Kauai News & Information

Irvine residents Yong and Lan Kim Yim and their 7-year-old son died while vacationing in Kauai. Another son is in critical condition.
Authorities today identified the Irvine family – a mother, father and young son – who were killed Thursday while vacationing in Kauai, Hawaii, when a utility truck broadsided their rental car.
Lan Kim Yim, 44, was behind the wheel of her family’s rental car and pulled over to the shoulder of Kaumuali’i Highway near mile marker 24 in Waimea, where she tried to make a U-turn, police Lt. Mark Scribner said from Kauai.
A gas company truck heading west on the highway broadsided the vehicle.
She died at the scene. Her husband, Yong T. Yim, 43, died at Kauai’s Veterans Memorial Hospital.
The couple’s 7-year-old son, Brandon, died as he was being transported by air ambulance to another Kauai hospital, Scribner said.
The couple’s 5-year-old son, Lindon, remains in critical condition at Queen’s Medical Center on Oahu.
The gas company driver was treated and released.

The attorney for groups challenging federal authorization of test plantings of drug-producing crops has asked a federal judge to impose a nationwide moratorium on the permits.
Earthjustice and other environmental groups oppose the test because they fear genetically altered crops could contaminate other farm products and harm the environment.
U.S. District Judge Michael Seabright already ruled last week that federal agriculture officials violated environmental laws in permitting four companies to plant corn or sugarcane genetically modified to produce experimental drugs on Kauai, Maui, Molokai and Oahu between 2001 and 2003.
None of the crops is currently being planted in Hawaii.
Tuesday’s hearing focused on two remaining counts in the case requesting that the U.S. government’s system for issuing permits for such crops be reviewed with an eye to whether it violates environmental laws.
As part of that discussion, Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff also asked Seabright to issue an injunction putting a nationwide stop to the federal government issuing any more permits for testing in open fields until the review is complete.
Earthjustice represents plaintiffs in the case, which include the Center for Food Safety, the Hawaii environmentalist group KAHEA, Friends of the Earth, Inc., and Pesticide Action Network North America.
Greg Page, the attorney representing the government in the case, said Achitoff’s request for a nationwide ruling is inappropriate in the Hawaii-focused case. A ruling in favor of the wide-ranging reviews could also lead to a flood of people filing lawsuits when they simply disagree with government policies, he said.
Achitoff said recent cases of genetically modified varieties of grass and long-grain rice being found in the wild illustrate the potential for failure of containment policies and for harm to the environment. As a result, Japan has suspended imports of U.S. long-grain rice.
He noted that there are still a handful of permits relevant to the case for sites across the U.S. listed on the Web site of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
“It should be nationwide because the programs are nationwide,” Achitoff said.
The service has already begun a review of the potential environmental impact of its policies.
But Achitoff said after the hearing that the review is limited only to the regulations the service has recently updated. Seabright’s previous order was also focused on procedural violations in issuing specific permits for crops planted in Hawaii.
What the two remaining counts seek is a closer look at the system that grants the permits and the risks that such projects share, he said.

