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[{"type":"text","text":"Let's see if they can figure it out......"}]

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<title>Daily Smile: Wednesday, Sep. 9, 2026</title>

Let's see if they can figure it out......

Daily Smile: Wednesday, Sep. 9, 2026

 Let&#039;s see if they can figure it out......

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

Real Estate

A new 27-unit rental workforce housing development is underway near The Queen's Medical Center's Punchbowl campus.

Located at 1518 Miller St., the project, which will be designated for households earning up to 80% of the area median income, broke ground last month. It's the first ground-up project from Fergus Brothers LLC.

"We're really excited," Jake Fergus, an owner of Fergus Brothers, told Aloha State Daily. "This is our family's real estate company and, for a long time, we've been focused on commercial real estate investments. Right now, we have properties on O‘ahu and Maui, a lot of industrial assets, but just in the last few years, we've wanted to become involved with helping with our affordable housing problem and crisis we have in Hawai‘i. This is our first big project, ground-up, that we're building. ... We're just excited to get involved and we hope to do a lot more of these before it's all said and done."

The for-rent apartments are being developed under the City and County of Honolulu's 

Bill 7 was adopted by the Honolulu City Council in 2019; these projects are also referred to as ROH Chapter 32 projects. According to the city's 

, ROH Chapter 32 relaxes development standards and offers financial incentives for affordable rental projects in certain zoning districts and on lots no larger than 20,000 square feet as long as 80% or more of the units are rented to those earning no more than 100% of Honolulu's AMI for at least 15 years.

Affordable housing income limits are based on household sizes — you can find the city's current income limits 

"If you look at the the current 80% AMI schedule for what people earn, those are solidly workforce tenants — hardworking people working in the community. A lot of them have multiple jobs," Fergus says. While there's no formal agreement with Queen's or any other employers in the area, he says, too, that with the location of the property and proximity to the health care center, "we would love it if hospital workers could rent at our building and be able to just walk across the street to work."

The project was designed by architect Ed Sheehan of Interlock LLC and is being constructed by Honolulu Builders. It'll feature 25 one-bedroom and two studio units. Fergus says construction is expected to be finished next year.

Fergus said, too, that the project will be constructed on an elevated podium, allowing the ground floor to be used for parking, minimizing impacts to street parking in the surrounding neighborhood.

When the property was acquired in 2024, Fergus says there was a long-empty old house in an unlivable condition on the site. It didn't make sense to keep the house, he noted, so the company hired Reuse Hawai‘i for deconstruction and donated any salvageable items before Honolulu Builder came in.

, the Miller Street property was acquired for a little more than $1.4 million in 2024.

The Miller Street project follows a recently completed restoration of an 11-unit workforce apartment building at 1650 Stillman Lane in Liliha, which offers six two-bedroom units and five one-bedroom units near Kuakini Medical Center, a recent announcement from the developer noted.

Miller

<title>New workforce housing under construction near Queen's Medical Center</title>

Located at 1518 Miller St., the project, which broke ground last month, is the first ground-up development from Fergus Brothers LLC.

New workforce housing under construction near Queen's Medical Center

De Soto 2025

DeSoto Brown

Hawai‘i History

Columnists

You can barely see it today, but once Kaka‘ako was largely composed of numerous individual homes. Constructed of wood starting around 1910-1915, and surrounded by yards with abundant trees, these houses were the signature of the district. Nobody was rich in Kakaako and this low-income population was, not surprisingly, prone to unsupervised children and a problem with crime. But this would start to change after the end of World War II in 1945 when the varied businesses already present would begin to gradually take over from residents as their property leases ended. Land owners sought the higher rents they could receive from commercial tenants, and Kakaako shifted mostly to this use.

Back when Kaka‘ako was home to thousands of people, necessary services and amenities were provided for them. Two examples of these were the Pohukaina Elementary School and its one-time playground /park, and the Kewalo Theater. The school is gone, the park remains, and the theater still exists although no films have been shown there for very close to 70 years.

By 1912, enough children resided in Kaka‘ako to justify the construction of a school there, leading to the completion of a two-story concrete building for the new Pohukaina School in January 1913. Over decades, other structures also came to occupy the grounds, but as the number of students in the area dropped the Department of Education pivoted to accommodating handicapped children at the school by 1967. Eventually, these were shifted to Waialae Elementary and Kaimukī Intermediate and Pohukaina at this location closed in 1980. By January 1987 only 14 school-aged kids were determined to currently be living in Kaka‘ako.

