By Dean Sensui, Star-Bulletin
A security guard stands watch in front of Hawaiian
Island Creations in Ala Moana Center, where a fire caused
more than half a million dollars in damage this morning.
The fire was not intentionally set and there are no signs
of a burglary, officials said. Damage estimates are $500,000
to the contents and $25,000 to the structure, investigators
said. The blaze started near the cash register at the center
of the business at about 4:10 a.m. The fire was under control
by 4:36 a.m. No injuries were reported. The cause of the
fire is still undetermined. However, investigators have
not ruled out the construction going on above the
store and the electrical system.
Kamehameha Day festivities to be paid for by airline
Hawaiian Airlines this morning pledged $150,000 a year for the next two years to keep a 127-year-old summer tradition alive: the statewide Kamehameha Day floral parade, festival and hula competition.State support of the festivities, which honor Hawaii's first king, was cut off three years ago due to budget cuts. It costs about $150,000 a year to put on the events.
"This is the beginning of a long, long relationship," said Hawaiian Airlines President Paul J. Casey.
Texan raped and kidnapped by isle convict sues Hawaii
Wilma Parnell was kidnapped from her Newton County, Texas, home two years ago by prison escapee Larry Pagan, who repeatedly raped and sodomized her.Parnell, who was 50 at the time, told her attorneys that "my life changed forever" on Feb. 15, 1996, and "no matter what I tell myself before going to sleep, he's always there with the knife in his hand and I go through it all over again."
Parnell and her husband, Henry, are suing the state for knowingly transferring a dangerous inmate to a less-secure facility.
The suit filed yesterday in state court by attorney Thomas Grande says Pagan twice escaped from correctional facilities in Hawaii using a woman as a human shield or hostage but was still transferred to Fillyaw Prison, a minimum and medium security facility in Newton County, Texas.
"Hawaii prison officials reclassified Larry Pagan several months before his transfer from maximum security to medium security," Grande said.
Pagan was among the first group of 300 Hawaii inmates transferred to mainland facilities in December 1995 as the state moved to address its prison overcrowding problem.
The suit, seeking unspecified damages, also names as defendants the Bobby Ross Group Inc., which operates Fillyaw Prison, and Dominion Management Corp., doing business as Neighborhood Group Inc., which brokered the transfer agreement.
The state attorney general's office yesterday had no comment.
City Council members want Harris to make a decision on governor race
Key City Council members want Mayor Jeremy Harris to announce soon whether he will resign from office to challenge Gov. Ben Cayetano this fall.Yesterday, the mayor told reporters: "I'm more inclined more than ever to run for governor."
He said proposals on the state level to increase the general excise tax and take hotel room taxes from the counties are leading to him to consider a run at the state's top seat.
Without mentioning Cayetano, the mayor said leaders are needed at the state Capitol willing to "dismantle state bureaucracy" and give counties more power.
Harris refused to say when he would make a decision, noting that the filing deadline to run in the September primary election is July 21. The mayor said in early January that he would make a decision by the end of the month. Last week, Harris said he would make an announcement this week.
Author sorry for 'political' speech
Best-selling self-improvement author Stephen Covey has apologized for being featured speaker at a recent $100-a-person fund-raising dinner for a new isle political action committee opposed to same-sex marriage.Greg Link, vice president of Franklin Covey Co. in Provo, Utah, said yesterday that he and Covey, the firm's co-chairman, sent an apology letter dated Jan. 29 to six firms with whom they do business. It stated, "(Covey's) appearance at the event was an unfortunate departure from our ongoing policy and we express our regrets."
The letter added: "Both the company and its executives, including Stephen R. Covey, will avoid situations that might be interpreted as political commentary in the public arena."
Save Traditional Marriage-'98 officials Diane Ho Kurtz and Bill Paul said in separate interviews that they weren't aware of the apology letter before being contacted by the Star-Bulletin.
Both said they took Covey's comments at the Nov. 20 fund-raiser to be in support of marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
In an interview with the Star-Bulletin before his speech, Covey said: "I feel that it takes a mother and a father to produce a child, and there's never been an exception. To me that is kind of a natural principle for a natural law. And that's why I am behind this kind of movement."
Link said people on all sides of the same-sex debate can find value in Covey's best-selling book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families."
Covey's work teaches tolerance, Link said.
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Police/Fire
By Star-Bulletin staffMan arrested for threat to kill YMCA manager
Police yesterday arrested a 31-year-old man for allegedly threatening to kill the manager of the Atkinson Drive YMCA.The suspect, who has a lengthy criminal record, was evicted from the YMCA last year.
He returned several times between December 1997 and early this week to threaten the manager, police said.
Girl says Waipahu man raped her several times
Police this morning arrested a 34-year-old Waipahu man in the reported rape of a 15-year-old girl.The girl told police she was raped by the suspect on several occasions at his Loaa Street home, police said.
The suspect was booked at 12:13 a.m. for two counts of first-degree sexual assault, one count of kidnapping and one count of fourth-degree sexual assault, police said.
In other news . . .
Police last night arrested Kenneth Martin, 50, who escaped from the Hawaii State Hospital Jan. 26. Martin, who was located at a homeless shelter in Iwilei, had been undergoing pretrial mental evaluation at the hospital.
He is accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 42-year-old woman last May on the grounds of Central Intermediate School.
Martin allegedly lured the woman to the school by posing as a police officer.
The man's car was struck by another vehicle which ran a red light at the Center Drive intersection, police said.
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