Letters to the Editor

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Kallin Spiller

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Kady Pascual

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Michael Brestovansky

Crime & Courts

The woman charged with murder after allegedly fatally shooting a man in Kailua last weekend was turned in by her father the day of the event, according to a Honolulu police report.

Hilinaikailimakualopali Keeno, 24, was charged on Sept. 30 with second-degree murder, carrying a firearm in the commission of a felony and improperly keeping a pistol or revolver. She is being held pending a $1 million bail.

An HPD document — which was submitted on Tuesday, Sept. 29, to the Honolulu Circuit Court to establish probable cause to detain Keeno without a warrant — states that Keeno’s father brought her to the Kailua Police Station less than an hour after 

was declared dead of a gunshot wound to the neck in the Kailua Target parking lot.

The report states that HPD special duty officers, who were working security at the Kailua Fall Festival that day, were called to assist with a group of festivalgoers involved in an argument at about 8:26 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26.

Officers escorted the group out of the festival and watched them head toward the Target parking lot, only to hear another altercation begin among the group minutes later.

During this new altercation, a pop resembling a gunshot was heard, and officers saw two men — one of whom was Keeno’s brother — assaulting a third. Both assailants were placed under arrest for disorderly conduct, while officers discovered Malone on the ground, covered in blood.

[{"type":"text","text":"Malone was declared dead at the scene by 8:43 p.m."}]

At 9:39 p.m., Keeno was brought to the Kailua Police Station by her father, who told police she was involved in the incident and wanted to provide a statement in the presence of her attorney.

According to the HPD report, no interview was conducted with Keeno that night. Subsequently, HPD sought photographs and videos from the public to help piece together the event and identify the shooter.

On Sept. 28, another witness identified Keeno as the shooter, and HPD confirmed that Keeno has one firearm registered in her name, a Sig Sauer P365 handgun.

[{"type":"text","text":"Following this, Keeno was placed under arrest."}]

Keeno’s preliminary hearing, when she will plead guilty or not guilty to the charges, will take place Monday, Oct. 5. She remains in custody.

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<title>Woman charged in Kailua shooting turned in by father</title>

Hilinakailimakualopali Keeno faces a $1 million bail for a second-degree murder charge.

Woman charged in Kailua shooting turned in by father

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A. Kam Napier

Columnists

Government & Politics

Aloha State Daily received a press release today from a Mainland-based national interest group, U.S. Term Limits (USTL), letting us know that “2026 Hawai‘i state senate candidate, Wallyn Christian (District 13) has committed support for term limits on Congress by signing the term limits convention pledge.”

Why does this matter to that organization? “(USTL, the leader in the national, non-partisan movement to limit terms for elected officials, is gathering support from state lawmakers across the nation,” the statement says. “Its mission is to get 34 states to apply for an amendment proposal convention specific to term limits on Congress.”

Term-limiting Congress is a popular idea, and USTL cites a 

 that, “An overwhelming majority of adults (87%) favor limiting the number of terms that members of Congress are allowed to serve. This includes a majority 56% who strongly favor this proposal, just 12% are opposed.”

The idea emerges often for local politicians, as well. Civil Beat has found public support for term limits to be as high as 70% in a 2018 poll of likely voters, a stat Honolulu Civil Beat resurfaced 

 of the lawmakers themselves to see where they stand on the idea of limiting their own time in office. “Nearly half of House members and more than a third of senators say they support term limits. There are enough undecideds in both chambers to give it a good shot if they held their position for two years,” CB found.

Respectfully, all of these people are wrong. Well intentioned, but they're aiming term limits at the wrong people.

I mean, I totally understand where the frustration is coming from. We elect people, nationally and locally, then are disappointed in their results. We could end their terms ourselves by simply not reelecting these people and yet obviously a lot of the people who say they want term limits do something very odd: They seem to reelect the lousy politicians they say they want to term limit.

You want to limit someone’s term? You’re just a month away from your next opportunity to vote for someone else!

So we’ve always had the power to fire politicians with every election, but don’t, then remain convinced that what we need is more turnover in government to make it more efficient, effective and responsive. Somebodies’ terms need limiting, but who?