Debates about the Pohukaina site took place after its closure. As plans for the massive redevelopment of Kakaako were projected in the 1980s and ‘90s, some argued that a new school would be needed for new residents, but not surprisingly, a highrise condo today occupies part of the property.

An important historic figure in Kaka‘ako’s history was Mrs. Margaret Waldron, an Irish-Hawaiian woman who labored tirelessly for decades as a social worker in what was then a notoriously tough district.

Known to all by the affectionate nickname of “Mother Waldron” she began her time in Kaka‘ako as a teacher at Pohukaina School for 18 years before becoming the Director of Recreation at a neighborhood park. Her devotion to combating gangs and crime, particularly when it touched children, and serving as a positive and helpful influence was honored in June 1930 with the naming of the Pohukaina School’s playground as Mother Waldron Park. There she continued her instructional work, speaking of how she would be teaching girls the skills of sewing and cooking in a small structure in this new park. 

Her life came to an end in May 1936 but the following year, improvements and new structures in Mother Waldron Playground would be dedicated in September 1937. These cost $50,000 (or $1,162,417 in 2026 dollars) in government funding and the labor was provided through the federal government’s Works Progress Agency (WPA), an anti-Depression body that constructed innumerable public improvements all over the USA. These are still in place today; most immediately recognizable is the low zig-zag cement block wall on the ‘ewa side of the site.

In 1976 the Hawai‘i Community Redevelopment Agency was created to make over Kaka‘ako, and in 1981 its first plans for this project were presented. A foundational part of this government body’s goal was to improve the district’s infrastructure and in 1988 this led to the widening of both Pohukaina and Cooke Streets by 10 feet along with a major realignment of the latter. Along with condemnations and the clearing of former structures on its Waikīkī side, Mother Waldron Park approximately doubled in size.

The removal of Coral Street along the park’s other boundary added even more land to it in 1992. This was a wise move for the recreational needs of the increasing number of condo residents around it who would come in the future.

Kaka‘ako’s population in 1937 was significant enough to warrant the construction of the Kewalo Theater at the corner of Cooke and Queen Streets. Newspaper publicity for this event stated that the neighborhood was then “one of the largest and most densely populated sections in Honolulu.”

Consolidated Amusement, the biggest cinema chain in the Hawaiian Islands at that time, spent $75,000 ($1,743,626 in today's dollars) to open the latest of what it called “Neighborhood Playhouses” which served residential areas. Programs changed every day, which was true of all of Consolidated’s small theaters then, and admission was 25c for adults and only 10c for children ten years old and under.

Less than 20 years later, the Kewalo Theater was closed due to dwindling audiences as Kaka‘ako lost residents displaced by commercial tenants. Consolidated retained ownership of the empty structure for years and used it for storage, and surprisingly it still exists today. Currently occupying what had been the theater’s auditorium is the Lonohana Chocolate Company, and visitors who take a tour to see the variety of machinery which processes raw cocoa beans into tasty treats can also see remnants of the Kewalo’s 1930s interior decor still present on the walls and ceiling.

Kaka‘ako’s future growth will continue to displace the small industrial businesses that the area has been known for over the past decades, just as these displaced residents and private homes starting after World War II. As this process continues, we’ll see the diversity of Kaka‘ako today — as messy as it sometimes is — disappear as increasingly sterile new towers continue their takeover.

1 Ahui SP 31143 16x9

<title>Changing Kakaako: Once a residential neighborhood</title>

More than a century ago, the modern development of Kaka‘ako started as modest, wooden single-family homes. Over time, these were displaced businesses. ASD historian DeSoto Brown takes down these streets of Kaka‘ako as they looked then, and now.

Changing Kakaako: Once a residential neighborhood

James Morioka1

James Morioka

Aloha Spirit

Viewpoints

Papahānaumokuākea is one of the most extraordinary places on our planet. Stretching across the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, its coral reefs, islands, and surrounding waters provide critical habitat for millions of seabirds, endangered Hawaiian monk seals, threatened sea turtles, and countless other species.

It is also a place where the impacts of marine debris are impossible to ignore.