A proposed 2,021-acre development on Kauai will include a tea plantation
For Andy Friend, there was no question that his new agricultural subdivision on Kauai would center on tea.
Friend, project manager of a proposed 2,021-acre agricultural subdivision in east Kauai — named Kealiakealanani — believes tea is the untapped potential for Hawaii’s economy.
“Tea has not been done,” Friend told the Star-Bulletin. “But Kauai has the proper elevation, soil content and rainfall. Tea, especially gourmet teas, has a growing market of consumers, particularly in North America.”
The $100 million-plus project by Plantation Partners Kauai LLC proposes 290 estate lots, along with a tea plantation, taro fields, a rodeo and cacao trees just north of Kapaa.
The developers are setting aside 100 of the lots as affordable housing. Some will be set aside as rentals for agricultural workers who will work on the tea and taro plantations.
Plantation Partners is made up of San Francisco-based Lynch Investments LLC as the majority shareholder, Friend, and Paul Kyno of Sleeping Giant Realty.
For the last decade or so, the lands have been leased out as cattle pastures by Michele and Justin Hughes, but for the previous century, they were used as a sugar cane plantation.
Plantation Partners acquired the lands from the Hughes in March for about $49 million — $47.4 million in cash and the remainder in Idaho real estate.
Lynch owns several properties on the Big Island, including Makalei Golf Course and the Big Island Country Club. Initially, Lynch had plans to develop Waikoloa Heights, a master-planned community in South Kohala, but has since sold it to a group led by Charles Somers.
“We’re following the letter of the law when it comes to agricultural land,” said Kyno. “We did not want another Hokulia situation, and we wanted to do something good for the island. It will not be gentleman farms, but it will offer nice subdivisions with nice homes.”
Lots are expected to range anywhere from three to 100 acres each, with prices starting at $500,000. Owners will have the option of being involved in tea, taro or cacao cultivation.
No guest houses
Only one residential dwelling would be allowed per lot — in other words, no guest houses. All lot buyers would have to submit an agricultural plan.
Kealiakealanani, meaning “pathway to beauty” — and dubbed
Kealanani for short — is different from other developments in that it will offer no golf course, spa or clubhouse.
Instead, it will offer 10 miles of hiking, biking and horseback trails to be maintained by the homeowner’s association, along with a barbecue cabana near a reservoir.
Plantation Partners plans to go before the Kauai County planning commission in September to get subdivision approvals. Delivery of the first phase is expected in the third quarter of 2007.
Growing tea
Plantation Partners is setting aside 100 acres for the first test crop of tea.
It would be privately run by the Kauai Tea Co., which will oversee everything from production to processing, packaging and marketing. The company would also offer lot owners cultivation services if they agree to lease some of their properties for tea crops.
While the University of Hawaii at Hilo, U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers, and some small mom-and-pops are experimenting with growing tea on the Big Island, no one is doing it on a large scale on Kauai, according to Friend.
“There’s similarities to Kona coffee,” Friend said. “You go back to when coffee was introduced to Hawaii, and it was grown in other areas of the world. It was not familiar to the U.S. as a commodity, but now specialty Kona coffee can sell for $20 to $30 a pound. Tea has similarities.”
Premium gourmet teas, according to a detailed marketing summary in Kealanani’s business plan, when well-presented and well-packaged, can sell in retail stores for $100 or more per pound.
Enticed to Kauai
Friend, who moved to Kauai from Arizona, said he became interested in tea while researching Kona coffee. Originally, he was planning to develop a tea plantation on the Big Island. But then a friend persuaded him to move to Kauai.
In 2002, Friend hired and brought Tea Technology Associates, a Britain-based tea consultant, to Kauai to scope out the potential for the crops on the Garden Isle. In a feasibility study two years later, TTA concluded tea could successfully be grown on the Garden Isle.
Kauai Tea Co. will invest more than $1 million to build its own tea processing facility, with an emphasis on energy efficiency and automated machinery.
It will offer high-end specialty black, green and white teas, and maximize its marketing potential as a Hawaii brand. It also plans to use organic farming methods.
By its seventh year, Plantation Partners envisions a visitor center, complete with a tearoom, retail store and tours of operations so it can participate in the growing trend of “agritourism.”
The company aims to produce about 1,200 pounds of tea per day from its 100-acre parcel. Its financial projections for revenue in its sixth year? $1.5 million.
Friend knows he’s aiming high, especially since this never has been done before. But he says the retail value of the U.S. tea market is growing 20 percent a year, due to a growing interest in its health benefits.
Tea is a perennial crop grown throughout the world, in Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, southeast Asia, Russia and Japan.
“Why not Kauai?” asked Friend.
Friend is expecting his first shipment of about 1,000 plants from Africa in October, and plans to put them in the soil by next spring. Friend said he would periodically bring tea masters to monitor the crops and offer advice.

