The ongoing case against disgraced former power couple Louis and Katherine Kealoha — he was Oahu’s police chief, she a deputy city prosecutor — got even more sordid this week. First had come charges of fraud, theft and corruption — now comes sex, lies and more conspiracy.
On Thursday, Jesse Michael Ebersole, a Hawaii County firefighter, pled guilty to conspiring with Katherine Kealoha to lie about their affair to a federal grand jury and has agreed to cooperate in prosecuting the Kealohas. A federal court document filed Monday had charged Ebersole with conspiracy for lying to the grand jury that returned criminal charges against the Kealohas in October.
The filing said Katherine Kealoha spent more than $20,000 on Ebersole — flying him to Honolulu from Hilo and paying for hotel rooms — using money from a second mortgage that she and her husband obtained illegally and funds she stole from her grandmother.
Ebersole, 49, is now on paid leave and faces a maximum five-year prison term. This fall from grace for Hawaii County’s 2012 Firefighter of the Year comes mere months after he was promoted Emergency Medical Services Bureau battalion chief.
As for Louis and Katherine Kealoha: Their public united front had been on full display at each court appearance, with the couple holding hands and often in aloha attire; they even donned leis in their initial October 2017 appearance after being indicted.
Whether he continues standing by her, or vice versa, as their November trial nears will be an intense point of curiosity — and of prosecutorial possibilities.
Diseases breeding in bugs
Add bug repellent — and whatever agent can combat parasites — to the list of resources needed to cope with climate change.
Usually it’s the increase in intense storms that worries everyone, not to mention rising sea levels, erosion and all the rest.
However, the warming also tends to broaden the area where insects and other minuscule creatures that carry disease can survive. A cold winter is what usually keeps them in check.
Rat lungworm disease, Hawaii’s current scourge, figures among the newer threats. Scientists at the University of Hawaii have learned through research that it is expanding across tropical zones and will start showing up in more mainland areas over time.
It’s already on five of the six major islands, in drier leeward areas as well as the rainier windward ones.
We are anything but alone in this. The Centers for Disease Control has identified an accelerating problem with tick-borne diseases.
Maladies such as Lyme disease, with its alarming symptoms of fatigue and rash, running all the way up to neurological problems, are on the rise on the mainland during these hot summer days. That’s less an issue for Hawaii, but zika, a mosquito-borne illness, is, and is expanding its reach, too.
So for those who believe they live too far inland and sheltered from the storms to be affected by climate change, think again. The bugs will bring it home to you.
Quonset hut had (has?) uses
The Quonset hut — a post-World War II fixture in Hawaii — is fading away from the statewide landscape. Among the latest batch eyed for demolition: nearly 100 once-sturdy huts at Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA).
As part of a $210 million project, the Army wants to replace scores of buildings on the Hawaii island grounds that include barracks, troop support and administrative and industrial support facilities. (The public can comment on the project through Aug. 7.) If the demolition proceeds as planned, a few Quonset huts should remain — as a sort of historic marker.
Kiersten Faulkner, executive director of the nonprofit Historic Hawai‘i Foundation, has rightly pointed out that PTA’s inventory “reflects an era in history which relied on innovation and ingenuity.” The military opted for the huts as a fast-cheap-durable form of construction when the nation was going to war.
In post-war years, the huts served as a quick fix for a housing shortage in Honolulu. Building supply companies, including one headed by future six-term mayor Frank Fasi, converted the curved structures — known in local circles as “kamaboko houses” — for civilian uses, ranging from housing and classrooms to agriculture and business operations. Inspiration for current needs?
Both the military and civilian inventories are fading. In Kakaako, rows of repurposed huts that once sheltered manufacturing and merchant operations, are gone. Still, amid the new restaurants and shops in the “SALT at Our Kakaako” complex, striking Quonset-inspired architectural flourishes are in place — a corrugated steel nod to bygone days.
