Ka`u News Briefs Tuesday, August 13, 2013

HI-SEAS crewmember Oleg Abramov explores Mauna Loa in a mock space suit, simulating what astronauts would
experience on Mars. Photo by Angelo Vermeulen

WATER FROM THE OLD PLANTATION SPRING was the subject of a public hearing Monday night hosted by the Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands under the state Department of Land & Natural Resources. However, the hearing turned into a heated discussion about water for Ka`u in general, for farmers, ranchers and native Hawaiian agricultural practitioners, according to several people who attended the meeting.

Old Plantation Spring was the topic of a public hearing yesterday.
Photo from Conservation District Use Application to DLNR

      Terry Lee Shibuya, whose family has operated a pig farm for generations above Na`alehu, said she heard that there was a meeting about agricultural water and attended in order to listen but was unable to understand the nature of the meeting because of the conflicts that broke out. “My heart went to the floor,” she said. She said that a number of people almost came to blows rather than listening to one another about water issues across the former sugar plantation lands. “I left the meeting sad,” she said. “I wanted to become more educated about the water.”
      The hearing was specifically concerning an application to the DLNR for a permit to run a water line from Plantation Spring to Kuahiwi and other ranches. The public hearing is part of the Conservation District Use application permitting process. The application can be seen at Na`alehu Public Library and online at hawaii.gov/dlnr/occl/meetings.
      Kyle Soares, a rancher in the area, said that a number of people showed up to make sure that water rights are preserved for agriculturalists throughout Ka`u. According to several reports from the meeting, Paul Makuakane advocated for water rights for Native Hawaiian farmers. Some people talked about problems with management of the land by the old sugar plantation. Wally Andrade said that without the sugar plantation the farmers and ranchers wouldn’t have the water sources that were developed by digging the tunnels. The Nature Conservancy representatives were also on hand, as they have the horizontal shaft – the water tunnel called Old Plantation Spring – on their land.

      According to Stephanie Tabbada, about 54 people attended the hearing. She said some of the speakers talked about Olson Trust, The Nature Conservancy and Kuahiwi Contractors receiving water rights when, in their understanding, she said, the water is supposed to belong to all the people. Some said they have deeds from Hawaiian Kingdom days that also show water rights. She said that other questions included the diversion of surface water by the applicant. “Would it disturb any natural and cultural resources?” she asked the DLNR representative. She said the meeting seemed like a formality, with no sign-up sheets or anyone taking minutes by writing or recording.       

      Overseeing the hearing was Michael Cain, of OCCL, who took notes on those comments that applied to the applicaiton. These are expected to be included with comments from the hearing and other state agencies, sent back to the applicant for a response and included in a package to be presented to the state Board of Land & Natural Resources for a decision. An additional permit from the Commission on Water Resource Management is required for the water use.
      To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

Oleg Abramov lowers a camera and lights into a cinder cone vent on
Mauna Loa. Photo by Angelo Vermeulen

A MARS EXPLORATION EXPERIMENT at the 8,000-foot elevation of Mauna Loa ends today when researchers leave the dome that has been their habitat for four months. HI-Seas, or Hawai`i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, focused on diet of astronauts to be sent to Mars around the year 2030. As part of the routine, the “gastronauts” (the nickname relates to the dietary study), wore mock spacesuits when they left their dome to explore the northern slope of Mauna Loa. 

      “We found life on ‘Mars’ at last!” wrote crewmember Oleg Abramov. The crew had lowered a camera and headlamps into a vent on a cinder cone and found a humus-covered floor densely vegetated with ferns, moss-covered walls and visible moisture. “This stands in stark contrast to the generally barren, lifeless landscape around us, and makes us suspect that this vent is actively emitting water vapor and possibly other volcanic gases, and likely has elevated internal temperatures,” Abramov said.
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KA`U’S COUNCIL MEMBER BRENDA FORD has filed a lawsuit claiming that Mayor Billy Kenoi’s appointment of Bobby Jean Leithead Todd as director of the Department of Environmental Management does not meet county charter requirements. According to a story by Nancy Cook Lauer in Hawai`i Tribune-Herald, a petition was filed by Ford’s lawyer, Michael Matsukawa, stating that the DEM director must have “an engineering degree or a degree in a related field.” 