Easy: The workforce. The bureaucrats. See, I want term limits, too, but I want them on the people staffing all the departments and agencies that we’re perpetually frustrated with. 

Consider, to cite just one example, how many different mayors you’ve seen over the past 20 or 30 years promise to reform the departments of planning and permitting in each county. The mayors have term limits. They come and go. Have any of them succeeded at this reform?

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi has done more than any predecessor but there’s a long way still to go.

How many Hawai‘i governors — term-limited governors — have promised Hawai‘i a public education second to none? Which of them succeeded? Who is still in place, immune to reform?

What happens in real life is, candidates make bold promises of reform, we elect them, then they announce bold plans for reform and those plans run headfirst into a culture of unfirable civil servants shielded by union protections. These folks don’t even have to noisily and aggressively oppose the reform, all they have to do is … not do it. And wait. Four years later, or eight years later, their antagonist is gone, the staff remains, with its culture of job security over excellence safely intact.

[{"type":"text","text":"We, the taxpayers and voters, then sit around wondering what happened."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Two Hawai‘i’s"}]

What’s happened is simple: Since statehood, Hawai‘i’s people have steadily split into two camps, those who work for government and everybody else. The appeal of Government Hawai‘i is the security and benefits — lifelong employment, if you want it, totally protected from market forces and competition, with solid benefits like healthcare and retirement, paid for by the rest of us in Real Hawai‘i.

If you think the security and the bennies of government jobs are a trade-off to compensate for low pay, guess again. Government Hawai‘i earns more than Real Hawai‘i.

The annual average wage of a non-government job in Hawai‘i is 

 from the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

The average annual wage in state government? 

What does Real Hawai‘i get in return? One of the highest tax burdens in America for one thing, and then very little to brag about in high-quality government service. (

I would say that that two Hawai‘i’s have hardened into opposing camps, except that’s not exactly true. Government Hawai‘i drives an Us vs Them dynamic, that was never clearer to me than it was during Covid, when Government Hawai‘i showed us that it will shut the rest of down for years at a time given the slightest opportunity. It will also protect itself first, at the expense of the public is supposedly serves, as we see in the lingering effects of the schools closing for so long. That policy made no one safer, but it did mess up the kids. (And have you noticed ever since then, Government Hawai‘i takes the day off for even bad weather like it never did before, while the rest of us soldier on with our work?)

Out here in Real Hawai‘i, we grumble but otherwise settle for apathy (i.e., low voter turnout) or outright flight to states where it feels like a good life is more possible. I don’t know who Government Hawai‘i is going to tax when the last of us moves to Vegas.

With all that in mind, term limits on government service seem like the one revolution we haven’t tried, haven’t even discussed, but should. Say 10, 15 years max, total lifetime employment in government at any level. We want people to stay long enough to learn the ropes and finish things they’ve started, not so long that they just settle in and kill time until retirement.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The upsides:"}]

Breaks up all the pockets of resistance to change. Turnover would occur systemwide, one person at a time, as they age out. Reformers at the top have a chance building support in the workforce among newer staff.

[{"type":"text","text":"Brings in new people and new ideas in government at every level."}]

Opens up more opportunities for Government Hawai‘i and Real Hawai‘i to trade places and live in each other’s worlds. This may be the biggest upside — more of us would get a chance to feel like we had a chance to change the system from the inside and deliver the service we’ve always wanted, while more of them would be forced to realize that Real Hawai‘i is something more than subjects to be ruled and tax cows to be milked.

Forces a revolution in how government hires. Using Mayor Blangiardi again as an example, he’s talked about how it took people six months on average to get hired by the City & County of Honolulu when he assumed office. 

, he had cut that down to three months. Compared to the speed at which the private sector can hire, that’s still an eternity, and that would have to change immediately to deal with the kind of turnover we need.

(To be fair, government is not alone on this front. In my decade at Pacific Business News, I heard executives at Hawai‘i’s larger companies talk endlessly about a labor shortage. At the same time, I knew plenty of talented people who could not land great jobs. Something is seriously broken in the hiring process, and I suspect HR, especially using automated keyword-based filters on resumes, is to blame. Make Direct Hiring by Managers Great Again!)

