Newswatch
Water officials warned that a violation of the cutback could lead to termination of water service.
The reduction calls for no watering of lawns, washing of cars or sidewalks, and limited use of showers and sinks.
Upcountry residents were previously required to reduce consumption by 10 percent.
The reduction is expected to cause bigger production losses for Upcountry farmers and ranchers.
"I'm praying for rain," Carmen Goble, an owner of Goble's Flower Farm in Kula, said yesterday.
The drought has forced her family business to stop planting some flowers.
Goble estimates production on the farm has decreased by 10 percent.
Water board members were scheduled to meet today to discuss other other measures, including trucking water to Upcountry areas.
A record temperature of 94 degrees was set in Kahului Sunday, breaking the previous record of 91 set in 1957.
The temperature yesterday was 91 degrees, two degrees below the record, also set in 1957.
"We're totally at the mercy of Mother Nature, and right now it doesn't look good," said Maui County water spokesman Michael Quinn.
Quinn said consumption increased while flow into reservoirs has gone down.
As of yesterday morning, the flow in Wailoa ditch - which brings water from east Maui to the Upcountry region - was below 20 million gallons a day. That amount is considered critical to maintaining normal water service.
The group, which supports the library system with its annual sale of used books, will "give librarians a chance to plug the holes," said Caroline Dvojacki, executive director of the Friends of the Library.
Her announcement of the project was a bit of good news in the midst of negative comments at a Board of Education committee meeting yesterday.
The Committee on Public Libraries heard from several state library employees and retirees attacking the book-buying contract implemented this year with a North Carolina firm Baker & Taylor. They complained that librarians can better respond to local reading interests than the East Coast company.
Dvojacki said the Friends of the Library will spend whatever they collect "to fit the needs of various sections and target areas based on lists provided by the librarians."
Hawaii State Library reference librarian Joyce Kidani said her section has not been updated since the outside buying contract took effect in July. "We have received no computer books, no science books, no carpentry books. We are set in a mid-1995 time warp." Kidani said reference books cost much more than the $20.94 per book price that the state pays Baker & Taylor.
The man who allegedly bribed him remains free, and prosecutors won't say why an indictment against him was dismissed earlier this year.
Villanueva, 36, admitted he accepted $15,000 from the Moon organization through his friend, Parson Iosua, in the fall of 1993. In exchange for the payments, he agreed to perform computer background checks on prospective drug buyers and distributors for Moon to determine whether they were being used - or had a chance of being used - as informers for law enforcement authorities.
"After 13 years working as a good and honest police officer, Alfredo Villanueva made a mistake which is faced by a number of police officers," said his lawyer, Jonathan Burge.
"He wants to take responsibility for his actions, pay his dues, and get on with his life."
Villanueva, who served 15 years in the Honolulu Police Department, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge David Ezra to a single bribery count, carrying a maximum five years in prison and $250,000 fine.
Ezra set sentencing for March 3 and ordered Villanueva released until then on a $150,000 signature bond.
Police arrested a man, also 27, for suspicion of attempted murder. Both listed addresses at the Institute for Human Services homeless shelter.
Witnesses spotted the two men arguing in front of 581 Dillingham Blvd. around 4:20 p.m. The suspect, armed with a steak knife, allegedly chased the victim until he fell and stabbed him several times in the back, police said.
- Victim ID's witness as an attacker
- Public's help sought in slaying