Hawai'i Skies

My Favorite Local Saying

Cartoons

Daily Smile

Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

Adopt a Pet

Daily Features

Square Kady Pascual Headshot RGZ5762

Kady Pascual

Today’s social media find comes from @CaricatureParty: it’s so funny, you can’t even get mad at it!

Caricatureparty

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Get honey roasted in the streets of Waikīkī

Today’s social media find comes from @MitchandBrie, with a questionable playlist.

Mitch And Brie car dj 16x9

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Embracing music from the car DJ

Today’s social media find comes from @ChickenHappyHour. Someone’s knocking on the coop door.

Chickenhappyhour 16x9

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Straight from the coop

Today’s social media find comes from @Tui56, showing his aloha at Long Beach Airport.

Tui56 warm welcome

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Warm welcome

Today’s social media find comes from @TheRealFaevur, singing a nice tune.

The Real Faevur

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Mele for the people

Today’s social media find comes from @Kirajbeltran, with a mean tan.

Kirajbeltran tan lines 16x9

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Good times and tan lines

Today’s social media find comes from @HumphreySaccaro, stylin’ in his lifted yota.

Firefly golden retriever driving a lifted Toyota 4runner 136381

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Dogs are cooler than humans

Aloha Spirit

Listen to KHVH weekdays for your chance to win $1,000. Offer expires July 25.

25 7 11 Freedom Fund 1 16x9

Giveaway: KHVH News Radio’s cash contest presented by Aloha State Daily

Today’s social media find comes from @AIFusionBytes, most likely showcasing your aunteh, sistah, braddah, or cousin.

25 7 9 AI Fusion Bytes

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: ʻOhana means family

Today’s social media find comes from @AccuratePlumbingHawaii, making his sister do all the heavy lifting.

Accurate Plumbing

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Big sister duties

Today’s social media find comes from @CabinCrewCouple, with a case of the back to work sickness.

cabincrewcouple

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Monday work blues

Today’s social media find comes from @ erwin.paulino.realtor, with a local kine joke

Erwin paulino realtor TRAINING BRA

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Learning a new language

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

A state audit of Gov. Josh Green’s Kauhale homelessness support initiative found $13.7 million of mismanagement, including sex toys bought on the state’s dime.

The Kauhale Initiative, which Green proposed during his 2022 gubernatorial campaign, establishes small communities and shared spaces for homeless people in an effort to reduce homelessness statewide. As of June, the state 

 26 Kauhale projects throughout the state, offering more than 900 units.

 by the State Auditor released Wednesday found that the Statewide Office on Homelessness and Housing Solutions, which administers the project, did not properly oversee the public funds it spent, neglecting to implement basic accountability measures such as signed agreements with contractors.

In some cases, the audit found that SOHHS allowed work on projects to begin before contracts were signed; in at least two cases, a 20-home project in Kalihi Valley and a now-closed medical respite unit, no contracts were signed at all.

The audit highlights SOHHS’ relationship with HomeAid Hawai‘i, a contractor selected to develop plans for many of the Kauhale communities. In actuality, SOHHS awarded HomeAid several no-bid agreements before those plans were even developed, thus committing the state to paying for work before the scope of that work was ever made clear.

For example, on two contracts — for the Ka Malu Ko‘olau Kauhale near Windward Community College, and the Ho‘okahi Leo project in Kalihi, both HomeAid projects — SOHHS paid out more than $1 million more than was approved in budgets, the audit states.

These budget overruns were possible because SOHHS did not require proper accountability for project changes. The audit notes that at one project, the Alana Ola Pono development in Iwilei, HomeAid replaced a planned $500,000 communal facility with imported South Korean units that cost about $1.23 million. Despite this cost increase, the project only constructed 45 units instead of the 75 units specified in the agreement.

Furthermore, HomeAid reportedly included “10% indirect costs” in its development agreements, for which the state paid out more than $3.3 million across the nine HomeAid contracts the audit reviewed. But SOHHS records reportedly do not reflect how that 10% figure was derived or what those indirect costs were.