Loss of expertise, I suppose, but we’ve seen what the accumulated expertise gets us: A chief elections officer who thought a lauhala basket suited the dignity of a Hawai‘i electoral tie-breaker and ended getting his office sued — successfully — and 

. Scott Nago has worked at the Office of Election for nearly 26 years, almost 17 of those years as its chief election officer. As Civil Beat 

, it’s just about the only place he has ever worked in his life. Well, in the private sector, you can lose your job for bungling things so badly you get sued. Under my plan, the private sector is where he would’ve been sent years ago. Had someone else, perhaps with a wider range of life experience, been at the helm, maybe that person would've made better decisions.

[{"type":"text","text":"So, OK, there are no downsides."}]

Term limits on government service. If you like this idea, spread the word. We’d be moving a mountain to make it happen. But that’s got to be better than carrying the mountain of Government Hawai‘i on our shoulders forever.

A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.

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People take time out of their lives to participate in the democratic process by testifying before committee hearings. Too often, the committee isn't there.

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Pipikaula Corner: Invisible Legislators

It's not getting much media attention, but the private diaries of Dr. Anthony Fauci have been published online by Sen. Rand Paul in advance of his hearings this week into Fauci and Covid-19. What they reveal across thousands of pages is man in love with the adulation he received, who privately knew that many of things he said publicly about the pandemic were wild exaggerations.

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Pipikaula Corner: Fauci revealed as fear-mongering, fame-loving fraud

<title>Pipikaula Corner: Limiting the wrong terms</title>

It's an election year, and some people are running on the popular idea that legislators and Congress should have term limits to prevent lifers from working the system. ASD Editor in Chief A. Kam Napier argues this is a great idea, with the wrong target. What if it's actually the government workforce itself that needs a term limit?

Pipikaula Corner: Limiting the wrong terms

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Sterling Higa

The Moanalua High School girls wrestling team has won five state titles in a row. That is the sort of sentence that usually ends a story. This week it begins one.

Sean Sakaida coached that team through four of those titles. He is 

, accused of producing child pornography with one of his wrestlers. Court records say he began dating the girl when she was in ninth grade.

Within a day of the FBI posting a tip form, two more possible victims came forward.

The morning after Sakaida’s arrest, the mother of his three children walked into Family Court with a handwritten petition for a protective order. She alleged that he abused her children, and she asked the court to keep him away for 20 years.

The courts have not yet ruled. But the public record is already heavy enough to ask: How did he get here?

The wrestlers were children. Their parents signed the permission slips and drove them to practice and trusted a man — and the school that hired him — to help form their daughters.

That formation is what a coach is for. A parent lends a child to a coach for a few hours a day so the child can learn to work hard, compete well, and get up off the mat.

Sakaida, by his own account, made himself available at all hours. In 2012, at Roosevelt High School, a parent accused him of kissing a 13-year-old wrestler and texting other girls as late as 3 a.m. He denied the kiss. He did not deny the texts. He told the Star-Advertiser he was only helping students with their problems, and that former students still called him “because he was always available.”

Every parent should hear alarm bells in that sentence. A 30-year-old man texting other people’s teenage daughters at 3 a.m. is not “available.” He is a threat. Teens have problems, and they should carry those problems to their parents. A coach who becomes the person they carry them to instead has not added something to a family. He has taken something from it. The best-friend coach is a type we have learned to admire. It is a type we should learn to resist.

The Department of Education investigated in 2012. But it never called the police. Sakaida was placed on leave. The next year Moanalua hired him. Moanalua’s athletic director has 

 whether the school knew about the 2012 allegations.

, and anyone with a search engine could have found it in under a minute. If Moanalua knew, that is one kind of trouble. If Moanalua did not check, that is another.

Then Sakaida won: First a few individual champions, then four state titles in a row. In 2025 the school received a complaint that he was in a relationship with a 17-year-old wrestler. The school investigated. Again, no one called the police.

