Sep 12, 2010 | Education
This week, the 11th AMOS (Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance) technical conference, presented annually by the Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB), is being held in Wailea. The conference is the premier event in the field of space situational awareness, and more than 600 leading scientists, engineers, and technical managers from across the country and around the world will be in attendance.
This year, the Space Foundation is co-sponsoring a new educational component to the conference—Space in the Classroom, consisting of two main elements, one for students, the other for teachers. More than 300 Maui middle school students will attend a full-day program with hands-on, space-themed science experiments and demos. The highlight will be a 90-minute “Audience with an Astronaut”, Captain Robert L. Curbeam, Jr., U.S. Navy (retired). Capt. Curbeam is a veteran of two space shuttle flights (Atlantis and Discovery). He has logged over 590 hours in space, including three spacewalks, and will share what it takes to get from middle school to becoming a space explorer.
In a separate conference session, up to 25 teachers from Maui Nui’s middle and high schools will attend a full-day workshop providing classroom activities designed to inspire and enable their students to become the next generation of space explorers and scientists. The training provided will better equip our teachers to engage Maui students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects.
Through MEDB’s partnerships and commitment to unique educational initiatives such as these, Maui Nui’s youth can benefit from opportunities that will prepare them for 21st century workforce opportunities.
Sep 7, 2010 | Events
Focus 2010: A Gubernatorial Conversation will be held on October 6, 2010 and you are invited you to participate in this important forum!
The event is presented by Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) and Hawaii Public Radio (HPR) with support from Akaku Maui Community Television, the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, and the UH-Maui College. This forum will be a dynamic discussion between gubernatorial candidates of the two major parties.
MEDB will focus on topics that matter to our community, and will align those questions with the strategies developed through the Focus Maui Nui process:
- Improve education
- Protect the natural environment and address water needs
- Address infrastructure challenges, particularly housing and transportation
- Adopt targeted economic development strategies
- Preserve local culture and traditions, and address human needs
The 90-minute forum will begin at 6:30 pm and will be moderated by Kayla Rosenfeld, News Director for Hawaii Public Radio. The program will be broadcast live on Akaku Channels 52, 53, 54; the HPR stations of KHPR (88.1 FM), KKUA (90.7 FM) and KANO (91.1 FM); Skype via www.medb.org and www.akaku.org; with live audio streaming on www.hawaiipublicradio.org.
We encourage you to submit a question to the candidates by leaving a comment on this blog post or through one of the channels listed below. Video or written questions are welcome. Deadline for questions is September 24. Every effort will be made to ask the candidates the full range of questions received, in addition, all questions will be submitted to the candidates for their own follow-up.
Exercise your voice. It’s your future.
All the ways people can submit their questions:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/focusmauinui
Twitter: @FocusMauiNui (http://twitter.com/focusmauinui)
Email: info@focusmauinui.com
Call: 808-875-2300
Fax: (808) 879-0011
Mail: Focus Maui Nui, c/o Maui Economic Development Board; 1305 N. Holopono Street, Suite 1; Kihei, Maui, HI 96753
Sep 6, 2010 | Community
Hawaii voters increasingly are taking advantage of early voting by mail or at absentee voting sites. In the 2008 General Election, 35 percent of all Maui voters were early voters—18,229 absentees to 33,810 at the polls. Statewide, 38.5 percent of voters turned in absentee ballots.
Beginning this year, there’s an option for Hawaii voters to receive a mail-in ballot for all elections as long as they maintain their current voting address. Applications for a Permanent Absentee Voter Ballot can be picked up at the Elections Office of the Maui County Clerk, 7th floor, Kalana O Maui, 200 S. High St., or downloaded from the State Elections Office website: http://hawaii.gov/elections/voters
Information and applications for regular mail-in voting also are on the site: http://hawaii.gov/elections/voters/voteabsentee.htm
Applications for mail-in ballots are being accepted through Sept. 11. Mail-in ballots must be delivered to the Maui County Clerk’s office by 6 p.m. on Primary Election Day. County Clerk Jeff Kuwada urged early voters to be that: Get your ballots in early.
Voters who already have decided on their choices can begin walk-in voting on Friday, Sept. 3, through Sept. 11. Walk-in voting will be held:
- Maui County Elections Office, 7th floor/Kalana O Maui, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- On Molokai, Mitchell Pauole Center.
Sep 3, 2010 | Education, Events
This past Saturday, our Maui County community scored an A+ during the MEDB Ke Alahele Education Fund Benefit Dinner held at the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa. Perhaps, numbers speak louder than words… over 560 people attended this awesome event, including Distinguished Educators U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye, his wife Irene Hirano, and Maui County Mayor Charmaine Tavares.
Over 95 Silent and Live Auction items/packages were donated this year. And, drum roll please, over $230,000 was raised for a very worthy cause—Maui County’s students. Mahalo to all the sponsors, supporters, volunteers and attendees for making a difference!
Aug 16, 2010 | Innovation
Preparedness counts when a natural disaster happens. So does getting fast, reliable information on which the public as well as emergency responders can act. The Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) is stepping up to support both.