Ultimately, the audit identified $7.7 million in unauthorized expenditures that SOHHS paid out: for example, for the Alana Ola Pono project, SOHHS paid a $2.5 million advance to HomeAid before a contract was ever signed, and the subsequent agreement did not document that advance.

In other cases, SOHHS paid more than $110,000 for expenses that were explicitly given zero-dollar budgets in its development agreements. A HomeAid contract that budgeted $0 for vehicle rentals nonetheless paid out more than $3,000 for the HomeAid CEO — potentially current CEO Kimo Carvalho, although the audit does not specify — to rent a vehicle for two months.

Other HomeAid expenses on the state’s dime include a $5,020 bill for an unnamed HomeAid CEO to attend a conference in Las Vegas in 2024. That bill included two $54 charges for an “intimacy kit,” which the audit confimed included “condoms, lubricant, vibrators, restraints, an eye mask and a feather tickler.” Carvalho 

 the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that those charges were mistakenly incurred when he inadvertently moved the kit in his Vegas hotel room's minibar, which he believed triggered an automatic charge.

On top of the unauthorized $7.7 million was another $5 million the audit deemed “questionable,” as SOHHS could not establish whether those expenses were directly related to the contracted work. Some of those expenses included a $78,000 bill for a condo rental in Wailuku, whose purpose for the Kauhale project was never confirmed.

And SOHHS never documented work done to justify another $1 million in HomeAid personnel costs.

While the audit notes that HomeAid “had little experience as a planner or developer” when it was first selected for the Kauhale project, it does not identify who at the state is responsible for placing such heavy reliance on the company — coordinators and state officials variously pointed fingers at each other, the report found.

In the face of this mismanagement, the audit issued recommendations for SOHHS, including the establishment of written policies and controls for the Kauhale projects that require fully executed contracts before work begins, procedures for reviewing payment requests, a comprehensive review of all HomeAid payments, and more. It also recommends that the department “recover from HomeAid amounts that the comprehensive review determines were not reimbursable under the applicable agreements.”

Green’s office announced Wednesday that SOHHS has accepted all recommendations within the audit, but asserted that the report contains “significant factual errors.”

Among those errors, according to Green’s office, were several of the “unauthorized payments” identified in the audit. Green’s office stated that the $2.5 million Alana Ola Pono advance, along with another $2.4 million to HomeAid for a pre-development agreement, were authorized.

Green’s office also reported that SOHHS has “aggressively taken steps” to recover improper expenses, including more than $16,000 in unauthorized travel expenses.

“We welcome accountability and will continue strengthening the program,” Green stated. “But we will not lose sight of what matters most: kauhale are working, they are changing lives — and we are going to keep building on that progress because the people of our state deserve a real solution to this generational problem.”

Green’s office stated that, since 2024, the number of homeless people statewide dropped by 13.1%.

 to the audit Wednesday, stating that the audit “misses the full value” of the company’s approach to deeply affordable housing.

“We believe the audit gave insufficient attention to how the Kauhale Initiative can deliver safe, affordable homes to those most in need,” read HomeAid’s statement.

The statement argued that many of the suspect $13.7 million have already been reconciled, and that “fewer than 5%” of those reconciled transactions have required correction in favor of the state. In fact, the statement goes further, and claims that HomeAid has not been reimbursed for an additional $1.7 million.

The statement went on to note that the audit only investigated nine HomeAid contracts, less than half of the Kauhale Initiative’s total $88.2 million budget.

“We believe that concentration leaves the public without a complete evaluation of program outcomes and value,” HomeAid’s statement read.

Kauhale 16x9

<title>State audit finds Kauhale Initiative made $13.7 million in unauthorized payments</title>

Statewide homelessness initiative saw project changes, airfare and more ballooning budgets, alleges audit.

State audit finds Kauhale Initiative made $13.7 million in unauthorized payments

Lopaka and Tanya Kapanui

Lopaka Kapanui and Tanya Kapanui

Hawai‘i History

Columnists

If you have ever worked in Māpunapuna, you may have wondered why the area seems to flood so easily.

