A retired Naval Intelligence Officer, Al Santoro, learned how to be a farmer, and then learned how to farm organically. Together with his wife, Joan, Santoro owns and operates Poamoho Organic Produce on the North Shore.
In the first issue of the Honolulu Weekly, July 17, 1991, then-editor, Julia Steele reported on the Tusitala Street evictions: All of the women left on the land agreed that they’d rather be dragged off the property than leave voluntarily. They met frequently, over coffee and doughnuts from the corner ABC store, to discuss the eviction, their options and their fate.
We couldn’t even begin to pick the best of the best, so we picked one issue from each of our 20 volumes, taped them to the wall of our War Room, and threw darts. Just kidding.
We asked five of our former editors and contributors to provide a “2011 update” on stories they covered in the past. Included in this mix is a look at Honolulu’s nightlife scene, provided by Ryan Senaga, HW Arts and Entertainment Editor who has written for the Weekly for over a decade now.
For the last 20 years we’ve eaten our way through Honolulu and beyond, writing about restaurants we love, those we don’t love and the ones most people are challenged to find. In looking through our very first volume of food reviews, we discovered that some of the first places we reviewed are still around.
The question of whether or not to expand tax credits for Hawaii’s film industry has generated quite the debate. While supporters of the bill say that the return on the investment proves to be tenfold and that it will create local jobs, people who oppose it say that the credits will only make the rich richer, taking away funding from important social services.
Tom Berg / It’s news (or should be) when West Oahu’s new city councilman comes out unequivocally against the city’s $5.4 billion rail plan. After all, the primary beneficiaries of the embattled commuter train were meant to be Oahu’s westsiders, victims of one of the worst commutes on the planet.
Te Mana o te Moana, The Spirit of the Sea / It looked like something out of the movie Master and Commander. Amidst a backdrop of fog and the drizzle of constant rain, a fleet of seven South Pacific voyaging canoes dropped anchor in the bay near Kualoa Regional Park Saturday before undertaking a voyage to the west coast of the Mainland.
Farmer Jerry Ornellas bristled when he read in the local newspaper that Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) was looking to develop a hydroelectric project on the Wailua reservoir. It was the first he’d heard of it, and that rankled, considering he was president of a water users cooperative whose system includes the reservoir.
Turtle Bay, Neil Abercrombie / Three years ago, Hawaii’s then-Gov. Linda Lingle proclaimed her vision of a “fundamental transformation of our economy,” which would move away from the current one based, as she claimed, “too narrowly on land development.” The first Republican governor since Bill Quinn, Lingle uttered the heresy in her 2008 State of the State address.
Believe it or not, Honolulu is a foodie destination. There are rumblings in the culinary community that more change is on the way.
Yellowstone National Park’s “supervolcano” is 20,000 years past due for a major eruption, at least that’s what alarmists will say. In 2003, a 4.4 magnitude earthquake occurred just nine miles southeast of the entrance to the park, and Marshall Masters, publisher for [YowUSA.com], a science-fiction based website, speculates, “Simply put, anyone living within 600 miles of Yellowstone could be sitting in a modern-day Pompeii.” So what do these crazy theories have to do with us?
Eight hundred miles north of Anchorage, in a place where caribou outnumber people, a rich Hawaiian history exists. The small Eskimo village of Barrow is home to a number of Native Hawaiians; Anchorage is home to a few thousand Native Hawaiians.
In the era of endless news loops and aggregation, it’s hard to get a rise when mentioning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, plastic-coated beaches or endangered Hawaiian monk seals ensnared in rafts of trash. Everybody feels they’ve been there, seen that.
Summer Books 2011 / Admit it: Books, in any myriad of form can, and probably have, influenced (or even changed) your life. This summer, the Weekly celebrates Hawaii-based scribes such as poets Nou Revilla and Jaimie Gusman, mystery writer Douglas Corleone, recent Cades Award-winner Alexei Melnick, non-fiction writer Sarah Vowell and, possibly the most well-respected travel writer of our time, Paul Theroux.
Civics / In a step beyond the notion of equal rights, discussion has turned toward human rights and what it means to enter the post-gay era in Hawaii. While clubs continue to host “Lesbian Nights” and gay circuit parties like the upcoming Paradise Festival, one can’t overlook the fact that gay parties rarely take place at such unexpected venues as Kualoa Ranch, Trump Tower, Aloha Tower and the Marriot, until now.
Rev. Roger Christie / “We are fed, we are loved and we have a roof over our heads.” This mantra is a favorite espoused by the charismatic and popular Rev. Roger Christie, founder of The Hawaii Cannabis (THC) Ministry based in Hilo.