Sakaida was placed on leave, his contract lapsed, and his name went into a confidential registry. According to federal prosecutors, the relationship continued for months afterward. It took a private citizen tipping the FBI in January to bring in anyone with a badge.

Wrestling is a fine sport. It builds tough, hard-working people, because the mat does not lie. It teaches responsibility, because a wrestler who loses cannot blame a teammate.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to win, and nothing wrong with winning. But the desire to win is like fire: useful in the hearth, ruinous in the curtains.

We know what that desire looks like when it gets loose. Students who live in the weight room and skip the classroom. Teenagers taking steroids to gain an edge. Schools that hire a coach with a complaint already on file because his teams bring home hardware.

The desire to win at any cost is idolatry, pure and simple, and idols always want to be fed. In this case, it appears, girls were the offering.

Here is what happens next if nothing changes. The victims will rightly sue. The DOE will settle out of court to avoid the headlines. The settlement will be sealed, and the public will pay the bill without ever learning who knew what. Records requests will die under “pending litigation.” The criminal trial will produce details, and we will consume them the way we consume cold-case podcasts, and then we will forget.

We should not. Every detail that emerges should be read as a specification for reform. A school is not a police department. When a complaint involves a possible sex crime against a child, the school’s first call should be to the people whose job is investigating crimes.

That is already the law. Hawaiʻi makes every school employee a mandated reporter, required to report suspected abuse immediately to Child Welfare Services or the police. It’s not clear that the schools did. The Legislature should ask why, in public, before the settlements seal the answer.

A coaching hire should require a check of past complaints across the whole system, not just a clean criminal record. Parents should ask who is texting their daughter at midnight, and a coach should be dismissed if the answer is him.

Moanalua has a case filled with trophies. At what cost?

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<title>Moanalua won four state titles: Who paid?</title>

In 2012, a parent accused a Roosevelt coach of kissing a 13-year-old wrestler. The next year, Moanalua hired him and he won four state titles. ASD columnist Sterling Higa on idolatry, mandated reporting, and the trophy case nobody wants to look inside.

Moanalua won four state titles: Who paid?

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Haley Lehman

Aloha Spirit

Honolulu-based Jessica Lee’s 420 hours of volunteer service, success on the varsity I golf team, experience as a violinist and a trip to Boston earned her the Congressional Award Gold Medal this year.

 is awarded to young people who log a minimum of 400 hours of voluntary public service, 200 hours of personal development, 200 hours of physical fitness and a five-day, four-night expedition or exploration during a two-year period. 

Lee became one of 877 gold medalists from across the U.S. this year. She told Aloha State Daily that she aspires to serve the community and treat everyone with kindness.

Congressman Ed Case presented the award, a gold medal from U.S. Congress and a certificate of special recognition to Lee in August. He said that the award encourages high expectations, perseverance, resilience and achievement. Lee is the seventh person to receive the gold medal in his district in the last quarter-century, Case said.

Lee told ASD she was excited when she learned that she would receive the award, and that she found joy in the application process, which reinforced time management skills, discipline and resilience, she said, adding that her volunteer service led her to make new connections and get more involved in her community.

Lee’s volunteer service in health care stems from her grandfather’s experience in Korea after he was diagnosed with lung cancer. She said that her grandfather received misinformation about his diagnosis and treatment, and this experience led her to volunteer in the medical field in Hawaiʻi. 

Lee spent time with elderly patients in the adult care centers at St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaiʻi, interacted with patients and doctors and shadowed medical professionals.

When she started volunteering at St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaiʻi, she saw families facing language barriers that prevented them from fully understanding the information they received from medical professionals. Lee said that when language barriers are removed, patients can ask the right questions and have a greater sense of agency over their medical decisions.

“I noticed that there were different underserved pockets in our community and I wanted to help address those pockets,” she said.

She started a nonprofit called Cancer Health Awareness & Mindfulness Program (

) to empower patients to empower patients through health literacy. Through CHAMP, Lee organizes workshops on cancer risks, prevention strategies and local resources. This summer, CHAMP partnered with 

the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center Skin Van 

to host a skin cancer awareness event at Ala Moana Beach Park.