[{"type":"text","text":"The simple answer is that water has not forgotten where it used to go."}]

Long before warehouses, auto dealerships, and busy streets covered the area, Māpunapuna was a low-lying landscape of wetlands, shallow lagoons, and fishponds. The coastal plain between Moanalua and Keʻehi Lagoon was shaped by both freshwater flowing from the mountains and the movement of the ocean. It was an environment well suited to the Hawaiian system of aquaculture, in which fishponds, wetlands, streams, and agricultural lands worked together to provide food for the people. A bustling landscape where people lived and worked for generations.

In the 1920s, maps of the area showed 13 loko i‘a (fishponds) covering more than 800 acres, along with extensive marshland, shallow lagoons, and other lowlands. That landscape began to change as Honolulu expanded. The Māpunapuna Industrial Subdivision was developed by the Damon Estate during the 1940s and 1950s. Wetlands were drained, fishponds were filled, and the low-lying coastal plain was gradually transformed into land suitable for roads, buildings, warehouses, and industry.

Much of the material used to fill the wetlands was coral dredged from Keʻehi Lagoon along with soil, rock, trash, and organic material. The shallow ponds and marshes that had once absorbed and held water were transformed into solid ground for roads, warehouses, businesses, and eventually the industrial district we know today.

The former wetlands once provided space for water to collect, spread out, and slowly drain toward the ocean. But once those areas were filled and covered with pavement and buildings, much of that natural water storage disappeared. Over the decades, the fill itself has compacted and settled. Some parts of Māpunapuna have sunk several feet, leaving portions of the industrial district at or below sea level during high tides.

There is another problem. During high-tide events, seawater can push back through the drainage system rather than flowing harmlessly out to sea. During heavy rain, enormous quantities of stormwater are moving through the same low-lying system. When high tide and heavy rain arrive together, the drainage system has nowhere to put all that water easily. The result is the familiar flooding of streets and parking lots.

So when Māpunapuna floods, it is not simply a modern drainage problem. It is the consequence of building an industrial neighborhood on a landscape that was designed by nature, and carefully used by generations of Hawaiians, to hold water.

When we say “the water remembers,” we mean that water has a way of returning to the places where it once flowed. We may change the landscape, fill the ponds, and build over the wetlands, but the water has not forgotten.

As the water remembers where it once flowed, perhaps the land remembers who once walked across it. Before Māpunapuna became an industrial district, these lowlands were part of a much older Hawaiian landscape. In that older landscape, we begin to encounter another kind of story. Stories of shadowy figures that would scare workers and customers. Tales of the huakaʻi pō, the night marchers, whose processions are said to continue along ancient paths even after the world around them has been transformed.

People used to talk all the time about the old 99 Ranch Market being haunted. Many have said that the night marchers used to walk right through the massive grocery store and indoor Chinatown, leaving a mess of furniture in their wake. It’s where the Home Depot is now.

My hānai brother Paul worked at the old Gibsons in Māpunapuna. Not in the store as a clerk, because he didn’t have the demeanor for it. He worked in the warehouse, bringing all the needed items out to stock the floor.

Paul said that the floor in the main part of the store would always sink, no matter how many times it was repaired and filled in. Rumors circulated that night marchers entered through an opening in the earth a few blocks away, walked right through the store, and exited where the floor sank in the middle of Gibson’s store. Employees also said they would see shadows and apparitions floating past customers as if they weren’t there. As a kid, I found it funny because I could imagine a customer losing their mind after seeing a ghost float right past them in a random aisle.

“I feel sorry for whoever gotta do inventory at night,” he’d shake his head. “Hopefully, they don’t have to work by themselves.”

He said that sometimes you got the feeling you weren’t alone, and it felt like a lot of people were pressed up against you. The experience made it hard to breathe, even though you could physically see there was nothing there. Paul would rub the crucifix on his necklace and pray the Our Father again and again, asking for protection.

His most traumatic experience came when his shift was over, and the sun had not set. He clocked out, walked to the parking lot, put the key in the ignition, and put his old Pontiac in gear.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Paulito,” the voice whispered in his ear. “Don’t go home yet.”"}]

My brother said he jumped out of the car and backed away, his heart pounding and his mind racing. The car was still running, but it began smoking for no reason, and suddenly, the radiator blew, spewing hot liquid all over the place.

