Suicide uptick raises concern
LIHU‘E —Four suicides on Kaua‘i in less than a week have prompted concern by police and health workers that the COVID-19 crisis is moving in a dangerous new direction, with broad risks to mental health caused by joblessness, financial reversals and despair.
One couple, three shuttered businesses
Carol Dumeyer and Dave Brune could be, under slightly different emergency circumstances, the quintessential Kaua‘i couple, and the classic face of small-business success on the island.
‘Changed forever’
Tom and Katie Pickett had a plan.
Meals flying over from O‘ahu
An unusual collaboration in which 1,600 meals a day are prepared and plated in an idled restaurant kitchen in Honolulu, rushed to the airport and then flown to Lihu‘e for distribution at 10 places scattered across the island has ended its first week, but not without controversy.
From bikinis to face masks
Detroit has Ford and General motors abruptly halting car production to switch quickly to making ventilators to treat the gravest of COVID-19 patients.
Quarantine sheds for kupuna
Robin Danner stands in the side yard of a modest house in Anahola that has been transformed by construction of a prototype for a small shed intended to shelter kupuna or members of large families if they have to self-quarantine to protect against COVID-19.
Artists coping with COVID-19
In some quarters, Kaua‘i may not be seen as a center of the serious arts — classical music, drama and visual media — but the island has a greater amount of those disciplines than many people think, and the often-unseen arts community is, increasingly, living in fear of COVID-19 and its inevitable aftermath.
Lawsuit filed in Hanalei Bay Resort dispute
The owner of two restaurants in Hanalei Bay Resort in Princeville has sued the individual owner of one of the condo units there in the latest development in a protracted dispute over parking and other issues that erupted more than four years ago.
Curtain closing on Kukui Grove Cinema
The owner of Kauai’s only full-time movie theater, Kukui Grove Cinema 4, said Saturday the facility will close permanently Tuesday, apparently the victim of the COVID-19 crisis and the changing nature of the movie business and people’s viewing habits.
Airlines still marketing flights to Hawai‘i, Kaua‘i
COVID-19 or no COVID-19, some airlines on Thursday continued to market travel to Kaua‘i aggressively, with one-way fares between Lihu‘e and Seattle going for just $159 on the Alaska Airlines website and $129 on Southwest Airlines.
A few more monk seals
The population of the endangered Hawaiian monk seal has risen an average of 2% per year since 2013, according to new figures that include totals for last year from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Democratic opponents are ‘two appalling choices’
Hawai‘i Democratic voters face an agonizing decision as mail-in ballots are getting filled out, continuing through the April 4 official date of the primary.
Petition for Brun removal moving
Community activist Fern Anuenue Holland, who organized an abortive online petition drive to force indicted County Councilmember Arthur Brun from office, said Friday she had started collecting actual signatures on paper petition documents instead.
Some Brun charges dismissed
Felony charges of assault on a police officer and resisting arrest against County Councilmember Arthur Brun—originally filed by Kauai County authorities—have been dismissed, apparently because they were superseded by Brun’s federal indictment for running an island-wide methamphetamine ring.
Cash flow woes
Joan Porter, the co-founder of the Anaina Hou Community Park in Kilauea, has penned an open letter to the community warning that the multimillion-dollar philanthropy from her and her late husband, Bill Porter, which built the park in 2009 and has kept it open ever since, is coming to an end. She asks the community to respond financially to ensure the facility will survive.
Groups look to fortify North Shore disaster resilience
HANALEI — Kaua‘i County and two community organizations are working on separate initiatives to harden the North Shore’s defenses in the event of a natural disaster by creating permanent infrastructure to be used if disaster strikes.
Gearing up to ban plastic
The County Council and the administration of Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami will move this week to ban sale and use of polystyrene foam food containers — often known informally as Styrofoam — making Kaua‘i the last county in the Hawai‘i to do so.
Mayor to KFD: cut overtime
LIHU‘E — The mayor’s office has ordered the Kaua‘i Fire Department to suspend most — if not all — overtime and nonessential expenditures after discovering, the administration said, that KFD had been forced to make $1.2 million in unplanned retirement payments due to “spiking” of overtime.
Young Brothers rate-increase request deserves scrutiny
If you’re like me, you probably think of Young Brothers Ltd., the inter-island shipping company, as a public utility, much like the water department, Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative, Hawaiian Telcom or Spectrum cable.
County backs Hawaiian homesteaders
LIHU‘E — The County Council on Wednesday passed unanimously a resolution to urge the state Legislature to fix defects in laws that govern the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands that have led to stubbornly high mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates among Native Hawaiians living on DHHL lands.