WAILUA, Kauai » Most resorts do not throw two consecutive parties, with guests totaling 500, just to sell 200 condos. Especially when the condos are not even built yet.
But the Coco Palms Resort is not like any place else.
After all, the 35-acre resort was once the jewel of Kauai. It was the site of Elvis Presley’s “Blue Hawaii.” And for centuries the site was the home of Hawaiian kings and queens.
The developers start selling condos tomorrow, months before groundbreaking is scheduled to begin.
The parties were more a way to re-establish the cultural tradition of Coco Palms, the ambience and spirit of aloha for the land fronting Wailua Bay, said Richard Weiser, one of the project’s developers.
“A lot (of the attraction) is a mental state,” said Weiser yesterday as they prepared for the second party. “People who stayed here stayed within the surroundings. It became like a second home.”
The attraction of what Coco Palms used to be still brings tourists daily by the vanload, and weddings are common in the chapel on the grounds, which still has lagoons and a huge coconut grove.
But the majority of the buildings have been in disrepair since Hurricane Iniki in 1992, and will have to be destroyed to make way for the new resort, which is scheduled to open in fall 2008.
Weiser, though, is dedicated to restoring the grandeur of the resort and hiring back old employees who made the place special.
“We’re saving something,” he said. “We’re not doing new construction.”
Jonathan Staub, who is part of the team designing the resort, said they have just taken the style created by longtime General Manager Grace Guslander, and modernized it.
He joked that he is still trying to convince the developers of returning the sinks in the shape of shells, one of Guslander’s famous details.
“She has been the guide,” Staub said of Guslander, who died in 2000. “She would have made (the resort) current if Iniki didn’t hit.”
Staub, from Honolulu, said he is often told story after story when mentioning the Coco Palms, and he feels a responsibility to those with history on the grounds.
“There’s only one Coco Palms,” he said. “There’s such a feeling of aloha for this property.”
Prices have not been released on the 200 one-, two- and three-bedroom units, but Weiser said interest is high and he expects them to sell out quickly. Also, 47 bungalows will be built to accommodate standard hotel guests.
Almost 300 people are expected to work at the resort when it is operational, Weiser said.

Hawaiian carrier Aloha Airlines has announced that it is to begin new interisland service on two new routes from the beginning of next month.
Starting September 1, Aloha has scheduled nonstop flights between Kahului on the island of Maui and Kona, Hawaii; and Kahului and Lihue on the island of Kauai.
The airline has listed fares for September travel at $59 each way, excluding additional taxes and charges, and tickets are non-refundable, non-transferable, and non-changeable.
Aloha is one of the three major carriers to offer service between the Hawaiian islands, in addition to the state’s largest carrier, Hawaiian Airlines, and the new start-up company from the Mesa Group, Go!.
There is solid competition for passengers on interisland flights, meaning fare sales are frequent and good value for customers. Analysts have suggested competition could be even fiercer in the upcoming fall months, when travel is traditionally slower.

Hawaii suffered through another month of ultra low unemployment in July. It was just 3 percent, more than a third lower than the national rate.
Although nobody would likely trade Hawaii’s vibrant economy for a declining one, success has brought its problems, especially for employers. There’s a “Help Wanted” sign in almost every store window. Although it’s less visible, there are empty chairs in businesses of all kinds. Requests for services are often met with, “Can’t do it this week.”
It makes you wonder what the 19,750 Hawaii residents who were supposed to be looking for work in July and not finding it were holding out for.
According to the analysis by the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, even that very low figure of 19,750 may overstate the unemployment picture.
Now that public schools have moved to a single year-round schedule, with only a six-week “summer,” there were fewer summer schools than before this year and therefore fewer summer school jobs.
Another big chunk of “unemployed” were striking nurses on Kauai, who have since gone back to work.
Even an apparent rise in joblessness in the leisure/hospitality sector may have been more apparent than real. According to DLIR, the shift from less pronounced seasons in the visitor industry has led to steadier work throughout the year. The peak is lower but the bottom of the valley is higher now.
There are several dark linings in this silver cloud.
The big one is housing. The housing supply has expanded a lot less than the economy has. That drives up rents, usually faster than wages.
This is largely a self-inflicted wound. One thing Hawaii is not short of, for better or worse, is developers.
The upside is, it’s pretty easy to find that second job if you want one. The downside is, you may need to get one whether you want to or not.

HONOLULU — According to the latest Census figures, the fastest population growth in the islands isn’t happening on Oahu — it’s happening on the neighbor islands.
Between April 2000 and July 2005 Hilo saw a 12.5 percent increase in population. That ranked the Big Island city as the 24th fastest growing “micropolitan” area of 560 such areas in the nation.
Kahului ranked 56th and Kapaa ranked 79th.
Maui’s island-wide population grew 9.2 percent and Kauai’s population increased by 7.1 percent.
At the same time, Honolulu’s population went up just 3.3 percent — earning the city a ranking of 219 among the nation’s fastest growing metropolitan areas.

