻia and the Kahului residency seats are hotly contested council races. Residents throughout the county may vote for all nonpartisan council races, regardless of the residency seat. 

“It was a little sad to see the first results,” Maui County Council Member Kelly King said via phone from her watch party in Kahului this evening. “It was really so positive. People really wanted a choice. I don’t think there’s that big of a difference between Bissen and Victorino.”

The Leilani wildfire in the Waikoloa area of Hawaiʻi Island has burned 16,800 acres and is now 60% contained as of 6 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022. 42 firefighters were back on the lines today in their effort to control the fire, which started on Wednesday and was initially fueled by dry fountain grass and […]

Check back for up to date election results, which will be posted here as updates are received throughout this evening and into tomorrow, with Maui updates listed first.

The state Department of Transportation will be conducting road work this week that will result in lane closures at various locations.

The Hawaiʻi State Department of Health reported 3,189 new COVID-19 cases for the week of Aug. 4-10, 2022, which is 500 less cases than the previous week. This is well below the recent peak of 8,924 new infections reported during the week of May 19-25, 2022. There were 14 COVID-19 deaths this week, seven less than last week. 

“If activity escalates to an eruption, it will most likely include slow-moving lava flows or low-level explosions of lava that are localized to a small area. An eruption like Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai in Tonga earlier this year is extremely unlikely as it is a different type of volcano. Volcanoes in Tonga erupt much more explosively than ones in American Samoa and Hawaiʻi,” according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

This version of Maui Nowʻs Letters to the Editor include discussion about Upcountry water woes, the crossing of PIʻilani Highway to the new Kīhei High School, over tourism and over development, Inflation Reduction Act, maintenance of the Kīhei Boat Ramp, the Maui County Comprehensive Housing Plan, motorcycle noise and more.

A two- to three-week emergency sand cleanup project begins on South Kīhei Road from Uwapo Road to Kalepolepo Beach Park on Wednesday, Aug. 17.

With a handful of people showing up after Maui’s only voter service center in Wailuku closed at 4:30 p.m. Friday, some said they were confused about hours and drop-off locations for this year’s Primary Elections, which closes tonight at 7. Maui Now has compiled tips for voting last minute in Maui County.

Harry Brown, Waiehu Kou Hawaiian Home Lands resident, said he’s voting this year because local elections are important to local people — like him. “Not only is it a right, it’s an opportunity for me to voice my concern, my choosing,” he said this afternoon. “I figure if I don’t vote, no grumble.” As of Thursday, there were 25,050 mail ballots processed by the County of Maui Office of the County Clerk, Deputy County Clerk James Krueger said this afternoon. In 2020, there were 43,257 mailed ballots in the primary.

Mayor Michael Victorino announced today that he has secured a land donation of 45 acres from Alexander & Baldwin, consisting primarily of park and shoreline lands that will be protected for public recreation and use.

The Maui Police Department detective heading the missing person investigation into the disappearance of Moreira “Mo” Monsalve, said exhaustive searches were conducted at 15 sites over a more than five year period. Many of the searches involved the use of cadaver dogs, and search in particular utilized heavy equipment for the excavation of the Central Maui Landfill.

A new red algae species from Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument was named after the late conservation leader Laura Kalaukapu Thompson.