Some of Hawaii’s homeless say living on the beach is their preferred lifestyle, choosing to call themselves “houseless” rather than “homeless.” But for many of the 52,000 local Bank of America mortgage holders who have lost–or could lose–their houses due to the bank’s nationwide frenzy of mortgage foreclosures, the possibility of being houseless is terrifying. Criticism is also directed at a handful of other large mainland banks, but in Hawaii, more than 30 percent of the mortgage foreclosure complaints target Bank of America (BofA), America’s largest bank, according to a report by Faith Action for Community Equity (FACE).
Sustainability Guide 2011 / What is our capacity to endure? That’s the question that living sustainably asks of us.
Ladder to the Moon / From a place of bittersweet longing, Maya Soetoro-Ng writes an introspective children’s book that inspires all ages. What we find in Ladder to the Moon are epic images and inescapable stories that connect us through inevitable loss and spiritual understanding.
More than 150 years ago, Hawaii had some of the most well-managed fisheries in the Pacific. Portions of each island were divided into separate ahupuaa, which in turn were watched over by the konohiki, who managed natural resources and made sure that they were used sustainably.
Legal / Young girls in Hawaii are bought and sold as easily as pizza. They are ordered online, delivered to hostess bars, massage parlors and strip clubs and are even found wrapped up in gift boxes to be delivered to men as mail-order brides–“satisfaction guaranteed.” It sounds like sensationalism, but it isn’t.
Green Travel 2011 / “Green travel,” ecotourism and sustainable tourism are trendy phrases that focus on protecting the natural and cultural environment of the places you visit. Green travel doesn’t mean you have to explore the jungles of Borneo or forego the daily human comforts of a shower or healthy food.
Legalize Pa‘i ‘ai / Redefining our relationship with the ‘aina and with food is becoming a mass movement in Hawaii. And for increasing numbers of people, the movement’s soundtrack is the steady beat of stone striking wood in the traditional rhythm of kui ‘ai, or pounding taro into poi.
Environment / In late June 2007, longtime Windward Oahu community leaders Creighton and Cathy Mattoon of Punalu’u received invitations from the city and county of Honolulu to join a committee that would execute a legally mandated five-year review of the Koolau Loa Sustainable Communities Plan. The KSCP was formulated in 1999 as part of former Mayor Jeremy Harris’ effort to devolve some of O’ahu’s governance back to the island’s traditional districts.
Given the city’s crumbling infrastructure and rail controversy, it’s hard to believe anyone would want to be the next mayor of Honolulu. But a few do want the job, including the incumbent, Mayor Peter Carlisle, the former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney who won a 2010 special election to fill the remainder of Mufi Hannemann’s term.
I’d never been to a Honolulu City Council meeting until a few weeks ago. Features, not politics, was my beat.
Victoria Holt Takamine is a kumu hula, a cultural activist and a teacher and has an impeccable pedigree to back up all these titles. Born of an alii family whose kuleana was in Moanalua, she graduated as a hula teacher under the legendary Auntie Maiki Aiu Lake and taught hundreds of students in her own halau (Pua Alii ‘Ilima) and at the University of Hawaii.
On April 25, a state judge dismissed trespassing charges against a Kauai man after finding that he had been exercising traditional native Hawaiian rights hunting wild pigs on private land. Kui Palama, 28, was arrested on Jan.
The city plans to dish out $3.5 million from its Affordable Housing Fund and either purchase or renovate a structure to provide transitional housing for Honolulu’s special needs homeless population. “Our community has invested considerable effort and resources in addressing homelessness,” Mayor Peter Carlisle said in a statement, “but there remains a population whose disabilities or chronic conditions make it difficult for them to participate in traditional shelter programs.” Carlisle is referring to those homeless with mental illnesses, addictions and physical disabilities.
Makaweli Poi faces an uncertain future after its owner, a corporate subsidiary of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) ordered the West Kauai mill to suspend operations May 23. Mona Bernardino, chief operating officer of the corporation, Hiipoi LLC, says the move to shut down Makaweli Poi was prompted mainly by financial concerns.
A resolution adopted by the City Council will solidify an agreement between the City and County of Honolulu and the University of Hawaii Water Resources Research Center (UH-WRRC) to conduct an analysis of impacts from ocean sewer outfalls on the marine environments off of Oahu. The city will pay UH-WRRC as much as $2.5 million for biological and sediment studies in portions between now and June 30, 2017 .
Along with the deep, verdant growth of spring sprouts an unyielding desire to spend more time in the open air. That’s why it should come as no surprise that National Bike Month falls in the sun-drenched time of May.
Of the many letters you publish against rail, how many offer an alternative that won’t send us into further economic demise? Billions of gallons of oil are imported for us from every oil-producing nation on this planet so that we can buy billions of gallons of gasoline.
TheBus is taking a back seat to rail. At the May 3 Downtown Neighborhood Board meeting, an audience member asked city Transportation Director Wayne Yoshioka when we could expect the bus route cancellations and changes to be reversed.
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