ASD icon blue inverse lighter

ASD Staff

Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Yes, you need to see a highland cow with a Bob Ross cut today..."}]

Smile 26 4 11

<title>Daily Smile: Saturday, April 11, 2026</title>

Yes, you need to see a highland cow with a Bob Ross cut today...

Daily Smile: Saturday, April 11, 2026

 Yes, you need to see a highland cow with a Bob Ross cut today...

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Business & Tourism

Even as they clean up damage from the last two Kona low storms, Hawai‘i farmers are hunkering down again.

The scale of damage caused by the current storm still remains to be seen. But for farmers still picking up the pieces from the last storms, more severe weather can only delay their recovery even further.

“The soil in a lot of places is still mostly saturated,” Christian Zuckerman, vice president of the Hawai‘i Farmers Union, told Aloha State Daily Friday. “So flooding could happen very quickly.”

Zuckerman, himself a farmer in Wai‘anae, said the soil around his farm has a high clay content that allows it to retain moisture for a long time. Already, he said, the rains this week have caused standing water to pool around his farm again.

“The fear is, if there’s another 10 inches of rain, what’s going to happen?” Zuckerman said, adding that the first two storms dropped a year’s worth of rainfall in a matter of hours.

Zuckerman said that, out of an abundance of caution, some farmers in Waialua were preemptively evacuated to shelters on Thursday in case North Shore waterways flood. By Friday afternoon, a flash flood warning was in effect for Otake Camp, and the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management issued an 

Meanwhile, Zuckerman said that much of the work farmers and ranchers have done to recover over the last two weeks — clearing debris from the last storms, removing flood-deposited sediment from their farms, and more — all may end up for naught if this storm forces them to do it all over again.

“In farming, the profit margins are slim and the costs are high,” Zuckerman said. “In a disaster like this, it’s not just today’s harvest that’s affected, it’s tomorrow’s harvest, it’s your harvest for months to come.”

Zuckerman added that farmers are under further strain by a climate growing erratic. He said that Wai‘anae “didn’t have a lick of rain” between last May and December.

“And since December it feels like it’s never stopped raining,” Zuckerman said, adding that the heavy rains have been washing away the drought-stricken soil.

 this week that President Donald Trump will issue a major disaster declaration for the March storms likely won’t lead to immediate benefits for farmers. However, he said he hopes the state and counties will be galvanized into accelerating their own assistance programs, now that they are assured that their funds will be replenished by federal aid.

In the meantime, Zuckerman urged farmers to fill out 

 to help the state and federal government to determine what assistance programs to make available. He also recommended they reach out to the 

The Hawai‘i Farmers Union Foundation has also launched the 

, where people can donate funds to help farmers and rural communities recover from the floods. Aloha State Daily has found an anonymous donor who will match all donations up to $100,000.

 For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Lewaterra Farm

<title>Farmers face flooding, storm damage once again</title>

Third storm in less than a month pelts Hawai‘i's beleaguered farmers

Farmers face flooding, storm damage once again

Pua headshot

Puanani Fernandez-Akamine

Viewpoints

Arts & Entertainment

Leināʻala Kalama Heine, beloved kumu hula and founder of Nā Pualei o Likolehua, left behind an indelible hula legacy that continues to thrive under the leadership of her oldest daughter, Kumu Hula Niuliʻi Heine.

Established in 1976 amid the Hawaiian Renaissance, Nā Pualei o Likolehua is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, which will include competing at the 

The story of Nā Pualei, as shared by Niuliʻi, is more than a story about perpetuating hula; it is a story about enduring love.

Trained as a dancer by noted kumu hula like Joseph “Uncle Joe” Kahaulelio and sisters Leilani and Puanani Alama, as a young woman in the 1960s Kalama Heine danced professionally at various “lūʻau shows” for popular musicians including Vickie Iʻi Rodrigues. When Kumu Hula Maʻiki Aiu Lake advertised in 1972 that she was starting a kumu hula class, both Kahaulelio and Rodrigues urged Kalama Heine to sign up.

“My mom really wasn't ready,” recalled Heine who was about 8-years-old at the time. “She just liked dancing and traveling. [But] my grandmother, Rebecca Kalama, told her that she needed to become a teacher of hula.”

Kalama Heine ultimately listened to her mother and her mentors, becoming part of Aiu Lake’s first, and largest, master class: Papa Lehua. The class included her close friend, Robert Cazimero. Both Cazimero and Kalama Heine completed their ʻūniki (graduation) ceremonies in 1973. Another friend, Wayne Keahi Chang, was in Papa ʻIlima, Aiu Lake’s second master class.