      Since Leithead Todd does not have an engineering degree or a degree in an engineering-related field, she “does not have the qualification required to hold the office of director of the Department of Environmental Management for the county of Hawai`i,” the petition states.
      While the County Council confirmed Leithead Todd’s appointment in July, Ford, along with North Kona Council member Karen Eoff and Kohala Council member Margaret Wille, voted against it.

      See more at hawaiitribune-herald.com.
      To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

New draft Ka`u CDP discuss historical settlement patterns in the district.

PUBLIC COMMENT ON AGENDA ITEMS IS WELCOME at Ka`u Community Development Plan’s Steering Committee meeting today at 5:30 p.m. at Ocean View Community Association Center. 

      The meeting focuses on recently released additional draft Ka`u CDP appendices.
      The material includes Appendix V4B: Community Building Analysis and Appendix V4D: Preferred Future Growth Patterns.
      Appendix V4B covers issues that directly impact the quality of community life in Ka`u, like land use, infrastructure, services, design, and redevelopment. It outlines existing policy, summarizes related planning initiatives and introduces alternative strategies available to achieve Ka`u’s community objectives. The focus is on developed areas in Ka`u, including Pahala, Punalu`u, Na`alehu, Wai`ohinu, the Discovery Harbour area and Ocean View. It also focuses on regulations, infrastructure, and strategies that impact their future.
      Appendix V4D assesses historical, contemporary and future human settlement patterns relative to a community’s goals and objectives for resource management, community development and economic development.
      Documents are available online at kaucdp.info; at libraries and community centers in Pahala, Na`alehu, Discovery Harbour, and Ocean View; and at Hilo and Kona Planning Department offices.
      To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

KALO, OR TARO, IS THE TOPIC TOMORROW when April Kekoa and Teana Kaho`ohanohano share its history and modern uses. The free program begins at 10 a.m. on Kilauea Visitor Center’s lanai in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park. Park entrance fees apply.

Ka`u Coffee Festival 2013 is on television, and Pahala hula sisters are raising money to take their dance to the Lana`i
cultural festival in October. Lana`i has been coming to the Ka`u Coffee Festival for several years. Photo by Julia Neal

KA`U COFFEE FESTIVAL airs on Na Leo O Hawai`i Channel 54 tomorrow at 11 a.m. and Saturday at 6 p.m. The 51-minute program was produced by Wendell Kaehuaea, who, along with Bobby Tucker, interviewed and filmed participants and some of the thousands of people who attended.
      Ka`u Coffee Festival 2014 will cover ten days, spanning from May 2 through 11. It starts with the Miss Ka`u Coffee Pageant on Friday, May 2 at Ka`u Coffee Mill; Simply Elegant, the third annual Ka`u Farmers Table at the Inn at Kalaekilohana on Saturday, May 3; the Triple C Recipe Contest using Ka`u Coffee at Ka`u Coffee Mill on Sunday, May 4; Ka`u Mountain Hike on Wednesday, May 7 starting at Ka`u Coffee Mill; Coffee & Cattle Day at Aikane Plantation Coffee Farm on Friday, May 9; Stargazing, leaving from Ka`u Coffee Mill on Friday, May 9; the ho`olaulea with free entertainment, coffee tasting, the Coffee Experience and mill and farm tours at Pahala Community Center on Saturday, May 10 and Ka`u Coffee College and farm tours on Sunday, May 11.
      For more, see kaucoffeefest.com.
      To comment on this story, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

A STAFF MEMBER FROM U.S. REP. TULSI GABBARD’S office meets with constituents and assists with casework and other issues tomorrow from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Pahala Library. For more information, call 987-5698.

ILWU displayed historic photos at last year's
Ka`u Plantation Days. Photo by Julia Neal

A COMMUNITY MEETING TO PLAN KA`U PLANTATION DAYS takes place tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. at Pahala Community Center. Ka`u Multicultural Society has chosen Together Again as this year’s theme. Plans include a parade featuring horses and riders wearing lei, a sugar truck representing the last run from the plantation fields to the mill, ethnic dance and displays from the various communities making up the fabric of Ka`u. For more information, call Darlyne Vierra at 640-8740 or Liz Kuluwaimaka at 339-0289.