At the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project (PMDP), our mission is simple: to protect the wildlife and preserve the habitats of Papahānaumokuākea from the threats of marine debris. Founded in 2019, PMDP conducted its first cleanup expedition in 2020. Since then, our teams have removed more than 1.3 million pounds of marine debris across 15 cleanup missions and 366 days in the field.

PMDP’s work continues a decades-long legacy of large-scale marine debris removal in Papahānaumokuākea. Since 1996, collective efforts by NOAA, partner agencies, nonprofit organizations, and others have removed more than two million pounds of derelict fishing gear, plastics, and other debris from these remote reefs and shorelines. Today, PMDP is carrying that work forward with support from the NOAA Marine Debris Program through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), private donors, and small grant foundations. Beginning in Fiscal Year 2022, the NOAA Marine Debris Program provided $5.8 million to NFWF to support this five-year effort, matched by $6 million from philanthropists Marc and Lynne Benioff as part of their commitment to improving and safeguarding ocean health. Together, this represents nearly $12 million invested from Fiscal Year 2022 through Fiscal Year 2026 to help protect Papahānaumokuākea from the impacts of marine debris.

The scale of the challenge is enormous. Current estimates indicate that approximately 115,000 pounds of derelict fishing nets, or “ghost nets,” accumulate on the coral reefs of Papahānaumokuākea every year. The amount accumulating on shorelines has not been formally quantified, but PMDP’s field data suggest it could be another 85,000 pounds annually. Combined, we estimate that roughly 200,000 pounds of marine debris may accumulate across this remote ecosystem every year.

Marine debris is a problem throughout Hawaiʻi, but experiencing it in Papahānaumokuākea is different. Here, you see wildlife interacting with debris almost every day. Animals become entangled in fishing nets. Seabirds and other wildlife mistake plastics for food. Enormous nets become entangled on coral reefs, where waves and currents drag them across living coral, damaging critical habitat.

Some of these nets are almost unimaginable in size. The largest ghost net ever removed in Papahānaumokuākea weighed more than 23,000 pounds and overfilled an entire 20-foot shipping container. It took a team of 16 freedivers four operational days to cut the net into pieces small enough to lift manually, load into inflatable boats, and transport back to our ship for the journey to Honolulu.

That scale is why PMDP is continually working to improve how we do this work. Across more than 5,000 square miles of shallow coral reef habitat, we are testing better methods for detecting ghost nets, developing custom cutting tools, and fabricating a shallow-draft extraction platform. We hope these innovations will dramatically improve the efficiency and safety of removing massive nets from reefs.

From August 7-28, 2026, our 16-person team spent 22 days aboard the M/V Imua conducting our second cleanup mission of the year. Over just nine operational cleanup days, our team removed 48,680 pounds of marine debris from Lalo (French Frigate Shoals), Kamokuokamohoaliʻi (Maro Reef), Kamole (Laysan Island), and Kapou (Lisianski Island).

The expedition, however, did not go according to plan. Hurricane Lala forced us to suspend operations for four days and transit hundreds of miles away from the storm. Before leaving Kamole, our team had removed more than 13,000 pounds of marine debris from its shorelines. One week later, after Hurricane Lala passed directly over the island, we returned.

As we approached Kamole, the impacts were immediately visible. Vegetation had been heavily damaged, the landscape had changed, and there were clear signs of the winds, waves, and storm surge that had swept across this small, low-lying island. But we also saw hope.

During our assessment, we observed all four endangered species we were looking for: Laysan ducks, Laysan finches, Nihoa

Millerbird, and Hawaiian monk seals. The island had taken a tremendous hit, but seeing these animals surviving in the aftermath of the storm was an incredible reminder of the resilience of wildlife, islands, and nature itself.

Our team is now preparing to set sail on September 14 for our third and final cleanup expedition of the year. This mission will take us even farther northwest to the reefs and shorelines of Manawai (Pearl and Hermes Atoll), Kuaihelani (Midway Atoll), and Hōlanikū (Kure Atoll). Like every expedition, our goal is straightforward: remove as much marine debris as we safely can while continuing to learn, improve our methods, and better protect these extraordinary places.

To accomplish this work, PMDP assembles a seasonal field team of specialized freedivers and small-boat operators. Field technicians are employed for approximately five months, beginning with two months of intensive preparation that includes medical, small-boat operator, freediving, and specialized marine debris survey and removal training. That preparation is followed by two month-long expeditions to Papahānaumokuākea and concludes with project demobilization at the end of the season.

