Ka`u News Briefs Feb. 24, 2011

Plans for land surrounding Pohue Bay will be explained at a meeting sponsored by the developers.

ELEMENTS OF A COMMUNITY BENEFITS PACKAGE are being promised to community groups in Ka`u at small meetings throughout the district. Aaron Eberhardt, spokesman for the Kahuku Villages, Nani Kahuku `Aina project, has suggested the restoration of Na‘alehu Theatre, building a veterans center, a civic center, a heritage park around Pohue Bay and a rodeo grounds along Hwy 11 near Ocean View. The development group, led by Val Peroff and his daughter, are seeking to build an oceanfront resort with 400 to 600 hotel rooms, 35 to 50 oceanfront condominiums, 250 to 300 golf villas, 75 to 80 one-acre oceanfront, single-family estate lots, 145 to 160 golf estates and another 160 to 200 estates of one acre or larger. There would be a golf course and commercial centers. The development site is between South Point and Ocean View on the 16,000 aces owned by the Peroffs.
     The developers are hosting a communitywide meeting to discuss their plans at Na`alehu Community Center next Wednesday, March 2 at 6 p.m. Everyone is invited to attend.

THE STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE has approved the use of a fungus on coffee trees to fend off infestation by the coffee borer. The fungus, which is already approved in all states on the mainland, is expected to become available within a week at Crop Production Services and BEI in Hilo and will cost between $70 and $130 a quart. The fungus, called Beauveria Bassiana, is naturally occurring in the soils in Hawai`i but may have died back during the recent drought allowing the coffee borers, which are killed by the fungus, to infest coffee farms in Kona. Some of the farms were devastated. Ka`u coffee farms were largely spared of coffee borer infestation, but having the fungus available to fight the borer is seen as a way to protect the precious new Ka`u Coffee industry. 

     The fungus is sold under brand names called BotaniGard ES and Mycotrol O.

HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC INDUSTRIES, which owns Hawaiian Electric Light Co. here on the Big Island, is facing a strike that has been approved by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1260. The union and management met yesterday but with no result. Electric workers are waiting for instructions from the union. The call to strike follows a vote last week in which union members voted against a proposed contract. 

STATE BOARD OF LAND & NATURAL RESOURCES chair William Aila, Jr. is expected to be confirmed in his new position sometime next week. The Senate delayed the confirmation yesterday in reference to examining Aila’s testimony against laws that would ban tropical fish collecting. He held a commercial aquarium fish permit, and his wife has held a commercial fishing license. In respect to remaining fair in his new position, he said, they have both given up their licenses, which have been idle for several years. Sen. Clayton Hee predicted that the former harbormaster on O`ahu will be confirmed when the Senate goes back into session next Thursday, according to a report in the Honolulu Star Advertiser.

TUTU & ME IS COMING TO PAHALA. Registration is now open for enrollment in the traveling preschool’s new program that begins in March at Pahala Community Center. The program, open to grandparents and caregivers of children up to five years old, aims to help children improve on measures of school readiness and literacy and promotes appropriate learning activities and successful caregiving practices at home.
     For more information and to register, call 929-8571.

THE KOHALA CENTER IS OFFERING a Residential Energy Efficiency workshop today from 10 a.m. to noon at Na`alehu Community Center. Workshop participants learn how to understand their HELCO bill, how to use their electric meter to track down energy waste, how to determine the amount of electricity their electrical appliances and devices use, and how to make smart financial decisions to reduce their home energy usage.