Maui workers use ferry for Lanai meeting
WAILUKU » Maui County officials chose to ride a ferry to attend the first Lanai Planning Commission meeting since a February crash of a chartered plane killed two county workers and injured three other employees.
Four planning staffers and a deputy corporation counsel took the ferry to Lanai on Wednesday and remained there overnight before heading back on the ferry, the Maui News reported.
Among the staffers who went was Clayton Yoshida, a planning program administrator who said workers thought the ferry would be a good way to resume the meetings.
"For now I guess we’re looking at some alternatives to the (airplane) charter," he said.
Richard Rooney, the 66-year-old pilot of the plane chartered from Maui Air Tours, also died in the Feb. 26 crash, which occurred shortly after takeoff following a planning commission meeting. The crash also killed two women working for the Maui County Planning Department: Tremaine Balberdi, 53, and Kathleen Kern, 50.
Three men who also are Maui County employees were hospitalized with burn injuries.
Yoshida said it was business as usual at Wednesday’s meeting. "Everyone is trying to get back on their feet, slowly, getting back into the things they were trying to do before the crash," he said.
Officers deemed justified in fatal shooting
The Kauai County prosecutor’s office has declined to file criminal charges against police officers involved in the shooting of a 21-year-old Kalaheo man in August.
Mason Saio was fatally shot by officers after he allegedly disobeyed repeated verbal commands to drop weapons and step out of his car. After pointing a loaded rifle at officers, Saio threw the weapon in the direction of the officers and then pointed a loaded shotgun at them, police said. Officers then opened fire, shooting Saio, who died at the scene.
According to a news release issued by the prosecutor’s office Thursday afternoon, a review of the shooting determined the officers were justified in their handling of the incident because they were acting in self-defense or were defending other officers.
At about 10:40 p.m. Aug. 16, four officers were conducting routine checks at the Nawiliwili Harbor jetty area when they saw Saio in a parked 2011 Chevy Cavalier sedan, holding two firearms: a .223-caliber assault rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun.
Saio’s mother, Leticia, declined to comment on the prosecutor’s decision until the family consults with its attorney.
Broken insulator cuts electricity to 1,290
A power failure in the Whitmore Village area left about 1,290 customers without electricity early Friday morning.
A broken insulator on an overhead line is blamed for the outage, which began at about 1:20 a.m., a Hawaiian Electric Co. spokeswoman said.
Crews restored power to some customers by 3 a.m., leaving about 950 customers without electricity.
Power was restored to all but three customers by 5:15 a.m. Those customers had power restored by 6:15 a.m.