THE KOHALA CENTER SPONSORS A FREE tea cultivation and production program Sunday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Pahala Plantation House. Educator and tea grower Eva Lee, of Tea Hawai`i & Co., presents the program for prospective tea farmers on Hawai`i Island interested in growing Camellia sinensis to produce white, green, oolong and black teas. 

      See more on Eva Lee at teahawaii.com.
      To sign up, call 928-9811.

SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AT PAHALAPLANTATIONCOTTAGES.COM AND KAUCOFFEEMILL.COM. KA`U COFFEE MILL IS OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.

ALSO SEE KAUCALENDAR.COM AND FACEBOOK.COM/KAUCALENDAR.

SUPPORT YOUR KA`U BUSINESSES

            

PUBLIC NOTICES

      

Ka`u News Briefs Monday, August 12, 2013

Ka`ohe Bay, also known as Pebble Beach, is expected to become a Fish Replenishment Area with Gov. Neil
Abercrombie's signature as early as this week. Photo by Julia Neal

THE NEW SCUBA SPEARFISHING BAN for 147 square miles of nearshore waters from South Point up the west side of Hawai`i Island to Upolu Point is headed for Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s office for his signature. This and other rules were passed by the state Board of Land & Natural Resources by a 4-2 vote in late June and were sent to the state attorney general’s office for review.

Banning SCUBA spearfishing is expected to reduce the taking of parrot
fish of breeding age. Photo from Western Pacific Regional Fishery
Management Council

      The area covered is the West Hawai`i Fishery Management Area, created in 1998.
      The new rules would make it illegal to carry SCUBA-diving gear along with spears and speared fish on any boat, or otherwise in one’s possession on land or sea along the management area shoreline.
      At community discussions during the last decade, biologists and local residents contended that SCUBA spearfishing is reducing the population of fish that are needed to breed and produce the next generation of such species as parrot fish, bluefin travalley, uhu and omilu. SCUBA spearfishing is already banned in Australia and Palau.

A free diver walks to the Ka`ohe Bay shore to practice her skills.
Photo by Julia Neal

A FISH REPLENISHMENT AREA along 1,500 feet of coast at Ka`ohe Bay, north of Miloli`i at Pebble Beach, is expected to be established with Gov. Neil Abercrombie signing off on the measure that was approved by the state Board of Land & Natural Resources in late June. 

     The bay has received national publicity in USA Today with a travel story on Coral Reefs in Hawai`i that could attract tourists. It said:
      “Ka`ohe Bay in South Kona, located at the end of a steep road in a private subdivision, is one of Hawai`i’s best-kept secrets. Easily accessible via a pebble beach and surrounded by delicate finger reefs, the small bay offers prime examples of untouched, undisturbed coral reef communities. The highly endangered monk seal has been known to loll on its shores while humpback whale families frequent the bay during the winter months.”
      The Ka`ohe Fish Replenishment Area is identified on shore to the north by signage south of Ka`u Loa Point and to the south by signage north of `Au`au Point.
      The Miloli`i Fish Replenishment Area, with similar restrictions, is identified on shore to the north by Makahiki Point and to the south by Kaki`o Point.

Eagle rays would be protected at Ka`ohe Bay. Photo from wikipedia

     The new rules establishing a fish replenishment area would prohibit SCUBA spearfishing and prohibit taking of nine shark and ray species, including eagle sting rays and two invertebrates. Aquarium collectors would not be able to work there without a permit.

NEW AQUARIUM COLLECTING RULES that would reduce the kinds of fish captured to 40 species are also headed to Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s office after state attorney general review and passage by the state Board of Land & Natural Resources. The rules would protect a number of reef fish that are in decline.

