BRUSH FIRE CONTAINED
Lightning strike suspected cause of Highway 190 blaze
Above: DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife Heavy Equipment Operator Scott Embernate attaches a hose to
a valve on a 2,000-gallon tanker Monday afternoon along Highway 190 Monday. Below: The fire burned about
1,000 acres along Mamalahoa Highway. PHOTOS BY TIFFANY DEMASTERS/WEST HAWAII TODAY
MOP-UP OPERATIONS
WILL CONTINUE
THROUGHOUT WEEK
BY TIFFANY DEMASTERS
WEST HAWAII TODAY
tdemasters@westhawaiitoday.com
Homeless Villages proposal up against deadline
COUNTY OFFICIALS SAY OTHER FUNDING OPTIONS EXIST IF BILL FAILS
Oahu homeless ‘safe zone’
turns to waste-ridden
encampment
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HI 83 LO 70 WEATHER, PAGE 4A
VOL. 50, NO. 44 16 PAGES
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2018 WESTHAWAIITODAY.COM
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KAILUA-KONA — An
African proverb contends
raising a child “takes a village.”
Hawaii County contends
in a new bill moving
through the state House
of Representatives that
the same concept must be
applied to address the Big
Island’s homelessness crisis.
House Bill 2461, introduced
by Rep. Nicole Lowen
(D-North Kona) at the
request of county officials,
proposes a Hawaii County
Homeless Villages Program
under the umbrella of the
state Department of Human
Services.
The program would fund
50 homeless units — 25 at
two sites in Kailua-Kona
and Hilo, respectively — as
well as two homeless assessment
centers and supportive
services under the U.S.
Department of Housing and
Urban Development’s preferred
Housing First model,
which stresses getting the
homeless housed first and
dealing with any other issues
they may face simultaneously
or afterward.
The bill is backed by
Hawaii County Mayor Harry
Kim and his Executive
Assistant Lance Niimi, who
specializes in combating
the island’s homelessness
problem.
Niimi said the proposal
would include units for both
individuals and families, and
space would be provided for
homeless living in vehicles
who would be granted access
to community centers with
amenities like bathrooms,
communal showers, lockers,
mailboxes and a kitchen. He
said each site could theoretically
support up to 100
people.
The House measure is connected
to the county’s proposed
permanent homeless
site on 15 acres of recently
acquired state land near
Kealakehe High School
dubbed “Village 9.”
The controversial proposal
for Village 9 first came
about last summer after the
Hawaii Police Department
ushered dozens of homeless
out of Old Kona Airport
Park, where many had
BY MAX DIBLE
WEST HAWAII TODAY
mdible@westhawaiitoday.com
SEE HOMELESS PAGE 5A
Bills related to
missile attacks
flying through
LEGISLATION WOULD
UPDATE STATE’S DISASTER
PREPAREDNESS PROTOCOLS
BY MICHAEL BRESTOVANSKY
HAWAII TRIBUNE-HERALD
HILO — Hawaii lawmakers are pursuing
legislation that would update the
state’s disaster preparedness protocols
after the false ballistic missile alert last
month.
House Bill 2582, which was introduced
late last month, would
establish a Hawaii disaster
preparedness task force
to review current disaster
management protocols and
recommend wide-sweeping
changes, if necessary.
“The Legislature finds
that the Hawaii Emergency
Management Agency’s broadcast of a false
alert of an inbound ballistic missile on
Jan. 13, 2018, and the amount of time it
took the state to cancel the false alert is
unacceptable,” the bill reads.
State Rep. Richard Creagan (D-South
Kona and portions of North Kona and
Ka’u), one of the bill’s supporters, said that
while the missile alert “got a lot of people
thinking” about disaster protocols, hurricanes
remain the primary disaster for
which Hawaii residents should prepare.
Creagan also supports House Bill 2452,
which would require all state buildings
constructed after this year to include a
shelter room capable of protecting individuals
against hurricanes or nuclear
fallout.
“Retrofitting existing buildings has been
proposed, and that’s maybe a good idea,”
Creagan said. “But, in the meantime, we
can build new, hurricane-proof schools.”
A third bill, House Bill 1728, will likely
be abandoned, Creagan said. That bill
would have required all schools statewide
to implement a disaster preparedness
plan that shelters students and staff for
SEE BILLS PAGE 6A
Creagan
HONOLULU — City officials have
received complaints that homeless people
from a large encampment are dumping
human waste into Pokai Bay, Oahu,
among other issues, and one official warns
the camp may be shut down unless changes
are made.
State and city lawmakers once looked
at the Puuhonua O Waianae encampment
as a potential model for what government
sanctioned homeless “safe zones”
could look like across the islands. But the
encampment has taken a much different
SEE WASTE PAGE 5A
KAILUA-KONA — A lightning
strike is suspected to be the cause of
a brush fire that scorched about 1,000
acres along Highway 190, fire officials
confirmed Monday.
State and county fire crews have
been battling since Saturday the blaze
that forced the closure of Highway 190,
SEE FIRE PAGE 6A
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