Despite his Catholic upbringing, Paul attributed the warning to whatever presence was trying to make itself known in the warehouse and store.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I knew they weren’t trying to harm us,” Paul said."}]

But the spiritual activity was still too much to bear, so he planned to quit and work with our father at Easy Appliance. But that’s another story.

Mapunapuna

<title>The Forgotten Landscape of Mapunapuna</title>

Tides and rain, time and spirits converge in this now-industrial area mauka of the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. Here is the true history of a region shaped first by nature and then by two different cultures in two different eras, where traces remain of days and people long past.

The Forgotten Landscape of Mapunapuna

Honolulu’s new police chief named two officers as his deputy chiefs Monday.

 David Lazar as the new chief of the Honolulu Police Department in July, Lazar said he would take some time before naming who will serve as his deputies. That process of consideration ended on Monday, when he named Maj. Brandon Nakasato and Maj. Parker Bode to serve as his permanent deputy chiefs.

Lazar said Nakasato will serve as the interim chief when Lazar is unavailable. Nakasato will lead HPD’s field operations, while Bode will lead its Administrative Operations.

Nakasato has 27 years of service with HPD, and has extensive experience throughout the department’s various investigation divisions, Lazar said. Nakasato was a graduate of the University Laboratory School and most recently served as Interim Deputy Chief, overseeing field operations, during the leadership transition period.

“He cares greatly about the department, and he is the best selection at this time as we move forward as a mission,” Lazar said.

Bode, meanwhile, has 16 years of experience, much of which was in the HPD’s Human Resources Division, and has most recently served as Lazar’s chief of staff. Lazar said Bode, who is 39 years old, is “one of the youngest deputy chiefs in HPD history.”

Bode’s father was an HPD major who retired after 33 years of service, Lazar said.

“[Bode] brought an innovative approach to HR in whatever assignment he took on,” Lazar said. “He is leading the department's effort to gather input from sworn professional staff to help shape HPD's new strategic plan: What our department will look like three or five or even 10 years from now.”

Lazar said he selected Nakasato and Bode after working closely with them in the weeks since his appointment, and after one-one-one conversations with them and other HPD majors, assistant chiefs and others.

“This was a challenging decision to make, but these two men rose above,” Lazar said, adding that both deputies have “great reputations” within HPD and in their communities.

Mayor Rick Blangiardi commended Lazar’s decision Monday, saying that picking dependable deputies is essential for any leader.

“I know what it’s like to have people close to you in these leadership challenges that you can absolutely trust beyond a shadow of a doubt,” Blangiardi said.

PXL 20260831 213253293 TS 000 16x9

<title>Lazar names HPD's new deputy chiefs</title>

Maj. Brandon Nakasato and Maj. Parker Bode are Chief David Lazar's permanent deputy chiefs after Monday announcement.

Lazar names HPD's new deputy chiefs

In its original conception in the 1960s, the H3 highway was to pass through Moanalua Valley, with another tunnel to be bored through Maunakapu and the Ko‘olau Range. Plans for the six-lane highway, meant to ease traffic buildup on the Pali and Likelike Highways, became entangled in a decade-long dispute leading all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The State Department of Transportation promised a scenic highway that would open up the privately held lands and, at the same time, would coordinate with the landowners to develop a historic and botanical park in the valley. While many people who claimed to be authorities on the subject said that Moanalua Valley held little archaeological or historical importance, one woman spent her lifetime recording extensive oral histories of the valley.

As early as 1902, Gertrude MacKinnon Damon kept a diary of interviews with the people whose families had been stewards of the valley, including Nāmakahelu Makaena, a kumu hula who passed on the mo‘olelo of Moanalua. The Damon family, who have lived in the valley since 1890, created the Moanalua Gardens Foundation and, by using extensive oral histories and enlisting help from conservationists, residents, cultural practitioners, and the general public, kept the plans for H3 tied up in court for nearly a decade. Finally, in a 1976 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an appeals court injunction. The Court effectively stopped the original H3 construction through Moanalua Valley when it ruled that the Department of Transportation had failed to adequately prove there were no feasible alternative routes to Windward O‘ahu.