At the time, both Cazimero and Chang were working at Kamehameha Schools (KS), training haumāna in the schools’ Concert Glee program to dance hula. Because of her close friendship with them, Kalama Heine agreed to train the female students while they concentrated their efforts on the boys.

Heine says that her mother initially envisioned establishing a hālau together with Cazimero and Chang, but in 1975 they formed Nā Kamalei o Lililehua – an all-male hālau comprised of their KS students. Instead, Cazimero urged Kalama Heine to form her own hālau and Nā Pualei o Likolehua was born on February 24, 1976.

The handful of young women she was training from KS Concert Glee, formed the core Kalama Heine’s original group of dancers, along with some of the other women from Aiu Lake’s Papa Lehua and Papa ʻIlima classes. “Lahela Kaʻaihue, Aunty Vicky (Holt-Takamine), Jade Hind and Tootsie Cazimero, Uncle Robert’s sister. They had ʻūniki from Aunty Maʻiki but hadn’t yet formed their own hālau(s) so they gravitated to my mom because they all hung out together,” Heine said.

“From that point on it was like a brother-sister hālau because Uncle Wayne and Uncle Robert and my mother were so close,” she added. “That’s how it always was through the years.”

Under Kalama Heine’s guiding hand, the hālau blossomed. In 1977, Kalama Heine took her new hālau to the Merrie Monarch Festival. The caliber of Nā Pualei’s debut performance at the festival was such that they took first place in Hula Kahiko, receiving a perfect score, and winning first place overall in the Wāhine Division.

For Heine, who was there and witnessed the performance, the experience was life changing. She had quit dancing hula several years earlier when she was about 10 years old. “I didn’t want to dance hula. I told my mom, ʻI’m over it. I’m going to play sports,’” Heine admitted.

“But then, after the performance, I told her, ʻMom, I want to dance hula, and I want to dance for you.’ It was because I had seen excellence on that floor and it shocked me into doing something better.”

One of the things that set the hālau’s kahiko performance apart were their kaʻi (entrance dance) and hoʻi (exit dance). Instead of a traditional kaʻi, Kalama Heine composed an original kaʻi, Panaewa.

Their hoʻi was also special. It was a portion of a 9th century Tahitian migration chant, Nuʻumea Lani, gifted to Kalama Heine by Kumu Hula John Kaʻimikaua. “This chant has a thousand lines, but he gave us a section and said, ʻthis is what you use to take your women offstage,’” Heine remembered. Nā Pualei has been using it as their hoʻi for 50 years now.

From the beginning, Nā Pualei and Nā Kamalei were regular collaborators who were making an impact in the hula community. “Their thinking was so progressive that they kind of pushed the envelope,” said Heine. “It kind of forced all the other young, up-and-coming hālau to think outside the box, yet stay within the [required] boundaries and parameters. They were always learning, improving and just sharing.”

Decades passed, and while some haumāna came and went, the core group of women who had been with Nā Pualei from the beginning remained intact through graduations, marriages, careers, parenthood and loss; more than a hālau, they were ʻohana. Pilina built on aloha and a shared passion for hula, enduring through all seasons of life.

In the mid-2000s, Kalama Heine was determined to form an ʻūniki class for 13 of her students – one of whom was her daughter. Like her mother before her, Heine initially hesitated, reluctant to take on the kuleana. “I knew that, eventually, hālau would come to me,” she said.

Some of her hula sisters were also reluctant to ʻūniki, but for a different reason. They did not want to leave the hālau that was also ʻohana. “But my mom allowed everyone to stay until they were ready to leave.”

In 2009, Heine and 12 of her hula sisters completed ʻūniki ceremonies and Nā Pualei continued to evolve. Then in 2012, the hālau that had been exclusively for women for 30 years opened a class for keikikāne – in part because so many of the haumāna had young sons. And as those boys grew up, a kāne class was added as well.

When Kalama Heine passed in 2015, she was in the process of training a second ʻūniki class. Heine assumed leadership of Nā Pualei, and completed their training in 2018 – a class that included her sister, ʻAuliʻi Heine Hirahara, who has since started her own hālau. Heine is now training her youngest sister, Healiʻi Heine, to become a kumu hula as well.