A citizen group has formed on Kauai to push for settlement of the nursing strike at Wilcox Memorial Hospital.
The Garden Island newspaper reports the group is called Concerned Citizens for Kauai’s Healthcare Future and is led by Peter Kim, a retired Wilcox doctor, and Mary Thronas, a former Kauai councilwoman. The group sent a letter to the hospital board asking for more movement. The hospital responded that it was seeking a settlement by being open to new negotiations.
Nurses struck Wilcox on June 24 after Hawaii Pacific Health, which agreed to large raises, balked at agreeing to specific staffing levels. Nurses said it was a quality of care issue for them and more important than money. Negotiator Jon Carroll called it “an action that we desperately wanted to avoid.”

Bird poop has splattered the stern likeness of Capt. James Cook staring to sea from the western lip of the westernmost major Hawaiian island.
From his perch in a shady square in the town of Waimea on Kauai, it’s a short stroll across the highway to the spot where the British explorer “discovered” Hawaii in 1778. The following year, Cook got into an argument over a boat on the Big Island and had his brains bashed out by the locals.
Among some locals, he’s still not a popular fellow.
“He didn’t discover anything,” says Florens Castilla, 16, leaning against the statue. “People were already here. He was a bad man. He sent all the hassles over here that are sinking Hawaii.”
Ironically, the place where Hawaiians had “first contact” with the West is one of the least affected by Cook’s modern descendents – tourists.
Waimea has a long list of superlatives that should make it a top destination in the islands. It’s home to Polihale, Hawaii’s longest beach, and Waimea Canyon, “the Grand Canyon of the Pacific.” The natural light show of the best sunsets on the island are occasionally aided by a blazing rocket launch from the Navy’s nearby Pacific Missile Range.
But West Kauai remain a vacationer’s afterthought, a day trip at most for visitors staying in Poipu, Kapaa, Princeville and other points east.
The reason I love to stay in Waimea is what drives most tourists away. No luxury hotels. No timeshare sales offices. No gourmet dining. No pricey boutiques. No Wyland whale murals. No McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell or even an outpost of Kauai’s popular Bubba’s Burgers (OK, there is a discretely positioned Subway). Even, gasp, cell phone dead zones.
Beach, bluff and buffs
West Kauai’s greatest crime from a tourist point of view is the lack of a really great swimming beach. There’s no gentle crescent like the north shore’s Hanalei Bay or the south shore’s Poipu Beach. Much of West Kauai meets the sea full bore. Great to look at, but a devil to swim in.
Polihale is reached by a fivemile long bumpy dead end dirt road. The view is stunning, a wide golden beach backed by bluffs where ancient Hawaiians believed the souls of the dead departed for the afterlife.
But body surf? Only if you like getting slammed by choppy breakers intent on shoving your face in the sand and yanking your swim trunks down around your knees.
What Polihale lacks in aquatic comfort it makes up for in solitude. When I arrive in the afternoon, the only other people in sight are two 20ish women who prefer their birthday suits to swimsuits.
I politely sauntering off in the other direction when behind me, I hear the squeal of a gaggle of children coming over the parking lot’s sand berm. I turn to see a family. Dad and the boys are in tropical wear, but mom is decked out in an outfit familiar from my days living in Lancaster, Penn.: neck-to-shin dress, hair bonnet and reasonable shoes. They pass not far from the two naked ladies, mom and dad quietly steering their brood away from the scene. The juxtaposition of the two extremes of female attire (or lack of) is a classic travel moment.
I wander over to chat with the couple, Adam and Sarah Grover. They’re German Old Baptists from Modesto.
“We were up in Waimea Canyon and we looked in the guidebook for a place for the boys to swim,” Adam says, staring out at the big, choppy waves. “But I’m not going to let them go very far out in this.”
I ask Sarah if she is surprised by the au naturel pair just a few dozen yards away.
“Sure,” she says with a smile. “But this is Hawaii. We just walked the other way.”
Anyone seeking to splash around in West Kauai waters would be better off heading to Salt Pond Beach. It’s a tranquil half moon of sand near Hanapepe on the road back to Poipu. The shore is protected from the pummeling surf by offshore rocks. Swimming here is as boring as Polihale is life-threatening.
But there are other “dangers” to contend with. On my visit, I pass a sign that says “CAUTION FALLING COCONUTS.” As if on cue, a stiff breeze whips the trees and a green coconut comes crashing down near a family hanging out in the shade. A middle-aged man sticks the coconut in a bag.
“We’ll take it home,” he announces. “It’s a family heirloom. The coconut that almost killed grandma.”
Cottage by the sea
There are three hotels I truly love in Hawaii: The Polynesian fantasy of Kona Village on the Big Island, the historic frivolity of the pink-toned Royal Hawaiian in Waikiki, and the Waimea Plantation Cottages on Kauai.
Kona Village can top $1,000 per night per couple for one of the premier units. The Royal Hawaiian’s published rates start at $425 for the least expensive garden view room. But you can get into a smaller cottage at Waimea Plantation Cottage for $150 a night. And it comes with a small kitchen.
The refurbished plantation houses were once part of the Faye family’s sugar plantation. Over the years, the hotel has trucked in cottages from around the island as plantations closed and were swallowed up by development. The cottages are lovingly restored, then placed by the beach or amid the long, green lawns amid dozens of swaying palms.
Visitors sleep in a piece of early 20th-century history, though one updated with 21st-century comforts like microwaves, CD players, air conditioning, and cable television.
I feel ambivalent about the Wi-Fi in the guest center’s lanai, but admit I spent a few evenings checking e-mails. At least I had Goldilocks, the hotel’s orange shorthaired cat, to keep me company.
One morning, I stop in the hotel’s Faye Museum, a one-room exhibit chronicling the rise of H.P. Faye, a Norwegian immigrant who became a sugar baron.
Later, I pad over to the nearby Inn Waimea, a bed and breakfast where a friend had enjoyed a recent stay. The manager, Lorraine DeRosa, shows me around the pretty rooms decorated with Polynesian prints.
“Waimea is a real town,” she says. “A bank, a market, a hospital, a pharmacy. There are a lot of families. It doesn’t exist just for tourists. It’s the kind of place you visit if you are tired of the resort experience.”
Down time
Late afternoon is the best time in West Kauai. The Mustang convertibles and PT Cruisers, mainstays of the rental-car fleets used by vacationers, start heading back to the other sides of Kauai.
The sun is starting its drop behind the “forbidden island” of Niihau. The old wooden storefronts of the town glow with golden light. The undersides of the clouds over the Pacific are turning pink. Palm trees rustle in the trade winds, the whitecaps off the dusty black-sand beach sparkle.
Whatever I am doing, which frankly is blissfully not much, I make sure to get back to my cottage about an hour or two before sunset and find a hammock near the beach to doze a bit or read. Then with about 15 minutes to go to sunset, I walk down to the surf.
Sometimes there’s even an added attraction.
One afternoon a man riding a horse along the beach has his steed suddenly rear up and dump him into the surf. The horse ran off into the bush, where he hid beside a friendly mule.
But mostly it is just me and a few other sunset worshippers, mai tais or beers in hand. Saluting the sun on its crash dive into the deep blue. Glad that Cook found this spot and thankful that so few have since.

