Major shakas must be making the rounds as Disney’s “Moana” movie dominated the box office over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, raking in some $81.1 million over its five-day debut.

Hawaii-grown talent fueled the animated film’s appeal, led by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson voicing the Maui character, Mililani’s Auli‘i Cravalho as Moana and Nicole Scherzinger as Sina. There also were other Hawaii folks who had less audible but still intergral roles in bringing the movie to fruition: twins Jordan and Aaron Kandell, ‘Iolani School grads who were among the five-member writing team, and Kamehameha Schools alum Kaliko Hurley, who was a community relations manager for Disney on the movie.

To build rail, it’s time to rebuild rail team

The departure of the rail project’s director of planning, permitting and right-of-way underscores the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s dubious status as a revolving-door of employment for experts needed to guide the over-budget, behind-schedule project inching toward town.

Rail leaders need to push for ways to halt the high turnover, which surely costs in retraining and loss of consistency. Jesse Souki’s exit to become the Hawaii Community Development Authority’s new executive director marks the latest among about a dozen recent high-profile HART departures. With the project’s price tag now looming at $8.6 billion, it seems short-sighted to quibble about expert pay scale.