Newswatch
The Hula Bowl
moving to Maui
By Paul Arnett
Star-BulletinThe Hula Bowl is packing its bags and moving to Maui. Bowl Games of Hawaii chief executive officer Lenny Klompus announced this stunning development this morning at a press conference at Columbia Inn.
The County of Maui and the Maui Visitors Bureau are finalizing the agreement, which will place the Hula Bowl on Maui for a minimum of five years.
"This really is an historic day," Klompus said. "One that will be remembered, in our opinion, in the annals of Hawaii history for a long time because of the evolution of Hawaii's own bowl classic.
"Today, once again, the Hula Bowl has reinvented itself and is going to another plateau. It's only been 30 months since Bowl Games of Hawaii was asked to take over and save this great game.
"We are excited at the prospect of having the best college football players in the nation playing in the best all-star game in the nation on Maui. We are also pleased the stadium has real grass."
The game will be played at Maui's War Memorial Stadium which will undergo a $1.2 million improvement to increase seating capacity from 6,700 to 24,500. It also will include a press box upgrade, replacement of goal posts, electrical system work and installation of a Jumbotron video projection system.
Those improvements will be voted on Monday by the Maui City Council, but Maui Mayor Linda Crockett Lingle is confident it will be approved. Maui hotels participating with the games' official travel agency have committed to pay 10 percent of room revenue generated from bookings to help defray the costs. This contribution would be about $112,000 a year or a total of $560,000 over the length of the contract.
"The only way we could make this work is because of the Maui Visitors Bureau and the visitor industry on Maui," Lingle said. "The great thing about all of this is the Hula Bowl gets a new, exciting place to play their game and the game stays in the state of Hawaii."
Despite having a title sponsor, securing a national television deal with ESPN and inking a five-year deal with the American Football Coaches Association to help select the players and coaches, the game hasn't drawn well at Aloha Stadium in recent years.
"We know the game will be a sellout," Klompus said. "The stadium also allows the people to be close to the field, close to the players and close to the action.
"Everyone involved with this process feels this is a good move for the game. Maui has proven it can host major events, so we're confident this is the right thing to do."
The Internet's abuzz with cyberspace sleuths recalling past hate messages similar to ones spray-painted on graves and structures at seven Oahu cemeteries last weekend. Internet may provide clues
to cemetery desecrationsInternet users are looking through previous messages on the newsgroup "alt.culture.hawaii," where misspellings and references to police ignoring hate crimes bear a resemblance to the graffiti found at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, the Hawaii Veterans Cemetery in Kaneohe and five other private cemeteries in Honolulu and on the Windward side.
"We have done extensive analysis on the Internet involving looking at specific individuals," said police Capt. Doug Miller, head of the task force investigating the crime.
But "we have not confronted any parties that we are looking at from the Internet or any other sources at this time," he said.
About 60 law enforcement officials from the FBI and police are following leads that stem from Internet postings, military personnel and gangs.
Investigators are continuing to analyze fingerprints found at the cemeteries as well as writing samples that suggest more than one person was involved.
Miller said police are still seeking any information from people who saw suspicious cars near the cemeteries between 3 p.m. Saturday and 8 p.m. Sunday.
Also welcomed is any information on people purchasing a large volume of red spray paint or disposing of red paint or paint supplies. Anyone with information can call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300.
A two-day extension of the 1997 legislative session is looming as House Speaker Joe Souki and Senate President Norman Mizuguchi have instructed their lead conferees to try to reach an agreement on legislation reducing the cost of automobile insurance. Auto insurance premiums
get another pushThe directive was issued as the leaders of the conference panel, Rep. Ron Menor and Sens. Rosalyn Baker and David Ige, failed to meet a midnight deadline Friday night to find a compromise on auto-insurance reform.
While auto-insurance reform got a reprieve, dying were bills that urged the construction of a privately funded "people mover" in Waikiki and that required most convicted felons to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences before being considered for parole.
One bill made it under the midnight deadline with two minutes to spare. It addressed the hotly disputed question of whether government can contract out a wide array of public services to private businesses and agencies.
The measure would impose a two-year exemption from civil service laws, permitting government services to be contracted out. During that time, a task force will try to resolve disputes over privatization contracts by state and county governments.
This year's session, which began Jan. 15, is scheduled to end Tuesday unless it's extended. Leaders of the Democratic-dominated Legislature are already proclaiming that they've done a good job.
Truth in sentencing -- a centerpiece of the law enforcement coalition's get-tough-on-crime legislative package -- has fallen victim to prison overcrowding. Full prisons undercut effort
to mandate sentencesAgain.
Last year, House Judiciary Chairman Terrance Tom (D, Kaneohe) said he refused to hear the bill because of the lack of prison bed space and the perception that relief was not imminent.
This year, House and Senate conferees failed to reach agreement by Friday's midnight deadline. The proposal would have required convicted felons to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences before becoming eligible for parole. The coalition, made up of Hawaii's prosecutors and police chiefs, had called the measure "critical."
The only way the bill could be resurrected is if lawmakers revive the less stringent House version of the bill Tuesday, a move Senate Judiciary Committee Co-Chairman Matt Matsunaga (D, Waialae-Palolo) said is not in the cards.
"With the inconsistencies, we can't do that in good conscience," he said. "It's dead for this year."