With communications technology boosting the process, PDC is moving to speed information on threats and hazards to the public, introducing in July 2010 a Disaster Alert application for the iPhone and iPad.
“Disaster Alert puts the latest reliable hazard and disaster information in the hands of the public anywhere in the world,” said PDC Executive Director Ray Shirkhodai.
The apps are the first developed for smart phone based platforms, but PDC will seek development of apps for other mobile systems. The iPhone app is available free in the Apple iTunes store.
PDC, located in Kihei, has long been an information resource on natural hazards through its Disaster Alert and Hazards Atlas – an interactive map displaying data on events around the globe and updated 24/7 through a Disaster AWARE decision support system. A Disaster Alert system was already in operation through Facebook and Twitter connections, sending email messages and Tweets to subscribers directing them latest information on the Atlas. With the iPhone/iPad application, subscribers can review the data on their mobile communications platforms immediately.
The agency is well established as an information management agency in helping states and communities plan for threats of natural events — tropical cyclones, earthquakes, volcanic explosions – as well as hazards caused by man such as wildfires and chemical spills.
Jul 8, 2010 | Environment
Pu‘u ‘Ula‘ula is the highest point on Haleakala’s summit, with an elevation of 10,023 feet. But the mountain was once much higher than this.
In its prime, Haleakala may have reached a height of 15,000 feet.
At one time Maui consisted of 2 separate islands. The sea between them was filled with erosion from the two Volcanoes, and the fertile Central Maui valley was formed connecting the West and South. Factors that have contributed to Haleakala’s shrinking include thousands of years of wind and water erosion that began to carve two large river valleys out of the rim, rapid caldera collapse, and slow sinking into the ocean bed. The volcanoes of the Hawaiian chain do not erupt violently like Mt St. Helens, but rather have a long, sustained and relatively gentle eruptive cycle. They form “shield” volcanoes, so-called because they resemble the silhouette of an ancient Greek shield. As with icebergs, these volcanoes show only a small part of their total mass above water, leaving 95% below on an ocean seamount. Haleakala is the 3rd highest point in the Hawaiian islands. It is also the third highest mountain in the world from seamount to top.
As the Pacific plate moves northwestward at 10 cm per year, it carries the shield-stage volcano away from its heat source. As a result, the volcano erupts less frequently, and the lava erupted will differ chemically from that produced during the shield stage because of the diminished heat supply. These changes define the character of the third stage, called postshield volcanism. Nearly 200 km from the hot spot, Haleakala volcano is still in its postshield stage of volcanic evolution, and has been active for two million years. It remains active, having erupted several times in the past 1,000 years.
Haleakala’s last eruption was near the southernmost foot of the mountain at La Perouse Bay in the mid-1700s. Postshield lava supply is diminished, but not curtailed completely.
Haleakala will erupt again, given the frequency of its past eruptions and long eruptive history. Modern under- standing is that the recent, and coming eruptions are the waning efforts of a postshield-stage volcano.
Question of the Week:
Have you visited Haleakala National Park?
Leave a comment here or post it on the Focus Maui Nui Facebook Page. Mahalo!
Jul 1, 2010 | Community
In the 1920s a select few well-heeled visitors came to vacation in the two or three grand hotels at Waikiki Beach. Some flew in small amphibian airplanes to see the volcanoes on the Big Island, but Maui was seldom on their itinerary.
Inter-Island Airways, Ltd., (which eventually became Hawaiian Airlines), a subsidiary of Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company, landed its first Sikorsky plane on Maui on November 11, 1929. The following year Maui’s first official airport opened at Ma’alaea, and Inter-Island Airways began a daily passenger service to Maui, carrying passengers aboard Sikorsky planes with a 75- minute flight time from Honolulu. In early 1938, construction began on a new Maui airport near Camp 6 in Pu’unene. And during the early 1940’s, the military completed construction of air bases on Maui, including the Pu’unene Naval Air Station. During WWII, as Maui became an important training, staging, and rest area for U. S. military forces in the Pacific, that station was no longer big enough, and the Naval Air Station at Kahului (NASKA) was established in the cane fields and beaches around Kahului. After the war, the site at NASKA was described as the “most potentially ideal commercial airport site,” and in August, 1950, work began on Maui’s new commercial air terminal. The Kahului Airport became Maui’s main commercial and passenger air terminal on June 24, 1952, when Hawaiian Airlines and Trans-Pacific Airlines flights landed. By August, 1959, the year Hawai’i became a state, Maui had committed to developing its own visitor niche and work began at Ka’anapali, Hawaii’s first planned resort. The early 1980’s brought direct service from the mainland to Maui when United Air Lines’ first flight from Los Angeles landed at the Kahului Airport carrying 180 passengers.
Last month, inter-island, domestic, and international flights brought 160,121 visitors to Maui’s expanding Kahului Airport.
Question Of The Week:
How many air flights did you take last year ?
Leave a comment here or post it on the Focus Maui Nui Facebook Page. Mahalo!
Jun 18, 2010 | Community
A telling indicator of economic duress is local residents leaving Hawaii for good.