      Aquarium fish that could still be collected along the west coast of Hawai`i Island, except for within Fish Replenishment Areas, would be the following: Yellow Tang, Zebrasoma flavescens; Chevron Tang, Ctenochaetus hawaiiensis; Goldring Surgeonfish, Ctenochaetus strigosus; Achilles Tang, Acanthurus achilles; Tinker’s Butterflyfish, Chaetodon tinkeri; Orangespine Unicornfish, Naso lituratus; Forcepsfish, Forcipiger flavissimus; Goldrim Surgeonfish, Acanthurus nigricans;

Yellow tang and other aquarium fish would be protected within
Fish Replenishment Areas. Photo from wikipedia

Potter’sAngelfish, Centropyge potteri; Fourspot Butterflyfish, Chaetodon quadrimaculatus; Yellowtail Coris, Coris gaimard; Ornate Wrasse, Halichoeres ornatissimus; Orangeband Surgeonfish, Acanthurus olivaceus; Bird Wrasse, Gomphosus varius; Eyestripe Surgeonfish, Acanthurus dussumieri; Multiband Butterflyfish, Chaetodon multicinctus; Saddle Wrasse, Thalassoma duperrey; Brown Surgeonfish, Acanthurus nigrofuscus; Flame Wrasse, Cirrhilabrus jordani; Thompson’s Surgeonfish, Acanthurus thompsoni; Peacock Grouper, Cephalopholis argus; Bluestripe Snapper, Lutjanus kasmira; Redbarred Hawkfish, Cirrhitops fasciatus; Psychedelic Wrasse, Anampses chrysocephalus; Hi Whitespotted Toby, Canthigaster jactator; Fisher’s Angelfish, Centropyge fisheri; Hi Dascyllus, Dascyllus albisella; Milletseed Butterflyfish, Chaetodon miliaris; Blacklip Butterflyfish, Chaetodon kleinii; Pyramid Butterflyfish, Hemitaurichthys polylepis; Shortnose Wrasse, Macropharyngodon geoffroy; Black Durgon, Melichthys niger; Spotted Boxfish, Ostracion meleagris; Blackside Hawkfish, Paracirrhites forsteri; Hi Longfin Anthias, Pseudanthias hawaiiensis; EightlineWrasse, Pseudocheilinus octotaenia; Fourline Wrasse, Pseudocheilinus tetrataenia; Smalltail Wrasse, Pseudojuloides cerasinus; Lei Triggerfish, Sufflamen bursa; and Gilded Triggerfish, Xanthichthys auromarginatus. 

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According to The Kohala Center, about 30 percent of the acres designated
in Ka`u for `Aina Koa Pono to grow feedstock to produce biofuel is tillable.
Photo by Julia Neal

ELIZABETH COLE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR of The Kohala Center, has sent a letter to the state Public Utilities Commission regarding the proposed contract between `Aina Koa Pono and the electric companies. 

      “The Kohala Center would like to inform you that students from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies are developing a student-generated study of alternative uses for the Ka`u lands being considered for the production of biofuels by AKP,” Cole states. “Please note that this study is not complete and ready for publication; however the County of Hawai`i wished the Public Utility Commission to be aware that agricultural uses for the subject Ka`u lands were being investigated, and preliminary findings suggest that:

• Approximately 30 percent of the 12,000 designated acres is tillable, with much of the land being marginal, dry, steeply sloped, and rocky. 
• Water availability may be a concern and might result in competition between AKP and future farming interests. 
• Economically feasible alternatives might be suitable and desirable, in terms of resource efficiency, for at least a portion of these lands. 

      “Once we have completed a final draft of the study, we will be sure to send it to you,” Cole concludes.
      This and other testimony is available at puc.hawaii.gov. Docket number is 2012-0185.
      To comment on or “Like” this story, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

TUTU & ME IS BACK IN SESSION. The tuition-free, early education program for toddlers and their families meets from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays at Na`alehu Community Center as well as Tuesdays and Thursdays at Pahala Community Center. For more information and to register, call 929-8571.

APRIL KEKOA AND TEANA KAHO`OHANOHANO share the history of kalo plus its modern uses Wednesday at 10 a.m. on Kilauea Visitor Center’s lanai in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park.

Kalo, or taro, is the topic of a workshop Wednesday.

