Former Captain Cook
resident and Miss Kona
Coffee runner-up Jeanne
Kapela on Saturday was
crowned Miss Hawaii
2015.
Competing as Miss
Kakaako, Kapela, 20,
beat a crowded field of
28 other contestants in
Honolulu to become the
71st person to hold the
title of Miss Hawaii.
She will go on to repre-
sent the state in the Miss
America scholarship pag-
eant in September.
“When they called my
name, my mind went
blank,” Kapela recalled
in an interview Tuesday.
“Everything around me
went numb. It was like an
out-of-body experience. It
was really incredible.”
Kapela last year was
second runner-up for
Miss Kona Coffee. She
said she was inspired to
win Miss Hawaii by the
loss in August of the
beloved
grandmother
who raised her, Barbara
Kapela of Captain Cook.
“One of the last things
I said to her before she
passed was ‘Grama, I
promise you we’re gonna
walk across that Miss
America stage together,’”
she said.
Kapela plans to use
her new-found fame to
educate the public, espe-
cially children, about
human trafficking. She
notes that there are some
2,500 human-trafficking
victims in Hawaii, half of
whom are children, and
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INDEX
VOL. 47, NO. 154
16 PAGES
BJ PENN REFLECTS ON
HALL OF FAME CAREER
SPORTS, 1B
Entrance fees won’t increase at PUHO
It’s still going to cost just five dol-
lars to visit Puuhonoa o Honaunau
National Historical Park.
Bucking a trend of increased
entrance fees at national parks,
officials at the popular South
Kona destination have decided to
implement increases in the cost
of only one of its passes — and
not until 2017. That’s because of a
large amount of community feed-
back asking that rates for resi-
dents remain the same, according
to the National Park Service, which
launched a campaign last fall to
gather feedback.
“We heard from many resi-
dents that they wanted the rates
to remain the same for locals but
supported a rate increase for non-
residents,” park Superintendent
Tammy Duchesne said in a press
release. “Because we are a national
park system, we must be consis-
tent in how we charge people from
all over the country and world
and cannot have different pric-
es based on residency. Given the
NPS can’t raise the fees for some
people and not others, here at
Puuhonua o Honaunau National
Historical Park we have decided
not to increase the entrance fees.”
The annual tri-park pass, which
covers PUHO, Hawaii Volcanoes
and Haleakala national parks, will
stay at $25 until 2017, when it will
increase to $30. Parks officials had
originally proposed increasing that
401,807
Visitors to Puuhonoa o
Honaunau — a 420-acre park
in South Kona — last year
BY BRET YAGER
WEST HAWAII TODAY
SEE
HONAUNAU
PAGE 5A
WEDNESDAY,
JUNE 3, 2015
WESTHAWAIITODAY.
COM
75¢
KAPELA
CROWNED
MISS HAWAII 2015
When they called my
name, my mind went
blank. Everything
around me went
numb. It was like
an out-of-body
experience. It was
really incredible.
JEANNE KAPELA
2015 MISS HAWAII WINNER
“
”
KONA CONTESTANT
NAMED MISS HAWAII
WEST HAWAII TODAY
PHOTO COURTESY
JON FUJIWARA,
MISS HAWAII
ORGANIZATION
SEE
KAPELA
PAGE 5A
It’s back to the draw-
ing board for an eth-
ics reform measure
that has already made
untold
appearanc-
es before the County
Council over the past
five years.
The council Finance
Committee on Tuesday
post-
poned
the
mea-
sure,
Bill 37,
until
June
30 after
incon-
sisten-
cies were discovered in
its amended text.
Bill 37, by Kohala
Councilwoman
Margaret Wille, picks
up and expands on
some of the language
in bills Mayor Billy
Kenoi had unsuccess-
fully tried to get past
the council. Kenoi, for
example, had want-
ed to prohibit coun-
ty employees from
also holding county
contracts.
Wille’s bill would
allow contacts benefit-
ing a county employ-
ee or immediate fam-
ily under $50,000
as long as they were
awarded in a competi-
tive sealed bid process
with advance notice of
award to the Board of
Ethics.
“I do agree that
there could be more,
but I think that could
be worked on in the
future,” Wille said.
The bill also attempts
to strengthen the part
of the ethics code
prohibiting political
campaigns on coun-
ty time and in county
facilities, an issue the
county Ethics Board
dismissed. That case,
responding to a resi-
dent’s complaint fol-
lowing a 2012 West
Hawaii Today report,
questioned whether
public worker unions
could require county
employees to attend
campaign events on
county time at coun-
ty facilities where
the union’s slate of
Back to the drawing
board for ethics
reform bill
BY NANCY COOK LAUER
WEST HAWAII TODAY
Council gets 3 more months
to work on General Plan
With a deadline for its
input looming Saturday, the
Hawaii County Council, the
policy-making body for the
county, has not yet had any
discussion about one of the
county’s main policy docu-
ments, the General Plan.
Planning
Committee
Chairman Greggor Ilagan,
a Puna councilman, on
Tuesday asked the Planning
Department for three more
months to give the coun-
cil time to create recom-
mended changes in a pro-
cess that is expected to last
until February, 2018. Last
updated in 2005, the plan
was supposed to have been
updated earlier this year.
“I did not put enough
spotlight (on the General
Plan update) as the chair of
this committee,” Ilagan said.
He added he wants to
create a paper trial of res-
olutions defining council
recommendations for the
plan, as a new council and
administration will be in
place by the conclusion of
the process.
The General Plan gov-
erns population density,
urban design, infrastructure
improvements, public access
and preservation of natural
resources and open spaces.
BY NANCY COOK LAUER
WEST HAWAII TODAY
SEE
PLAN
PAGE 5A
Wille
SEE
ETHICS
PAGE 8A
Eventgoers get ready to head out on a canoe ride
during the 2014 Puuhonua o Honaunau National
Historical Park’s annual Hawaiian Cultural Festival
.
CHELSEA JENSEN/
WEST HAWAII TODAY
A model home is seen at the Kamakoa Nui Development in Waikoloa
Village on Tuesday
.
LAURA SHIMABUKU/
WEST HAWAII TODAY