In all, Nā Pualei has graduated 16 kumu hula and birthed eight new hālau. However, some remain at Nā Pualei, content to kākoʻo Heine with running the hālau, teaching its classes, and helping to build a vision for the next 50 years.

Beyond training young people to preserve and perpetuate hula as a living art, Kalama Heine wanted to instill in her haumāna a love for all that is Hawaiian and determination to uphold their kuleana to our people – whatever that might be.

“One of my mom’s goals for Nā Pualei was to train young people to be future leaders and to move our lāhui forward,” Heine reminisced. “She was a mana wahine. Even today people speak highly of her. It’s like she never left; a name that is not forgotten. She touched a lot of people.”

This article is reprinted with permission from 

OHA's Ka Wai Ola newspaper: "Nā Pualei o Likolehua – “ʻO ke Aloha hoʻi e Hoʻomau ʻia ana" by 

, in its April 2026 issue, Vol. 43 No. 4. Read more at 

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Na Pualei

<title>Community Voices: A story of enduring love</title>

Beyond training people to preserve and perpetuate hula through hālau Nā Pualei o Likolehua, founder Leināʻala Kalama Heine wanted to instill in her students a love for all that is Hawaiian and determination to move the lāhui forward. Now under the leadership of her oldest daughter, Kumu Hula Niuliʻi Heine, the hālau is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year at the Merrie Monarch Festival.

Community Voices: A story of enduring love

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Government & Politics

Columnists

On a Monday morning earlier this month, Mayor Rick Blangiardi sent his proposed budget for the coming fiscal year to the Honolulu City Council. The total came in $133 million less than the year before. The operating side grew by less than one percent. There were no ribbon cuttings. The 

 lasted about 40 minutes and drew a few paragraphs in the morning papers.

Had the number gone up — a record spend on city services, a bold new chapter — there would have been more headlines. The budget that doesn’t grow is not a story.

What matters is whether government grows faster or slower than the income of the people paying for it. The University of Hawaiʻi’s economic research arm, UHERO, 

 personal income in Honolulu will grow about 3.7% this year. That 3.7% is the speed limit. A government budgeting above it is spending money its people haven’t earned yet.

Blangiardi’s operating increase of less than 1% means city government is shrinking against the economy. That’s harder than it sounds. Union contracts alone required wage raises above 1%. He covered that and still cut the total.

The pattern elsewhere is mixed — and mostly worse. On Kaua‘i, Mayor Derek Kawakami’s current budget 

, more than twice the county’s projected income growth.

Maui’s Richard Bissen is a different story. UHERO projects Maui’s income to grow about 4% this year. Bissen’s proposed budget for next fiscal year 

. That’s nearly flat in real terms — a return to earth after the fire-driven spending surge.

The outlier nobody talks about is Hawai‘i County Mayor Kimo Alameda. His proposed operating budget 

 against projected income growth of 3.4%. Nearly as disciplined as Honolulu, with almost no press. Alameda governs quietly, and Hawai‘i County draws less notice than Maui or Honolulu.

Blangiardi didn’t cut services. He cut the budget lines for vacant jobs. With roughly one in five city jobs vacant, that pay was already sitting idle. The mayor pulled about $50 million in vacancy funding back across departments. The police chief called it tight but workable. AI tools are rolling out across city offices — not to cut jobs, but to get more done.

Blangiardi is not always easy. Councilmembers, reporters, and slow-moving department heads have all felt the friction. But for five years, he’s been the strongest check on government growth in Hawai‘i. And in his 2026 State of the City address, he 

 not to raise property taxes while in office.

Government that lives within its means doesn’t produce ribbon cuttings. It fills the potholes, keeps the lights on. In the oldest sense, it’s a good neighbor. It doesn’t always make the news.

0000 0000 Mayor Blagiardi Square Wide 16x9

<title>The budget that doesn't grow</title>

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi did something remarkable early this month in releasing a city budget that came in $133 million under the previous year's budget. ASD columnist Sterling Higa looks at all four county budgets to see which counties are living within the means of their citizens.

Daily Smile: Saturday, April 11, 2026

ASD Staff

More in Daily Smile

Daily Smile: Friday, April 10, 2026

Daily Smile: Thursday, April 9, 2026

Daily Smile: Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Daily Smile: Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Most read

Daily Smile: Saturday, April 11, 2026

Authors

ASD Staff

More in Daily Smile

Daily Smile: Friday, April 10, 2026

Daily Smile: Thursday, April 9, 2026

Daily Smile: Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Daily Smile: Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Most read