Finnegan campaign signs stolen

Republican candidate for lieutenant governor Lynn Finnegan has filed a police report claiming that a large banner and multiple campaign signs were stolen along Kailua’s Kainalu Drive last weekend just before the Fourth of July parade.

"The signs were put up on the parade route by our hard-working volunteers all day on Saturday in preparation for the Kailua Independence Day parade," campaign manager Peter Finnegan said in a release. "We believe the signs were taken to reduce our visibility during the popular parade."

The Finnegan signs were hung near several Duke Aiona campaign banners, which were also taken before the start of the parade, the campaign said.

The owner of one of the homes told the campaign that people claiming to be from the Finnegan campaign asked to be allowed to take down a banner, the campaign said.

Finnegan is a state representative.

NEIGHBOR ISLANDS

Army sets off artillery shell

An Army explosives team from Honolulu detonated an unexploded artillery shell yesterday off Saddle Road on Hawaii island.

A witness walked into the South Kohala Police Station at about 1:30 p.m. Thursday and alerted officers to the ordnance, which was found about 100 yards from the road in a culvert, said county police spokeswoman Chris Loos.

Officials with the Army’s Pohakuloa Training Area called a federal explosives ordnance team, Loos said.

That afternoon, two Schofield Barracks soldiers from the 706th Ordnance Company flew to the Big Island, but waited until morning to detonate the shell because it was already growing dark, said Lt. Col. Matt Garner, spokesman for the unit.

He said the ordnance was a 155-millimeter projectile, about 6 inches wide and 18 to 24 inches long. He said it was about 20 years old, but did not know its origin.

Yesterday the disposal duo, part of a bomb disposal unit that had been deployed to Iraq in 2006, put sandbags around the shell and laid C-4 explosives on top, Garner said.

The explosion destroyed 149 of the 150 sandbags at about 10:15 a.m., Loos said.

She said the shell appeared to be the "head of a projectile from a howitzer cannon."

Police warned motorists away from the road near the 51.5-mile marker between 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. They reopened the roadway at 10:45 a.m.

‘Tree tunnel’ road closed

Maluhia Road along the "tree tunnel" to Koloa will be closed from 8 to noon today to allow the community to spruce up the area. The project is organized by the Po’ipu Beach Resort Association.