SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2018 WESTHAWAIITODAY.COM $1.50
HILO — Before Hawaii County
creates a redevelopment agency to
guide eruption recovery in Puna, it
may need some help from the state
Legislature.
Roy Takemoto, executive assistant
to Mayor Harry Kim, said state law
may only allow counties to have one
such agency at a time. The county
already has one for the Banyan
Drive hotel area, which has suffered
from lack of funding.
Takemoto said an amendment to
state law would likely be part of a
special session of the Legislature, if
one is called.
He said there is still a window
for holding the session for eruption
Judge won’t
block school
tax ballot
question
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HONOLULU — A
judge has ruled against
a motion by Hawaii’s
four counties to block
November ballots from
asking voters if they
want to amend the
Hawaii Constitution to
allow the state to tax
investment property.
First Circuit Judge
Jeff Crabtree said
Friday that Hawaii,
Honolulu, Kauai and
Maui counties did not
meet the standards
required for granting a
preliminary injunction,
the Honolulu Star-
Advertiser reported.
The counties are
suing the state, arguing
that the ballot question
is unlawfully vague and
that the Legislature
didn’t follow proper
procedures in passing
the measure.
The bill instructed
the ballot question to
SEE BALLOT PAGE 8A
recovery, which lawmakers have
said needs to be done before the
November general election, if not
much sooner.
Takemoto and Diane Ley, county
Research and Development director,
met with legislative leaders in
Honolulu on Wednesday.
“They gave us some things that
CAPTAIN COOK —
Although the Amy B.H.
Greenwell Ethnobotanical
Garden has remained closed
to the public since the Bishop
Museum shuttered it in 2016,
life continues nonetheless at
the 15-acre site in Captain
Cook.
Much of that is due to the
efforts of dedicated volunteers,
who have ensured the legacy
of botanist Amy Beatrice
Holdsworth Greenwell and its
residents continue to thrive
here, all the while championing
the day residents and visitors
alike can come in and experience
the array of life that grows
here.
“You can tell the love that
has been put into this place,”
said Meg Greenwell, Amy
Greenwell’s niece. “And how
clean everything is and with no
weeds, and it’s amazing.”
Now, with the announcement
of a $550,000 grant
through a federal community
forest program, the nonprofit
Friends of Amy B.H. Greenwell
Ethnobotanical Garden have
collected $1.3 million in raised
funds that can go toward purchasing
the garden from the
Bishop Museum.
And on Saturday, one day
after what would have been
Amy Greenwell’s 98th birthday,
the garden’s supporters celebrated
the announcement at
their annual meeting and open
house held at the garden.
“This is a nice whack of
money,” Maile Melrose, president
of the Friends Amy B.H.
Greenwell Ethnobotanical
INDEX Annie’s Mailbox . . . . . . . 6B Classified. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1D Home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1C Nation & World. . . . . . 3A-4A Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6A Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1B
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HI 89 LO 76 WEATHER, PAGE 6A
7
58551 00781 7
VOL. 50, NO. 252 28 PAGES
INSIDE
TOO LATE
FOR SYRIA?
US plans to limit
region’s chaos may
be too little, too
late, experts say.
PAGE 4A
▼
WILDCATS
WIN
Konawaena opens
BIIF season with
win over Keaau
SPORTS, 1B
▼
New life for botanical garden
GREENWELL GARDEN NONPROFIT AWARDED $550K FROM FEDS
BY CAMERON MICULKA
WEST HAWAII TODAY
cmiculka@westhawaiitoday.com
Maile Melrose, president of the Friends of Amy B.H. Greenwell
Ethnobotanical Garden, speaks Saturday at the garden during
a celebration of Greenwell’s birthday and the group’s annual
meeting. CAMERON MICULKA/WEST HAWAII TODAY
The night sky is illuminated by a lava eruption in
Pahoa on July 3. DENNIS ODA /HONOLULU STAR-ADVERTISER
VIA AP
Rewriting for recovery
STATE LAW CHANGE MAY BE NEEDED FOR REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY
BY TOM CALLIS
HAWAII TRIBUNE-HERALD
SEE LAVA PAGE 7A
BOOM OR BUST
INNOVATIVE PROJECT WILL CORRAL PACIFIC OCEAN’S PLASTIC TRASH
BY OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO
— Engineers set to sea
Saturday to deploy a trash
collection device to corral
plastic litter floating
between California and
Hawaii in an attempt to
clean up the world’s largest
garbage patch — in the
heart of the Pacific Ocean.
The 2,000-foot (600-
meter) long floating boom
was being towed from San
Francisco to the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch —
an island of trash twice
the size of Texas.
The system was created
by The Ocean Cleanup,
an organization founded
by Boyan Slat, a 24-yearold
innovator from the
Netherlands who first
became passionate about
cleaning the oceans
when he went scuba
diving at age 16 in the
Mediterranean Sea and
saw more plastic bags
than fish.
In this Aug. 27 photo, a long floating boom that will be used to corral plastic litter in the Pacific
SEE BOOM PAGE 9A Ocean is assembled in Alameda, Calif. THE OCEAN CLEANUP/VIA AP
SEE GREENWELL PAGE 8A
link