Once again the COVID-19 pandemic and the Red Hill water contamination crisis grabbed their fair share of headlines, but federal, state and county elections and a slew of federal corruption cases that shook public trust in government institutions were running topics throughout 2022. The year was capped with a ground shift of a different nature when Mauna Loa on Hawaii island erupted for the first time in 38 years, spraying lava more than 100 feet into the air and threatening to cut off a major cross-island highway during its brief reawakening.
A new administration
Hawaii voters elevated Lt. Gov. Josh Green to the state’s top elective office in a gubernatorial race with little drama following a testy and contentious Democratic primary. As an emergency room physician, Green’s visibility and outspokenness during the COVID-19 crisis helped position him as the front-runner from the get-go in name recognition and campaign endorsements and contributions.
The Democratic field for the August primary contained some notables, including former Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, who bowed out of the race in May; U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele, who only entered the contest in May and failed to generate any momentum; and former first lady and business entrepreneur Vicky Cayetano, who finished second behind Green.
On the Republican side, retired judge and former two-term Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona entered the fray on the final day of candidate eligibility, but the general election to succeed Gov. David Ige was Green’s to lose, and he never faltered. When the ballots were counted, Green and his lieutenant governor running mate, Sylvia Luke, ended up with a whopping 62.3% of the vote.
In other notable races, voters in Maui County denied Michael Victorino a second term as mayor, instead electing retired Judge Richard Bissen, and Kauai Mayor Derek Kawakami was returned to office in a landslide. The Honolulu City Council got three new members — Matt Weyer, Val Okimoto and Tyler Dos Santos-Tam — and saw the return of Chair Tommy Waters, who easily won reelection. The race to fill Kahele’s congressional seat representing rural Oahu and the neighbor islands was won by former state Sen. Jill Tokuda.
No major glitches were reported with Hawaii’s second election cycle with mail-in voting; however, there was record-low turnout for the general election, with only 48.4% of the state’s registered voters casting ballots.
Red Hill mismanagement
2022 marked a turning point for the Navy’s beleaguered Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, with the Pentagon announcing in March that it would permanently close the underground facility amid overwhelming political and public opposition to its continued operation.
A November 2021 fuel leak from the facility had contaminated the Navy’s Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam drinking water system, sickening hundreds of military families.
But the closure announcement did little to quell the controversy swirling around Red Hill, and military officials have struggled to rebuild public trust as damning details about its past mismanagement of the facility and lack of transparency surfaced through investigations and media reports throughout the year.
In June the Navy released a long-awaited investigation into its drinking water contamination crisis. The report detailed an alarming array of operational and leadership failures, communication breakdowns and cavalier attitudes toward oversight at the Navy’s fuel storage facility.
Additional investigations released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found the Navy may have violated numerous state and federal laws relating to safe drinking water in its operation and maintenance of its JBPHH water system and that the Navy was unprepared in the event that fuel contaminated the drinking water system, even though the risk was well known.
The Navy was also slapped with a lawsuit this year filed by dozens of military families and civilians seeking compensation for physical and mental suffering, medical expenses and other costs associated with the Red Hill disaster.
Scrutiny of the Navy’s actions is sure to continue through 2023. Military officials are entering the new year amid an investigation into yet another spill at Red Hill, this time of approximately 1,300 gallons of toxic fire suppression chemicals.
The pandemic persists
Hawaii was still in the tight grip of COVID-19 at the dawn of 2022 as the highly contagious omicron variant continued to spread. Just six days into the new year, the state set a single-day record of 4,789 new cases.
But by March, weary of nearly two years of coronavirus-related restrictions, social isolation and economic hardship, all four counties had repealed the last of their COVID-19 restrictions.
The state soon followed suit, dropping its “Safe Travels Hawai‘i” program, which required arriving travelers to set up a Safe Travels account or undergo screenings at isle airports. Also in March, Gov. David Ige lifted the requirement that state and county employees provide their vaccination status or proof of a negative COVID-19 test. Citing declining case counts and hospitalizations and the availability of coronavirus vaccinations and treatments, Ige finally dropped the indoor mask mandate, as Hawaii was the last state to do so.
By late April, Ige announced that the state’s response to COVID-19 was transitioning from emergency mode to “public health management.” By year’s end the city had shut down its free mobile COVID-19 testing site at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, and mass vaccination clinics were discontinued.
But the ongoing presence of COVID-19 — with 1,095 new infections and three deaths reported by the state Department of Health in the week ending Wednesday — tested the state’s health care system as hospitals were stretched to capacity while struggling to deal with unprecedented staff shortages, challenges that continue today.
A new public health threat emerged in June with the first probable case of mpox in Hawaii. State Epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Kemble tried to reassure the public that the viral disease does not spread easily from person to person and that the risk to the general public was low. By mid- December fewer than four dozen cases had been reported.
Also on the public-health radar in the second half of the year was respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, known to hit infants and seniors especially hard. Cases surged in the fall months, hitting a five-week average of 411 cases on Oct. 29, but have been on the decline since.