Despite testimony that Moanalua was of little importance to Hawai‘i and her people, this sacred valley is rich in history and legend. The Moanalua ahupua‘a extends from the ridges of the Ko‘olau Mountain Range down to Āliamanu and Āliapa‘akai, through Māpunapuna to the Honolulu Airport and industrial center to Māmala Bay. One of the most sacred wahi pana within this area is Leilono.

Located on the northern side of the famous hill of Kapūkakī, now known as Red Hill, this entrance to the afterworld was in line with the burial hill of Āliamanu, where O‘ahu’s ali‘i were buried. There at the portal to the underworld stood he ‘ulu o Leiwalo, a breadfruit tree of Leiwalo. A soul would climb the tree and, from one of its two branches, would leap into pō pau ʻole, the everlasting night. However, these branches were deceiving. If a spirit was lacking an ‘aumakua and climbed onto a branch on the western side of the tree, the branch withered at once and broke off, and the spirit would plunge down into a pit of darkness. But if he climbed the other, it would bring help from ‘aumakua, and the soul would see his ancestors in the afterworld from time immemorial.

Moanalua was also the site of intense battles. In the 1780s, Kahekili, the ali‘i of Maui, attacked O‘ahu. Kahahana was the ali‘i of O‘ahu at the time, and after evading Kahekili’s warriors for two years, he was finally caught and killed. After his death, a plot was laid to kill all the ali‘i from Maui, but someone warned them, and the attack was unsuccessful. In retaliation, Kahekili and his warriors massacred all opposition and their families.

Kalaikoa, an ali‘i from Maui, built a long house and named it Kauwalua. He stripped the bones of his enemies, bound them together, and set them up inside and all around the outside of the house. The gruesome sight of this hale iwi, house of bones, stood at Lapakea on the slope into Moanalua and was visible from the shore. A housing development was built over this site, just below Tripler Army Hospital.

In a 1972 interview, Hawaii’s Living Treasure, Dr. Rubellite Johnson, shared a tale of night marchers who came down from the top of Moanalua.

Rudolph Tai, a patriarch of the Mormon Church in Hawai‘i, used to live in the old Damon Tract housing, which is now the airport industrial park. One night, he heard the ghost army approaching from the uppermost part of Moanalua. He could hear their chants, and as they grew closer, he could even hear the hiss of their burning torches as the night marchers made their way toward the sea. For two long hours, Rudolph Tai held his hands over his ears, trying to keep the sound of the ghostly procession out, until the chants and the marching slowly faded away.

But at the same time, Dr. Johnson said, the late watch on a small ship that was anchored in Pearl Harbor recorded in his log a curious event. From midnight until 2 a.m., the man saw a string of torches moving slowly from the top of Moanalua Valley, winding toward the sea where they disappeared.

There are dozens of haunting stories throughout Moanalua, including the high school, stores in Mapunapuna, and businesses in the airport industrial center. My own story took place at Moanalua Gardens.

As we were preparing for a hula festival, our kumu held practice at the gardens a few days before the event. On the way to practice one afternoon, I came across a Hawaiian woman in the parking lot wrapping cords of olonā on a spool. She sat on a chair propped up against the hedges while people walked past her without any acknowledgment.

As I started to pass her, we made eye contact, and she asked me, “Pahi? You get pahi?”

[{"type":"text","text":"She was asking if I had a knife."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“ʻAe,” I replied, “Loaʻa ka pahi.” Yes, I have a knife."}]

I removed a small knife from my pocket and showed it to her. She pulled a cord taught in front of her and nodded. I opened my knife and cut the olonā cord in the place she wanted.

She seemed relieved when she thanked me and went back to wrapping the olonā on her spool.

When I met with my kumu, I explained what happened, and he immediately pulled out his own pocketknife.

“When you go back out to the parking lot after hula, she’s going to ask you to cut the olonā again. Instead of using your own knife,” my kumu instructed, “Use mine.”