Lee also helps lead Caring of the Elderly at Punahou School, which serves kūpuna in Mānoa twice a month.

Golf has been a big part of Lee’s life since she was 4 years old when her family moved from New York to Hawaiʻi, she noted.

“Sports are very addicting in a way because you just have this adrenaline, love, passion, for the sport,” she said, adding that playing golf has made her more resilient and taught her about failure.

“Even if you fail or even if you have this one terrible shot, you can still move on and have the bravery and courage to move forward," she continued. "It’s taught me to step out of your comfort zone to do something brave and try.”

The Punahou Varsity I girls golf team won the state championship three years in a row and Lee placed second in the state in 2024.

Lee started playing violin in fourth grade and got involved with the school orchestra in fifth grade.

“I really enjoy playing the violin and experiencing the different repertoire and music that they select,” she said.

During Lee’s trip to Boston in the spring of 2025, she toured college campuses, visited museums, explored the city and tried new foods.

She said that navigating the transportation system was the most challenging part of the trip. It was her first riding the subway, known as the “T," and admittedly got lost at times.

Lee has been advocating for Korean heritage and language in school curriculums since she was in the seventh grade. It started when she voiced to include Korean as part of the Punahou School curriculum during the Damon Speech. She created a petition that 300 students signed and advocated to neighborhood boards and the Hawaiʻi Legislature to include Korean heritage initiatives in schools.

“Families often lose their heritage language in three generations,” she said. “If you can be taught during schools, you can understand your culture more and connect with your grandparents.”

As a senior, Lee is applying to colleges and hopes to pursue the intersection of public health and culture to become a physician. She said she hopes to empower people to have more agency over their medical decisions through health literacy.

“The best way to empower patients is with the information and knowledge and questions to ask.”

Jessica Lee

<title>Punahou School senior earns Congressional Award Gold Medal</title>

Jessica Lee, a senior at Punahou, was awarded the highest honor presented to young people by the U.S. Congress in August for her achievement in voluntary public service, personal development, physical fitness and leadership.

Punahou School senior earns Congressional Award Gold Medal

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Stephanie Salmons

Business & Tourism

A dozen organizations have received thousands of dollars in grant money from Kaua‘i County Office of Economic Development’s Innovation Grant program.

In a recent announcement, OED said the grant program, now in its sixth year “aims to support new or pilot initiatives that advance innovation, address community challenges and strengthen Kaua‘i’s economic development.”

The goal? To fund “innovative projects that generate both short-term and long-term economic growth and diversification,” the announcement noted.

According to OED, the office received 28 proposals this year. The proposals received public feedback and the comments were incorporated into the evaluation and scoring of the projects.

The 12 selected proposals received a total of $368,362. The organizations and projects that have received funding are:

You can view all the proposals submitted for this year’s Innovation Grant Program at 

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<title>Innovation Grants will help address community challenges on Kaua‘i</title>

Kaua‘i County's Office of Economic Development recently announced the 12 grant recipients. The selected proposals received a total of $368,362.

Innovation Grants will help address community challenges on Kaua‘i

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ASD Staff

Daily Smile

Have you started decorating for Halloween?

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Daily Smile: Friday, Oct. 2, 2026

It's the start of spooky season, time to get your costumes ready!

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Hawai'i Skies

Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Barbara Rasmussen on Oʻahu.

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Hawaiʻi Skies: Rain showers

When a tiny orange kitten makes a bold mistake with a farm goose and instantly recruits a giant canine bodyguard...

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My Favorite Local Saying

Nancy Partika shares her favorite saying from "small-kid time."

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My favorite local saying: When 'Wot da frick!' skirts the swear jar

Baby ducks meet puppies for the first time...

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Never doubt the wrestling skills of a duck...

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Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Stephen Amaral at Hoakalei Country Club.

Stephen Amaral

Hawaiʻi Skies: Just a casual walk

Show us a new video of a puppy and a springy door stop thing and we'll watch it every single time...

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Frank doesn't have time for your games, lady...

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Today's Hawai‘i Skies was captured by Aubrey Getty on a flight to Hawaiʻi Island.

ASD Staff

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