Ka`u News Briefs July 2, 2011

The Endoso family comes to Na`alehu to give back to Ka`u.

NEW BIDS TO OPERATE VOLCANO HOUSE will be accepted by the National Park Service after it revises and finalizes a new prospectus for re-solicitation. The Park Service has announced that the prospectus will become available sometime in July with a timeline for new proposals. This opportunity will be posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website, www.fbo.gov, as well as the NPS Commercial Services website, www.concessions.nps.gov. 

Volcano House will stay closed until a
new concessionaire is found.
Photo by Geneveve Fyvie

     According a press release from the Park, the National Park Service director “must, by law, reject proposals where the concessionaire is not qualified or the proposal is non-responsive to the requirements of the Volcano House Prospectus.” 

     A prospectus for the Volcano House operation was issued on Dec. 10, 2009, requesting proposals for visitor services that included overnight accommodations, food, beverage, retail, campground and related services. Due to several amendments, the closing date was extended to Sept. 1, 2010. All proposals were reviewed by the National Park Service Pacific West Regional Office in Oakland, CA and subsequently sent to the director of the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. for final review and action.
     For further information contact Walt Poole at 985-6027 or walt_poole@nps.gov. 

KENNY ENDOSO, a former Pahala resident and an award-winning Hollywood stuntman, was remembered this week when his family donated $1,000 to the Na`alehu Cardinals Little League team. Endoso battled bone cancer for over six years before succumbing to the disease last August. Na`alehu Parks & Recreation Coordinator Richard Karasuda said that Endoso was a member of the first Little League team in Ka`u. Endoso’s wife Laureen said Endoso was a talented catcher and that Little League and Ka`u were so important to Endoso, the family wanted to give something back in his memory. She also said that Endoso, who also became a Little League coach in California, credited his stuntman athleticism to his Little League experience as a youth. 

     “Kenny’s life was pool halls and baseball,” said Laureen, relating that Endoso’s grandfather owned the pool hall in Pahala. Endoso was a stuntman on several productions, including the original Hawai`i Five-0, Magnum P.I., Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and Big Trouble in Little China to name a few.
     The Na`alehu Cardinals is the first official Little League team to emerge in Ka`u after a hiatus of several years. 

Big Yellow Taxi and other classic cars come to Na`alehu
and Volcano parades.  Photo by Julia Neal

TODAY IS THE BIG INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATION and rodeo in Na`alehu. Miss Ka`u Coffee and her court and the princesses will ride on floats and in decorated cars. Many community organizations, businesses, classic cars, paniolo on horseback and the County Band will march along with public officials. The parade start time was set for 11 a.m. along Hwy 11, with the rodeo taking place right after the parade and continuing tomorrow. 

VOLCANO’S INDEPENDENCE DAY parade takes place on Monday, July 4 at 9 a.m. with floats, the Volcano school, community groups and classic cars winding up at Cooper Center for food, entertainment and arts and crafts sales. 

Pauline Wilson

PAULINE WILSON PRESENTS A NIGHT of hot, sultry jazz tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Volcano Art Center’s Niaulani Campus in Volcano Village. Tickets are $15 and are available by calling 967-8222 and at the door.

     Wilson is an American jazz/pop singer best known as lead vocalist with the jazz/fusion group Seawind in the 1970s and early 80s. Born and raised in Hilo, she won a Grammy Award in 1979 for her duet Friends with George Benson, part of the album In Harmony/A Sesame Street Record and voiced The Fairy on the track My Fairy In The Crystal Reeds (And Other Frogs) from Michel Colombier’s album Old Fool Back On Earth. During most of Seawind's main period of activity, Pauline was married to Bob Wilson, the drummer/main songwriter of the group. As a duo, they released a contemporary Christian album, Somebody Loves You, in 1981. She has also released several solo albums.

Ka'u News Briefs July 1, 2011

Sen. Gil Kahele takes children along the ancient Hawaiian trail on the South Kona Coast this summer, waiting for the governor to sign the wilderness bill. Photo by Kai`ail`i Kahele.

Mayor Billy Kenoi's
budget will fund the county.
Photo by Julia Neal.

MAYOR BILLY KENOI’S $367 MILLION BUDGET went into effect this morning, July 1, despite a County Council attempt to override his veto of the Council’s approved budget. The veto override fell one vote short, with Ka`u’s council member Brittany Smart siding with Dominic Yagong, Brenda Ford, Angel Pilago and Pete Hoffmann to override the veto. Fred Blas cast the swing vote against the override, and it failed as six votes are needed to override a mayoral veto.
    The mayor’s budget restores the Open Space and Natural Resources Fund to collect 2 percent of property tax revenues. Smart voted last week to reduce the funding from 2 percent to 1.5 percent, parting with Angel Pilago, who voted to keep the fund intact. The funds have been used to conserve oceanfront lands for the public in Ka`u and elsewhere and are expected to help the county buy thousands of acres of coastal lands makai of Ocean View and more parkland at Kawa, a popular surfing and fishing beach. Both were threatened by development during the last two decades.
     Smart said her vote to reduce the fund to 1.5 percent was a compromise as there had been a proposal at the council to reduce it to 1 percent. She said she also worried about deferring retiree benefit payments as it puts an extra burden on the county to come up with the money later.

Kawa was sought by developers but saved by the
community using it for fishing and surfing. 
Photo by Julia Neal

    COASTAL LANDS between Punalu`u and Kawa and land on the south side of the Kawa surfing beach are expected to become county property within a month, according to an agreement between the county and the Olson Trust, which was holding the land in order to make it into a public reserve. Abel Simeona Lui, who has been living on the land near the popular surfing and fishing beach for some 20 years, said he will continue resisting eviction. A sign on the property along Hwy 11 indicates support of the Hawaiian Kingdom over the American government.