      The life of Hawai`i’s indigenous people is closely linked with kalo, or the taro plant. According to the Kumulipo creation chant, kalo grew from the first-born son, Haloa. Kalo is believed to have the greatest life force of all foods and is a means of survival for Hawaiians. 

      The free program is part of the park’s ongoing `Ike Hana No`eau: Experience the Skillful Work series. Park entrance fees apply.

A PROPOSED PIPELINE TO CARRY WATER from Old Plantation Spring for ag use is the topic at a public hearing today at 5 p.m. at Na`alehu Community Center. The Conservation District Use application is available for review at Na`alehu Public Library and at hawaii.gov/dlnr/occl/meetings.

PUBLIC COMMENT ON AGENDA ITEMS IS WELCOME at Ka`u Community Development Plan’s Steering Committee meeting tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. at Ocean View Community Association Center.
      The meeting focuses on recently released additional draft Ka`u CDP appendices. Documents are available online at kaucdp.info; at libraries and community centers in Pahala, Na`alehu, Discovery Harbour, and Ocean View; and at Hilo and Kona Planning Department offices.
      To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

At last year's Ka`u Plantation Days, Walter Wong Yuen shared history of
Chinese in Ka`u with photos and artifacts. Photo by Julia Neal

KA`U MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY INVITES RESIDENTS to attend a meeting Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Pahala Community Center to plan Ka`u Plantation Days. The event is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 12. 

      For more information, call Darlyne Vierra at 640-8740 or Liz Kuluwaimaka at 339-0289.

SHAKA’S FREE BEACH CONCERT IS SET FOR FRIDAY from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Scheduled to perform are Bruddah Waltah, Randy Lorenzo and Keaiwa with Demetrius Oliveira. There will be games for the kids, giveaways and information on joining the National Guard. Other sponsors are KARMA, Big Island Image and Big Island Top Team.

EVA LEE, OF TEA HAWAI`I & CO., offers a free tea cultivation and production program this Sunday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Pahala Plantation House. The program is for prospective tea growers on Hawai`i Island interested in growing the specialty crop Camellia sinensis tea, producing white, green, oolong and black tea. The purpose is to help individuals and small family farms make greater strides in community production. The program is sponsored by The Kohala Center and funded in part by the U.S.Department of Agriculture Co-op Support program. To sign up, call Julia Neal at 928-9811. 

SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AT PAHALAPLANTATIONCOTTAGES.COM AND KAUCOFFEEMILL.COM. KA`U COFFEE MILL IS OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.

ALSO SEE KAUCALENDAR.COM AND FACEBOOK.COM/KAUCALENDAR.

SUPPORT YOUR KA`U BUSINESSES

                                                                   

PUBLIC NOTICES

                                                                        

Ka`u News Briefs Sunday, August 11, 2013

By 8 a.m., more than 430 people had reported online to the USGS feeling the earthquake from such faraway places as Hana on Maui and Makawao on O`ahu. The most reports came from Kona, Hilo, Kamuela, Pahoa, Kea`au, Mountain View, Volcano and Honolulu.

HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY RECORDED a magnitude 4.8 earthquake this morning at 5:54 a.m. It was followed by several aftershocks, with the largest measuring magnitude 3.4 at 6:06 a.m. The earthquakes were located five miles south of the summit of Kilauea, almost directly below the Kulanaokuaiki campground in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park, at a depth of about 20 miles.

      According to Wes Thelen, HVO’s seismic network manager, “these earthquakes were most likely structural adjustments of the Earth’s crust due to the weight of the island on the underlying mantle. The earthquake likely occurred on a near-horizontal fault plane in the mantle, which has hosted earthquakes in this region before. Despite their location near Kilauea’s summit, it’s unlikely that the earthquakes were volcanic in nature due to their depth, which is below and offset from the volcano’s known magma plumbing system.”

