Vote is set for Kauai farm bill Vote is set for Kauai farm bill ADVERTISING LIHUE, Kauai (AP) — The Kauai County Council will decide next week whether to override Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.’s veto of a bill requiring large
Vote is set for Kauai farm bill
LIHUE, Kauai (AP) — The Kauai County Council will decide next week whether to override Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.’s veto of a bill requiring large farms to disclose pesticide use and genetically modified crops.
The Council will be short-handed as it considers a measure that also requires buffer zones around schools and other sensitive areas and requires a study on the industry’s effects on health.
Members voted to schedule the veto override vote Thursday before a vacancy on the seven-member board is filled. Former Councilwoman Nadine Nakamura resigned to become the county’s managing director Nov. 1.
Carvalho Jr. vetoed the measure Oct. 31. Proponents need five votes to override and at a special meeting Thursday considered waiting until Nov. 21 to allow the vacant seat to be filled.
Councilman Gary Hooser said he hoped a full Council would take a final vote.
“I believe that those people have all been following the issue, been educated on the issue, and would vote in a prudent and meaningful way,” he said.
Councilman Mel Rapozo, however, will be off the island Nov. 21. The remaining six council members debated the bill so far and should “carry the torch,” he said.
“I don’t want to see the process of selecting the seventh member be hanging on to this issue, this bill,” he said.
More than 40 people testified Thursday and all but two advocated an override.
Taryn Dizon, a DuPont Pioneer employee, urged the council to sustain Carvalho’s veto.
Elder abuse
cases increase
HONOLULU (AP) — Honolulu police say elder abuse is on the rise on Oahu, with three times as many cases on the island since 2008.
A team of prosecutors and police dedicated to the issue formed in 2008. The team doubled in 2010 and was expanded again last year.
It includes nine lawyers and legal aids, along with 13 police detectives who work cases specifically involving people ages 60 and older.
Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro says elders generally don’t complain if they are physically abused and are not believed if they do complain.
Officials say the team includes people who are on call, notified anytime a crime is committed against a senior citizen.
Man charged in death of woman found in trash bin
HONOLULU (AP) — A man in Honolulu police custody on a charge of terroristic threatening is being held in connection with the death of a woman whose body was found in a commercial trash bin.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports 42-year-old Joseph Kahawai made a court appearance Thursday in the threat case and was arrested in the afternoon in the death of 51-year-old Janine Meyer.
KHON-TV reports he has not been formally charged.
Meyer’s body was found Oct. 29 in a large metal bin near the Hawaiian Colony apartments off Ala Moana Boulevard in Waikiki.
The medical examiner has not announced the cause of death.
Police last week classified the death as unattended
Investigators in the first case say Kahawai on Oct. 20 threatened harm to another man. He was arrested Monday in Waipahu.