It is physically demanding work in one of the most remote marine environments on Earth. It requires long days, heavy lifting, strong ocean skills, teamwork, adaptability, and a willingness to spend weeks away from home. But it also provides the rare opportunity to make a direct and measurable difference for a place that few people will ever experience firsthand.

Our next recruitment period will open in January 2027 for seasonal employment from approximately June through October 2027. We are always looking for hardworking people who care deeply about Hawaiʻi, our ocean, and protecting these extraordinary places for future generations.

There is still an enormous amount of work ahead. Marine debris will continue to arrive on the reefs and shorelines of Papahānaumokuākea, and we know we cannot stop it all at the source. But we can do something about what is already there.

Papahānaumokuākea has shown us how resilient nature can be. Our job is to give it the best chance we can.

To learn more about the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project, visit 

, subscribe to our quarterly newsletter for project updates and employment opportunities, and follow us on social media at @pmdphawaii.

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PMDP 2026 02 8 13 2026 Kamole Sullivan Haskins 1

<title>Community Voices: Protecting Papahānaumokuākea</title>

James Morioka, executive director of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project, reflects on hope, resilience, and the fight against marine debris following the organization's recent excursion to removes tons of debris from Hawai‘i's Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. To date, the group has removed 1.3 million pounds of debris in its first six years of operation.

Community Voices: Protecting Papahānaumokuākea

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

[{"type":"text","text":"Eggs-citing news — there’s a new egg salad sando in town."}]

ako is launching an egg salad sando ($5.25) and truffle egg sando ($5.99) on Saturday, Sept. 5. The egg salad sandwiches are a collab between La Tour Cafe and 

The filling is made with local eggs from Eggs Hawai

i, sandwiched between La Tour Bakehouse shokupan bread. The truffle egg sando features a furikake crunch.

i — located in Kalihi — features Hawaiian Maid or Ka Lei Eggs. The biz is known for its fresh local eggs, characterized by its bright, yellow yolks.

Limited quantities of the konbini-style (Japanese convenience store) sandwiches will be made daily, and the sandwiches will be available for a limited time.

The sandwiches will be available at La Tour Cafe’s Iwilei location the following week.

La Tour Cafe will also be doing a giveaway. Each egg sando or truffle egg sando purchase gets you an entry into a daily drawing for a pair of Japanese Family Mart/Lawson/7-Eleven socks. Customers must have a loyalty phone number with La Tour Cafe to enter.

For more information, follow La Tour Cafe on 

La Tour Cafe egg sando 090126

<title>La Tour Cafe launches egg sandos for a limited time</title>

The cafe’s egg sandos are a collaboration with Eggs Hawaiʻi. La Tour Cafe’s Kakaʻako location is launching the egg sando and truffle egg sando on Saturday, Sept. 5. The filling is made with local eggs between slices of La Tour Bakehouse’s shokupan bread.

La Tour Cafe launches egg sandos for a limited time

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

For five weeks this summer, the largest naval exercise in the world is anchored off our islands. Thirty-one nations sent forty gray hulls, five submarines, and aircraft that cross our sky from June into July. The drill has a storyline, and the storyline involves an enemy fleet. The Navy is too polite to say whose, but everyone watching knows it is China.

It is a strange thing to watch a wargame from your own lānai, stranger still to do it while the shelves are full and the children have soccer practice. But RIMPAC poses a question that has nothing to do with the Navy. What do you trust to keep you safe?

A generation ago, a clever man thought he had the answer. The Soviet Union was folding and the Cold War was ending. Francis Fukuyama wrote that liberal democracy had become the final form of human government. The argument was over. The West had won, and the rest was paperwork.

The headlines have not cooperated since then. Iran is run by clerics who believe history bends their way. After American and Israeli bombs fell this spring, they closed the Strait of Hormuz.

In Venezuela, a long experiment in socialism had already emptied the shelves. Two earthquakes forty seconds apart killed close to a thousand people, and the digging is not done.

China keeps spending, patient and sure of itself, buying ports and roads from Africa to the South China Sea. And in Washington, the government that supposedly won the argument at the end of history can barely pass a budget.

Each of these countries has made a wager. Tehran trusts its missiles, Caracas trusted its strongman, Beijing trusts its ships, and we trust ours. Every government asks for a single arrangement of power to last forever.