Jim Kauahikaua

      HVO scientist-in-charge Jim Kauahikaua added that the earthquakes had no apparent effect on Kilauea’s ongoing eruptions. “HVO monitoring networks have not detected any significant changes in activity at the summits or rift zones of Kilauea or other Hawaiian volcanoes.”
      The magnitude 4.8 earthquake was felt throughout the Island of Hawai`i, as well as on parts of Maui and O`ahu. The USGS “Did you feel it?” website received almost 400 felt reports within the first hour of the earthquake. Some of the reports follow:

• Volcano – windows cracked, doors opened and a refrigerator slid across the kitchen. 
• Kea`au – table, house, and computer shaking, animals hiding, chicken clucking softly. 
• Hapuna beach – woke up to the hotel bed shaking. 
• Kamuela – little wake-up call. 
• Honoka`a – very loud shaking; house and windows rattled loudly. 
• Honolulu – I woke up due to the feeling of shaking of my bed left and right. 
• Honolulu – Just happened to be awake, and my bed slightly shook for a couple seconds. 

      Visitors staying at Pahala Plantation Cottages said they heard doors and windows rattling and that they thought it felt different than quakes in their California home.
      Kauahikaua said the larger event is only the second earthquake with a magnitude greater than four to occur at this location and depth since the start of Kilauea’s ongoing East Rift Zone eruption in 1983. The first one occurred on February 17, 2000. There were six such earthquakes in the 20 years before Kilauea’s ongoing East Rift Zone eruption began.
      For information on recent earthquakes in Hawai`i and eruption updates, see hvo.wr.usgs.gov.

      To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

Owen Allsopp is a new recruit, teaching first grade at Pahala Elementary.
Photo from Allsopp's Facebook page

PAHALA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER Owen Allsopp made national news yesterday in an Associated Press story. “The 22-year-old graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is settling into teaching first grade at Pahala Elementary on the Big Island and sharing a house with three new teachers,” the story reports. 

      The story notes that “before the first day of school, he already had a good grasp of Hawaiian names and words. And he’s aware of the pressure to keep him.”
      It quotes him saying, “I know it’s so important because it’s hard to create lasting change if there’s so much transition happening.... There needs to be serious commitment.”
      Allsopp is one of the new teachers that the state Department of Education is courting, hoping to keep them with pay bonuses and training in local cultures and language dialects.
      The AP story, which is headlined on MSN News as Hawai`i Schools Struggle to Keep Teachers from Quitting, states that Hawai`i “has to recruit most of its teachers from the mainland, then struggles to keep them in the face of a high cost of living, culture shock and isolation.”
      The story leads off by writing about Jonathan Sager, who was “an idealistic 22-year-old recent college graduate when he arrived in Hawai`i in 2006, yearning to make a difference in the lives of children in hardscrabble neighborhoods like those on the Waianae Coast.
     “About an hour’s drive from bustling Honolulu, the stretch of unspoiled beaches and looming mountains is home to a high concentration of Native Hawaiians and some of the state’s lowest-performing schools. So Sager learned their culture, bought a condo and planned to stay.
      “After seven years, Sager, now 29, quit, packing up this summer for Texas and becoming the latest teacher Hawai`i could not keep as it tries to fill a seemingly perpetual teacher shortage. He said he was frustrated by constant educational experimentation.”
      The story states that when he first arrived to teach in Hawai`i, “Sager, of Warren, Ohio, took a bus tour along with other new teachers and saw the poverty on the Waianae Coast.
     “Settling in required developing an ear for the pidgin English his students spoke and learning to pronounce vowel-laden names he never heard before. Even as he earned their acceptance, Sager said, he grew frustrated with feeling like he and his students were lab rats for experimental programs.
      ‘We start, and it’s not perfect, so we scrap it and start over,’ he said.”

Owen Allsopp's Facebook cover photo is Green Sands Beach, showing his
immersion into Ka`u.

      AP reporter Jennifer Sinco Kelleher writes that “now, administrators’ efforts to retain teachers have taken on a new urgency as they try to make progress on promised reforms that won Hawai`i a $75 million federal Race to the Top grant. Teacher retention is one of the keys to those reforms.”
      The story notes that the state offers $1,500 bonuses to teach at “hard-to-staff” schools and plans to increase the bonus to $3,000 for the 2014-15 year.
      Remote schools like Ka`u bring bonuses as high as $6,000 per school year, the story states.
      To orient the new teachers, the story reports, “they are also holding classes in Hawaiian culture and language, and teaming new arrivals with veteran teachers to help ease the transition.”

