Newswatch

By Star-Bulletin Staff

Monday, September 13, 1999

Millennium Moments

Hawaiian Open days

WHEN William Melhorn won the Hawaiian Open golf tournament in 1928, with a score of 291, his purse was a whopping $5,000.

In 1965, the year the Hawaiian Open became a PGA tour event, Gay Brewer scored 281 to pocket $9,000, says the "Hawai'i Fact and Reference Book" by Anthony Michael Oliver.

In 1966, Ted Makalena became the first of only two Hawaii golfers to ever win the Hawaiian Open; the other was David Ishii, who won in 1990.

Today, the Hawaiian Open -- long kept alive by title sponsor United Airlines -- is no more.

In its place, the inaugural Sony Open debuted this year, with a $468,000 first-place purse, part of a total of $2.6 million in prizes.

The second Sony Open, set for January 2000 at Waialae Country Club, will pay the winner $522,000, with total prize money of $2.2 million.

The 2001 purse will go up to $3.3 million, with a $594,000 first prize. And in 2002, the purse will be $3.4 million, with $612,000 for the winner.

Kalihi man is 20th slain
this year on Oahu

An argument at 755 McNeil St. led to Oahu's 20th slaying of the year early this morning, equaling the total for all of 1998.

It was Oahu's 11th homicide since Aug. 2.

The 37-year old victim was stabbed after an argument with another man at about 12:30 a.m. at the Kalihi-area address.

Police are looking for a suspect who fled in a red or burgundy, older-model Jaguar, homicide Lt. Allen Napoleon said. Two other men fled with the suspect.

The victim died at Queen's Hospital, Napoleon said.

Kilauea may erupt within two weeks

HILO -- Kilauea volcano is reinflating with magma, indicating that the eruptive pause that began yesterday is likely to end in a few days or a couple of weeks, said Arnold Okamura at the Hawaiian Volcano observatory.

Two things happened simultaneously yesterday, he said. New underground spaces opened up, and magma flowed in to fill them, creating swarms of small earthquakes, he said.

If the pressure kept up in those new spaces, a new surface outbreak of lava -- a new eruption -- could have taken place, he said. Since the earthquakes were not near the summit, no eruption would have taken place there, he said.

But the pressure slacked off, meaning no new eruption and a pause in the old one, he said.

Instruments show pressure is building again today, signaling that the 16-year series of eruptions is probably not over.

"Maybe (the pause) will last forever," he said. More likely, it will end soon, as others have.

Tax revenues up 17.2% from August last year

State tax revenues for August increased 17.2 percent from the same month last year, an increase of $40.4 million for the state general fund, according to the state tax office.

The Department of Taxation released its monthly general fund statement today, showing that the cumulative amount of revenue deposited for the first two months of the 1999-2000 fiscal year totaled $470.1 million. That was $5.1 million, or 1.1 percent, more than the amount deposited during the same period in the previous fiscal year.

The statement showed that general excise and use taxes, the state's largest source of revenue, rose $29.3 million in August, about $7 million ahead of the amount deposited last year.

Deposits from individual income tax rose by $2.9 million.

The Tax Department says the increase "corrects" July's statement of a 15.3 percent decline in total tax revenue, which they say occurred because the due date fell on a weekend, meaning taxes normally collected in July were not due until Aug. 1.

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Police, Fire, Courts



By Star-Bulletin staff

Honolulu Police Department Crimestoppers

Kalani man is charged in child-sex case

A Kalani Valley man is being held on $1 million bail after he was charged with 67 counts of child abuse and sexual assault in the third degree.

Stuart Novick, 55, was arrested and charged yesterday.

Police executed a search warrant on a residence on Hiikala Place in Waialae on Friday, after receiving complaints of children being inappropriately videotaped, according to a police log. They seized videotapes from the location.

Maui man hurt critically as truck flips in Kihei

A 31-year-old Wailuku man was in critical condition this morning at Maui Memorial Hospital after he lost control of his pickup truck on Piilani Highway near the Mokulele Highway in Kihei, Maui police said.

Police said the westbound truck hit a highway sign and flipped over several times at 1:23 a.m. yesterday. Police believe the driver earlier rear-ended another vehicle near Ohukai Road.

In other news ...

The medical examiner's office has identified a hiker who fell to his death Saturday in Makaha as Kim Sharpenberg, 33, of Burleson, Texas.

Fire destroyed a caretaker's home yesterday at Camp Paumalu, a North Shore Girl Scout facility.

Two armed men broke into a home on Alapa Place in Kahuku yesterday and struck and robbed a man who was sleeping in his living room, police said.