From the middle of the Pacific, all the news can feel like someone else’s weather. Prices have climbed here too — gas, eggs, the usual. But the stations still pump and the warehouse stores still stack the pallets high. Ours is a rich country, with land and oil to spare. We are heirs to ordered liberty and markets freer than most, though never quite as free as their champions liked to claim.

A man may enjoy fine weather, but he gets into trouble when he begins to believe he arranged it.

This December marks 85 years since the bombing of Pearl Harbor. One morning, a great many certainties vanished, and Hawaiʻi was plunged into a World War. We are not the quiet edge of the map. We are the middle of it — the center of somebody else’s plan.

The families on base do not need a columnist to tell them this. They read it in the deployment calendar. They know something the rest of us can easily forget at Costco: Our safety has always leaned on somebody’s fleet.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lᴏʀᴅ our God. The fleet in our harbor is a great strength, but a poor god. We shouldn’t ask it to be one because it cannot do the job.

This is bad news for two kinds of people. It is bad news for the man who reads the headlines, buys a bunker, and decides that because nothing lasts, nothing is worth building. And it is bad news for his cheerful cousin. He mistakes American power for the kingdom of God and salutes the flag as though it were an altar. The God who rules the Strait of Hormuz and controls the fault lines under Caracas also governs the loading dock at Costco.

So build the things that survive war. Not the bunker, but the congregation, the friendship with a neighbor across the fence, the school for your children’s children. Build the small, local groups that can catch a falling family before the federal government has heard them fall. That is not retreat. It is a readiness that does not depend on chariots.

The ships will be at sea tomorrow, training in the same water that smoked in 1941. The clever man was wrong, though not in the way the frightened expect. History is not finished, and it is not finished because it is going somewhere — toward an end already chosen, by Someone who is not nervous. So we watch the gray hulls with thanks and without fear.

Destroyers in Pearl Harbor i Stock 2022

<title>RIMPAC 2026: Hawaiʻi, China, and the Question Underneath</title>

The children have soccer practice while, a few miles offshore, 31 nations rehearse a war. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on what Hawaiʻi trusts to keep it safe.

RIMPAC 2026: Hawaiʻi, China, and the Question Underneath

Government & Politics

[{"type":"text","text":"What’s on the minds of Hawai‘i residents?"}]

Pacific Resource Partnership asked in its Winter 2025 Hawai‘i Perspectives survey and more than 900 residents across the Islands answered.

PRP is a nonprofit founded in 1987 that represents the Hawai‘i Regional Council of Carpenters, the largest construction union in the state with nearly 6,000 members, and more than 250 contractors.

This is the fifth iteration of the survey, which was conducted by Honolulu-based Anthology Research from July 1 to Aug. 10, 2025.

[{"type":"text","text":"Here’s what the survey found:"}]

Want to learn more about resident sentiments? You can download the 

Kinney says that one of the biggest surprises from the new survey is “how much residents in all four counties want our policymakers to act on creating more housing and do so quickly.”

“The theme of this survey is ‘hard calls’ because residents are willing to make tough decisions on policy issues and want our elected leaders to follow suit,” he told ASD.

Kinney notes that, for example, 55% of respondents say the height limits of buildings in certain areas should be increased to create more housing and 75% say the amount of time allowed for permitting and environmental reviews should be limited.

“Meanwhile, more than 7 out of 10 residents agree Hawai‘i should build more housing as quickly as possible,” he continued. “It’s clear our residents have moved beyond the question of whether we need to build more housing, but rather how we do it as fast and efficient as possible.”

But one of the biggest changes noted in this year’s survey compared to 2024 is that residents “feel more optimistic about the direction of our state,” Kinney says, noting that 36% of residents feel Hawai‘i is on the right track compared to 28% in 2024.

“This growing optimism could be the result of our policymakers taking decisive action on affordability, for example the historic state income tax cut passed by the state Legislature in 2025 and other legislation that helps make new homes more affordable.”

Oahu neighborhoods homes i Stock

<title>New survey gauges Hawai‘i residents' views on critical issues</title>

Hawai‘i Perspectives, a survey of more than 900 residents statewide, was commissioned by Pacific Resource Partnership — a nonprofit that represents the Hawai‘i Regional Council of Carpenters, the largest construction union in the state, and more than 250 contractors. It was conducted last summer by Anthology Research.

Daily Smile: Wednesday, Sep. 9, 2026

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Daily Smile: Wednesday, Sep. 9, 2026

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