Corruption shakes trust
The U.S. Department of Justice’s anti-corruption campaign in Hawaii kicked into high gear with a series of prosecutions against county and state government officials across three islands.
>> In January former Honolulu Managing Director Roy Amemiya Jr., former Corporation Counsel Donna Leong and former Honolulu Police Commission Chairman Max Sword turned themselves in to the FBI after their attorneys were notified they would be arrested for allegedly conspiring to defraud the government by setting up a $250,000 payment to disgraced former Police Chief Louis Kealoha to voluntarily leave HPD in January 2017.
All three pleaded not guilty and are free on bond pending their trials in federal court, now scheduled for June.
>> The following month, retired state Sen. J. Kalani English of Maui and sitting Rep. Ty Cullen of Central Oahu were charged with honest services wire fraud for accepting cash, hotel stays, casino chips and other gifts in exchange for introducing measures, killing legislation and relaying legislative intelligence to benefit Milton Choy, whose company provides wastewater services and industrial machinery.
Both men pleaded guilty, and English was sentenced in July to 40 months in federal prison and fined $100,000. Cullen, who immediately resigned from office, is due for sentencing in January.
>> Choy also was a key figure in federal bribery cases against two former officials with the Maui County Department of Environmental Management. Federal prosecutors accused Stewart Olani Stant of accepting about $2 million in cash, bank deposits and gambling trips in exchange for steering $19.3 million in contracts to Choy’s company. Stant pleaded guilty in September and is awaiting sentencing in February.
Wilfredo Savella pleaded guilty in December to charges that he accepted more than $40,000 in bribes under a similar arrangement with Choy. His sentencing is scheduled for April.
It was after his arrest in the Maui cases that Choy cooperated with federal authorities to set up the sting operation that led to downfall of English and Cullen. He pleaded guilty to a single bribery charge and is due for sentencing in May.
>> The biggest public figure to face federal corruption charges in 2022 was former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Keith Kaneshiro, who was indicted in June on conspiracy to commit bribery and fraud charges. Federal prosecutors allege that Dennis Mitsunaga, head of a major engineering and project management firm, cut a deal with Kaneshiro in 2012 to charge one of the businessman’s former employees with felony theft in exchange for $45,000 in campaign contributions.
Also indicted in the alleged scheme were Mitsunaga & Associates executives Terri Ann Otani, Aaron Shunichi Fujii and Chad Michael McDonald and attorney Sheri Jean Tanaka. All have pleaded not guilty and were released pending trial set for March.
>> In July four people were indicted in an alleged scheme that federal authorities said defrauded Hawaii County of nearly $11 million in land and excess affordable-housing credits while depriving residents of affordable housing. Attorneys Paul Joseph Sulla Jr. and Gary Charles Zamber were charged with multiple counts of wire fraud and conspiracy, and Sulla was additionally charged with laundering the proceeds of the conspiracy.
The alleged housing scheme also involved county housing specialist Alan Scott Rudo and businessman Rajesh Budhabhatti, who were both charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Trial for Sulla, Zamber and Budhabhatti is set for August; Rudo pleaded guilty and is scheduled for sentencing in May.
>> In a case involving a high-ranking labor union official, a federal jury in November found Brian Ahakuelo and his wife, Marilyn Ahakuelo, guilty of conspiracy, wire fraud and embezzlement for crimes committed while they were employed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1260. Brian Ahakuelo, who served as the union’s business manager and financial secretary, was additionally convicted of money laundering.
Evidence presented at trial showed that Ahakuelo hired family members at high salaries and authorized the use of union funds for personal purposes, including extravagant travel for himself and those loyal to him.
Sentencing for the couple is set for March.
Mauna Loa reawakens
The first signs that Mauna Loa was reawakening after 38 years at rest were detected in late September when scientists at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory recorded increasing rates of earthquake activity and ground deformation at the world’s tallest active volcano, indicating magma was accumulating below the surface.
The eruption started Nov. 27 when lava broke to the surface within the Mokuaweoweo summit caldera. It didn’t stay there for long: Following the pattern of previous eruptions, a vent opened high on the Northeast Rift Zone, sending flows in a northeast and east direction. Fissures sprayed molten rock more than 100 feet into the air, but the activity eventually focused at Fissure 3, which produced the longest and largest lava flow.
The eruption provided spectacular views from the cross-island Daniel K. Inouye Highway, creating heavy traffic in the area and generating vog downwind. The county briefly opened a viewing area to accommodate the crowds.
Simultaneously, the Kilauea eruption that started Sept. 29, 2021, continued to churn within Halemaumau Crater in a rare case of two Hawaii island volcanoes erupting at the same time.
After reaching flatter ground, the lava streams from Mauna Loa slowed significantly and fanned out, extending 12 miles from the vents and coming to within 1.7 miles of the highway before the eruption ended Dec. 10. Throughout the short-lived event, no homes or property were in imminent danger.
On Dec. 13 the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory declared both the Mauna Loa and Kilauea eruptions over, saying the production of lava, volcanic gases and seismicity on both mountains had either ended or diminished to negligible amounts.
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Star-Advertiser staff writer Sophie Cocke contributed to this report.