He took my knife and placed his own in my hand. Nothing more was said, and we proceeded with our hula instructions for the day. After three hours, the lessons were done, and I made my way back to the parking lot. Just as my kumu said, the Hawaiian woman was still there, winding her olonā on a spool. And just as my kumu said, the woman again asked me to cut a cord of her plant fiber.

Using the knife he gave me, I cut the olonā without incident, but instead of being thankful, the woman scoffed and spat on the ground.

She gathered her olonā fibers and her spool and walked off into the park. I watched her walk right past the security guard who was telling people that the park was closed. He didn’t even glance in her direction, and I wondered if he even saw her.

As soon as I got home, my kumu called and asked about the woman. I told him exactly what happened and asked why he gave me his knife to use.

My kumu explained that the woman was a mo‘o wahine, a very kolohe one. He said that once I used my knife to cut the woman’s cord, it became dull. If I tried to use it again to cut her olonā, it would not have worked. Then, she would have asked me to do something else.

“Whatever that something else was,” he said, “It would lead to another task, then another, until finally, it would cost you your life. Especially now, since you’re under hula kapu.”

The lesson learned that day was that even while in the process of spiritual education on the middle path, there will always be someone or something that will try to lead you astray.

Moanalua Gardens

<title>Moanalua’s Haunting History</title>

If an old Hawaiian woman asks you to cut a cord for her in Moanalua Valley, be very, very careful what you do next. That's just once of the eerie tales of this part of O‘ahu where many battles have raged, from the invasion of Kahekili from Maui to the dispute over the route of H3.

Moanalua’s Haunting History

Katie Helland Headshot

Katie Helland

Arts & Entertainment

 Goes came up with the lyrics for the band’s latest single, “Up Late,” in his living room. The song, which comes from the ‘Āina Haina-based band Backset — where Goes is the lead singer — will release on Spotify, Apple Music and Itunes on Thursday night.

“I was kind of feeling rebellious in my living room,” he told Aloha State Daily. “I started writing a song, and then I kind of put it on the back burner for a little while."

Originally, the surfer was imagining how someone might respond to being told what to do.

“And one day, I was just hanging at my buddy's house and there was this girl that I was talking to at the time, and she had sent me this text message the previous night, and it was keeping me up late just thinking about her text message,” he said. “I was just at my buddy's house jamming the guitar, and then I came up with this line: ‘You got me up late thinking about your message.’ ”

— and some of their other music — live at 9 p.m. on Friday, May 22, at the Secret Spot Honolulu, a café and bar within The Laylow, Autograph Collection in Waikīkī. 

“This is the first song of a six-song EP, so it's a little teaser for what's to come,” he said. “I would say they should come to dance!”

On the Rise Artist with the Henry Kapono Foundation

, a program that supports the careers of Hawaiʻi’s emerging musicians by providing them with paid gigs, master classes and mentorship.  

 a new talent competition launched by Hawaiian Council.

The alternative indie rock band has some reggae influences, as well as psychedelic and ethereal sounds. The band includes Goes, who is the lead singer and plays guitar, Joaquin Browne on guitar, Kobeats on drums, Cam Somlak on bass, and Josh Kay on keys with backing vocals. Kay, who now lives in California, will be joining the band for its performance on Friday.

Backset draws inspiration from a variety of artists.

“I get very inspired by a couple of Aussie bands that I've been listening to since I was in high school,” said Goes, who attended Kaiser High School and then Honolulu Community College.

Some of the groups that influence the band include Sticky Fingers and Ocean Alley, as well as The Police, The Rolling Stones, 

, Pepper, Sublime and Radiohead, he said.

We're very excited to be dropping  new content," Goes said. "We have a music video for the song."

[{"type":"text","text":"The band also recently released its album \"Backset, Vol. 1.\" "}]

Backset

<title>Backset drops new single “Up Late”</title>

The ‘Āina Haina-based band Backset is releasing its first single from a six-song extended play this week. Aloha State Daily caught up with Gabriel Goes, who also performed on NBC’s “The Voice,” Hawaiian Council’s “Hawaiʻi to the World,” and more, about his inspiration for the new music and how to listen.