At the airport, departing family members or friends look no different than other people. There is no way of knowing their reasons for pulling up stakes and leaving Hawaii. The census eventually tells us what happened. During the 1990s, 118,201 more people left Hawaii to reside in the mainland U.S. than all the people who migrated to Hawaii from other states. The most recent exodus of islanders to the mainland began as a trickle in 1990, gaining momentum during 1995 to 2000, when out-migrants totaled 201,293, a number greater than the population of Maui County today.
A Census Bureau report released in 2003 stated that from 1995-2000, “among all states, the highest net out-migration rate was in Hawaii.” The pace of out-migration lessened after 2000 as the economy improved. However, the exodus resumed two years later. In 2006-2007, there was net out-migration of 11,849, and the trend continued the following year with the onset of the current recession.
Today there is evidence of a new population flight from Hawaii. As Hawaii’s annual unemployment rate jumped from 4% to 7% in 2009, Maui County’s climbed to over 9%, and total net out-migration from July, 2008 to July, 2009 was 5,298 people. But the sheer numbers of departing residents do not tell the whole story. Not all departures from Hawaii result from economic hardship.
Many local students leave to attend colleges on the mainland. Seniors are attracted to more affordable retirement locations. Some who leave are not native-born at all, but mainlanders who, after sampling life in Hawaii, return to their homes of origin. For others, leaving home is a consequence of falling in love, or wanderlust. And our transient military population adds to the count of mainland relocations. Population loss is a sensitive social issue, especially with the out-migration of youth and a skilled workforce. Although Americans are notoriously mobile people with an ongoing saga of population movement, a state or county that is aiming for economic stability and Sustainability must address these trends.
Question Of The Week:
Has a family member left Maui Nui for work?
Leave a comment here or post it on the Focus Maui Nui Facebook Page. Mahalo!
Jun 10, 2010 | Environment, Sustainability
In 1790, Capt. John Kendrick of Boston set out to trade Pacific Northwest seal and otter fur in China. He stopped in Hawai’i to replenish his ship with wood, water and salt. Sailing offshore he smelled a familiar odor emanating from a cooking fire. It was sandalwood, so revered and precious in Asia, and a commodity that was escalating in world prices.
Hawaiians called it ‘iliahi. It was sandalwood that introduced Hawaiians to the concept of credit. Foreign merchants used items such as military uniforms, liquor, guns, silks, leather, silver mirrors, and brass cannon, to barter for sandalwood.
In 1805, after unifying the Hawaiian Islands, King Kamehameha I began to trade with foreign countries. To participate in the lucrative sandalwood trade he purchased a brig, the Ka’ahumanu, and in 1817, with Capt. Alexander Adams, sailed to China. Because of China’s brokerage charges and port fees, he failed to make a profit. But having learned from that experience, he imposed an anchorage fee of 80 Spanish dollars for every ship sailing into Hawai’i harbors. When he died in 1819, the monopoly on ‘iliahi took a downward plunge.
By 1821 credit debt extended on promised sandalwood reached a stunning $300,000. The common people were displaced from their agricultural and fishing duties, and all labor was diverted to harvesting sandalwood. In 1826, to reduce the staggering promissory note debt, the Kingdom of Hawai’i enacted a sandalwood tax.
Every man was ordered to deliver to the government a half picul of ‘iliahi, (a “picul” was 133.3 pounds of ‘iliahi heartwood, at $8 to $10 dollars per picul) or pay four Spanish dollars. Every woman older than 13 was obligated to make a 12-by-6-foot kapa cloth for trade. The Kingdom of Hawaii continued selling sandalwood until the mid 1840s. This period saw two major famines and ‘iliahi was harvested to the point of commercial extinction in Hawai’i forests.
Organizations involved in education, conservation, protection and restoration of native Hawaiian endemic and indigenous plants and eco-systems can be found by visiting the Directory of Resources at http://www.iliahi.org/
Question Of The Week:
What else has been harvested into extinction?
Leave a comment here or post it on the Focus Maui Nui Facebook Page. Mahalo!
Nov 25, 2009 | Community
Na Huihui o Makali’i is a cluster of stars also known as the Pleaides or the Seven Sisters and is much revered in Hawaiian tradition as the place from where the first Hawaiian people came to Earth. In November the appearance of the Makali’i cluster signifies the beginning of Makahiki, the most important season of the year set aside to honor and give thanks to Lono, a fertility and music god who, in agriculture and planting tradition, was identified with rain and food plants. He was one of the four gods (with Kū, Kāne, and his twin brother Kanaloa) who existed before the world was created. It was the celebration of the harvest and a time of personal rest and spiritual and cultural renewal. It was a time when all wars and battles were ceased, tributes and taxes paid by each district to the ruling chief, sporting competitions and contests between villages were organized, and festive events were commenced. Several of the rigid kapu (laws) were eased or temporarily set aside to allow more freedom of activity and easy celebration.
“Here is your nourishment, o gods of Wakea’s descendants. Increase the growth of the land. It is freed, it is freed, it is freed.”