      The article states that the reason the school system is turning to the mainland for teachers is “because local teacher education programs can’t produce enough graduates to fill classrooms across the islands, especially in remote schools. Getting the newcomers to stay is difficult, as they face culture shock, a high cost of living and a vast ocean separating them from their families.”
      The story also reports on teachers who are staying here, sharing the experience of 46-year-old Dennis Tynan, who arrived in Nanakuli ten years ago. He told the AP reporter that he may have stayed longer because he was older when he arrived “from Texas, arming him with more life and classroom experiences. Now that he’s one of two left in that group, he’s starting to wonder about his future.
      “But those doubts are eased by his students, who no longer treat him like an outsider. He feels he owes it to his students to stick around.”
      The story quotes him: “Here is a community of a marginalized ethnic group, and because of the way everything gets structured in a bureaucratic schools system, they just get screwed over and over again.”
      The AP story also deals with the cost of living, giving the example of “Kristen Wong, who left her job teaching special education on the Big Island to pursue a master’s degree at Harvard University.” It says she “met her fiancé in Hawai`i, but the costs of visiting their families on the mainland started to seem more daunting as they looked forward to having children.
      Wong, 29, worked a second job most of her time in Hawai`i to make ends meet. The entry-level salary for the current school year starts at $33,169.
      ‘‘It was really, really hard to make things work,’ she said. ‘I have student loans. I have a car loan.... I’m actually pretty fiscally responsible.”
      See more at news.msn.com/us.hawaii-schools-struggle-to-keep-teachers-from-quitting.

      To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

Ag use of water from Old Plantation Spring is the topic of a meeting
tomorrow. Photo from Conservation District Use Application to DLNR

THE PUBLIC IS INVITED TO SUBMIT TESTIMONY regarding a proposed pipeline to carry water from Old Plantation Spring for ag use at a public hearing tomorrow at 5 p.m. at Na`alehu Community Center. The Conservation District Use application is available for review at Na`alehu Public Library and at hawaii.gov/dlnr/occl/meetings. 

KA`U COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PLAN STEERING COMMITTEE meets Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Ocean View Community Association Center. Public comment on agenda items is welcome.
      The meeting focuses on recently released additional draft Ka`u CDP appendices. Appendix V4B: Community Building Analysis focuses on land use, infrastructure, services, design and redevelopment strategies for Pahala, Punalu`u, Na`alehu, Wai`ohinu, the Discovery Harbour area and Ocean View.
      Documents are available online at kaucdp.info; at libraries and community centers in Pahala, Na`alehu, Discovery Harbour, and Ocean View; and at Hilo and Kona Planning Department offices.
      To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

KA`U PLANTATION DAYS IS THE TOPIC at a community meeting Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Pahala Community Center. Ka`u Multicultural Society invites residents to attend and help plan the Saturday, Oct. 12 event. For more information, call Darlyne Vierra at 640-8740 or Liz Kuluwaimaka at 339-0289.

THE NATIONAL GUARD PRESENTS A CONCERT AT PUNALU`U this Friday, Aug. 16 from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Called Shaka’s Free Beach Concert, it is sponsored by South Side Shaka’s Restaurant & Bar as well as the National Guard unit in Hilo. Rory Koi, a Shaka’s owner and its manager, is putting together the entertainment, which so far includes Bruddah Waltah, Randy Lorenzo and Keaiwa with Demetrius Oliveira. Koi said this morning that the National Guard is sponsoring $4,000 worth of giveaways. There will be games for the kids and information on joining the National Guard. Other sponsors are KARMA, Big Island Image and Big Island Top Team.

SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AT PAHALAPLANTATIONCOTTAGES.COM AND KAUCOFFEEMILL.COM. KA`U COFFEE MILL IS OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.

ALSO SEE KAUCALENDAR.COM AND FACEBOOK.COM/KAUCALENDAR.

SUPPORT YOUR KA`U BUSINESSES

                                                                    

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