    THE SOUTH KONA WILDERNESS AREA BILL is scheduled for signing by Gov. Neil Abercrombie. Championed by Rep. Bob Herkes and Sen. Gil Kahele, it is designed to preserve lands rich with cultural, biological, and historical significance. Kahele said, “The wilderness area provides a mechanism to address both the community’s interests in utilizing the area for recreational purposes and protecting the vast amounts of archaeological sites, native plants, and native animals that exist in the preserve.”
     The lands in the wilderness reserve are at Honomalino and Okoe from the shoreline to 6,000 feet inland and the Manuka Natural Area Reserve boundary extended to the shoreline at Manuka and Kalanamauna. The bill will prevent subdivision of the state-owned land and construction of new homes or structures within 1,000 feet of the shoreline.

    FURLOUGH DAYS could continue at county offices, according to a Stephens Media report this morning, which says that Mayor Billy Kenoi is attempting to negotiate with the Hawai`i Government Employees Association to keep the Furlough Fridays going for the next two years.

DRUNK DRIVING: OVER THE LIMIT. UNDER ARREST is the campaign being conducted by police, who are manning DUI checkpoints islandwide during the Fourth of July weekend. Police are also promoting the county’s “shared ride” taxi program, with coupons for as low as $2 each for rides home for those who have been drinking. Call 961-8744 or visit www.heleonbus.org/shared-ride-taxi-program.

    TOMORROW’S INDEPENDENCE DAY PARADE in Na`alehu is taking applications for participants through today. It begins at 11 a.m. and is followed by a rodeo, which is also on for Sunday. Signing up for the Volcano parade this Monday is pau. It begins along Old Volcano Highway at 9 a.m. on July 4 and ends up with music, food and celebration at Cooper Center.

    A FREE PANCAKE BREAKFAST IS SET for tomorrow morning before the parade in Na`alehu. It starts at 9 a.m. at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

    PAULINE WILSON PRESENTS A NIGHT of hot, sultry jazz tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at Volcano Art Center’s Niaulani Campus in Volcano Village. Tickets are $15 and are available by calling 967-8222.

Ka`u News Briefs June 30, 2011

Chef Jean Louis visits coffee orchards and farms and ranches when working on the Volcano Project plan.

CHEF JEAN LOUIS THEMISTOCLE RANDRIANTIANA, one of the partners in the Volcano Project, is serving as personal chef for England’s Royal Highnesses Prince William and Princess Kate this weekend in Montreal, Canada. Chef Jean Louis is senior culinary professor of the renowned International Tourism & Hotel Institute in Montreal. He also works on the culinary educational plan for the Volcano Project and has visited Ka`u Coffee farms and met with local farmers and ranchers to make plans to use locally grown food at the Volcano Project. Volcano Project founders David Howard Donald and Anne Lee said they are hoping to hear soon whether the National Park Service has accepted their proposal to manage Volcano House Hotel for Volcano Project.

AN ACROSS THE BOARD PAY CUT of five percent for all state workers begins tomorrow. The pay cut was approved by all the government unions except the Hawai`i State Teachers Association. It also requires workers to pay for half of their health care insurance. The teachers' union is still hoping to go back to the bargaining table and vote on the issue, but the administration said it has given its last, best offer and will implement the pay cuts on July 1 when the new state budget goes into effect.

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT has issued a Request for Proposals for making compost in order to prevent green waste from filling up the two county landfills. Free county mulch from green waste is no longer being brought to Ka`u following Ka`u coffee farmers successfully petitioning Mayor Billy Kenoi to end the program. The coffee farmers worried that the mulch could contain a dangerous pest, the coffee berry borer, which has devastated Kona coffee farms. The RFP for processing green waste calls for a fully composted, disease- and pest-free garden additive, hopefully in production within six to eight months, said County Council member Brittany Smart.

Wahine pull down the steer. Photo by Julia Neal

FRIENDS OF HAWAI`I VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK will conduct its annual Fourth of July Silent Auction from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at Cooper Center on Wright Road in Volcano Village, which is the destination of the annual Fourth of July Parade. Auction items for 2011 include four rounds of golf, Hawai`i Forest & Trail's exclusive Kohala Waterfalls Adventure, an encounter program with Dolphin Quest, a Sea Quest rafting and snorkel adventure, and an underwater adventure for two aboard Atlantis Submarines on Hawai`i, Maui or O`ahu. Overnight stays in Volcano, yoga classes, massage, acupuncture and memberships for `Imiloa Astronomy Center are among the offerings, along with art, food, and gift baskets. For more information, call 985-7373 or admin@fhvnp.org.

S0UTHSIDE JR. BOYS VOLLEYBALL is competing well in Minneapolis. In yesterday’s first day of competition, the 12 and Under team beat the Gigantes from Puerto Rico, Kuikahi from O`ahu, the Borinquen Coqui from Puerto Rico. They lost only to Southern California Volleyball Club and another Puerto Rican Club called the Vaqueros. Ka`u team members are Kameron Iokepa-Moses, Nai`a Makuakane, Addison Enriques and Avery Enriques.

LAST DAY TO SIGN UP to march in the annual Independence Day Parade is tomorrow, July 1. The parade begins at 11 a.m. on Saturday and travels along Hwy 11 in Na`alehu. Call 929-9872. It is followed by two days of rodeo at the Na`alehu Rodeo Grounds. The annual Fourth of July Parade in Volcano will be held at 9 a.m. on Monday.

Punalu`u Bake Shop is one of many Ka`u businesses joining the Independence Day Parade, Saturday, July 2. Photo by Julia Neal