11 year old Justin “Pono” Tokioka can bat from either side of the plate.
And like other kids he has a favorite major league player – Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees.
However when he enters the batter’s box or takes the field as a second baseman, Pono can’t hear the crack of the bat or the ball hitting a glove. That’s because Pono is deaf.
“He’s pretty athletic,” says his father James Tokioka. “He likes all the sports but baseball was a passion the he had.”
It’s a passion that was almost cut short.
Last year PONY league officials barred a sign language interpreter, usually Pono’s mom Beth or his dad, from the dugout during an all-star game in Hilo on the Big Island.
“He just needed to understand the motivational strategies that the coaches were telling him,” said his dad while speaking to reporters in Honolulu. “Without an interpreter there was no why he could have done that.”
Pono almost gave-up baseball because of the controversy.
That all changed on Thursday when PONY league officials agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department.
Through his father who speaks sign language Pono said he feels “pretty happy that [he'll] be able to have an interpreter at the dugout.”
However it’s not just Pono.
The settlement means all deaf players in the Pony league can now use an interpreter. The league must also modify rules, giving disabled players an equal opportunity to play.
Pono’s family received hundreds of positive letters and e-mails during their legal battle, but one in particular stood out. It was from the “Iron Man” — Cal Ripken, one of the best shortstops to ever play the game.
“He said he supported me… [and said to] play hard and practice hard.”
The Tokioka’s say the case was never about money, but Pono’s family received $30,000 dollars in damages. They were hoping for a letter of apology instead.
Although the letter never came Pono’s father doesn’t hold any hard feelings toward the league.
“We still are part of PONY baseball and we’re proud of Pony baseball.”