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Floor amendments made to Maunakea bills
SENATE SCHEDULED TO VOTE THURSDAY
Police: Officer
in murdersuicide
had been
investigated
for domestic
incident
BY JOHN BURNETT
HAWAII TRIBUNE-HERALD
HR audit
wins
national
award
NIMS TO BE
HONORED NEXT
MONTH IN COLORADO
BY NANCY COOK LAUER
WEST HAWAII TODAY
ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com
All eyes on the ears
Lions Club of Kona member Mitch Tam, right, tests a student’s hearing Tuesday at Konawaena Elementary School. CAMERON
MICULKA/WEST HAWAII TODAY
LIONS CLUB OF KONA, COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS
SCREEN STUDENTS’ HEARING AT SCHOOLS
Annie’s Mailbox . . . . . . 4B Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6B Comics INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5B Nation & World . . . . . . . . .3A Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4A Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1B
HI 83 LO 74 WEATHER, PAGE 6A
VOL. 50, NO. 101 16 PAGES
INSIDE
ONE STEP
CLOSER
Public comment
period open for Laaloa
Park; still a lot of
work left to be done
PAGE 7A
▼
PLENTY
OF DEPTH
HPA players
prepare for
weekend
tournament
SPORTS, 1B
▼
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018 WESTHAWAIITODAY.COM 75¢
HILO — A critical audit
of the county Human
Resources
Department
has netted
a national
award for
Legislative
Auditor
Bonnie
Nims
Nims and her staff.
The Association of Local
Government Auditors
recognized the audit with
a 2017 Distinguished
Knighton Award for best
performance audit in the
small audit shop category,
the group announced
Tuesday. The Knighton
Award recognizes the best
SEE NIMS PAGE 5A
KEALAKEKUA — For kids just
starting to learn to read, good hearing
and vision are crucial.
“You need good hearing and you
need good vision to be able to learn
how to read, because it makes
a real difference,” Konawaena
Elementary School principal
Claire Yoshida said. “Because if
you’re not hearing the sounds,
you’re not hearing the words, it
makes it harder for you to learn
how to read.”
To identify any possible issues
that could hinder learning in young
students, a team of about 20 volunteers,
including Lions Club of
Kona members, state Department
of Health public nurses and
community members, is moving
throughout West Hawaii to screen
hundreds of keiki as part of the
annual Lions Hearing Screening
Program.
“Our goal is to reach as many
kids, (kindergarten) through second
grade, to provide them the
opportunity to get a hearing
screening that they would not otherwise
get,” said Nina Eejima, a
member of the Lions Club of Kona
and chairperson of the hearing
screening committee.
Given how integral hearing is
for early learners, Yoshida said it’s
crucial that any issues that could
impede a child’s hearing be caught
sooner rather than later.
“We want to catch any hearing
deficits early, because that’ll
improve their chances of being
able to read and do math and do all
the other content areas on grade
level,” Yoshida said. “Once they
start falling behind, it becomes
very difficult to catch them up.”
On Monday, volunteers screened
about 240 students at four West
Hawaii schools and continued
Tuesday at Konawaena Elementary
School and Holualoa Elementary
School. The volunteers screened
about 150 students at Konawaena
and 180 at Holualoa. Another
roughly 60 students at Holualoa
Elementary School are expected
to receive screenings when volunteers
pick up again later this
month.
Last year, the effort reached
674 first and second graders at
area schools, according to a news
release. With the inclusion of kindergartners
this year, Eejima said,
volunteers anticipate screening
more than 1,600 students.
“It’s not about us,” she said. “It’s
about serving needs that are there
in the community right now.”
The hearing screenings started
in 2008 under the leadership
BY CAMERON MICULKA
WEST HAWAII TODAY
cmiculka@westhawaiitoday.com
We want to
catch any
hearing
deficits early,
because
that’ll
improve their
chances of
being able to
read and do
math and do
all the other
content areas
on grade level.
CLAIRE YOSHIDA
KONAWAENA ELEMENTARY
SCHOOL PRINCIPAL
SEE HEARING PAGE 8A
The state Senate will vote on
two controversial bills affecting
Maunakea later this week
after making floor amendments
on Tuesday.
The amendments change
the effective date of House
bills 1585 and 1985 to Dec.
31, 2033. That’s when the
University of Hawaii’s lease
for the Maunakea Science
Reserve ends. Floor votes are
scheduled in the Senate for
Thursday.
Both bills were crafted
through a process known as
“gut and replace,” where a
bill’s contents are deleted and
replaced by a measure that
already failed or with new
language.
As amended, HB 1585 still
prevents new construction on
the mountain until UH conducts
financial, performance
and organization management
structure audits related
to Maunakea; adopts administrative
rules for Maunakea;
implements remaining action
items in the Maunakea
Comprehensive Management
Plan; and receives a new master
lease for the Maunakea
Science Reserve.
Instead of being effective
immediately, those mandates
would take effect at the end
of the existing lease, which
would presumably not impact
the Thirty Meter Telescope.
But it also would seem to take
the teeth out of the legislation.
UH is currently working
on those issues, minus the
audits.
The bill now also says the
ban on construction doesn’t
apply to telescope removal or
maintenance. Still, the bill says
the audits must be done by the
2020 legislative session, which
conflicts with the effective
date.
UH spokesman Dan
Meisenzahl said the university
is still concerned with the legislation
because the effective
date can change before the session
ends. He said UH doesn’t
think the audits are necessary
since multiple reviews have
been done on its management
of Maunakea, including a
highly critical audit from 1998,
but isn’t strongly against them.
BY TOM CALLIS
HAWAII TRIBUNE-HERALD
SEE BILLS PAGE 5A
Police said Tuesday that
Christopher R. Kapua-
Allison, a Hawaii Police
Department officer who
shot his estranged wife
and then himself in a
murder-suicide Sunday
at the officer’s Mountain
View home, had been
the subject of a criminal
investigation into an
alleged domestic violence
incident.
According to Capt.
Randall Medeiros
of the Hilo Criminal
SEE OFFICER PAGE 6A
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