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New chief at human resources department
Gov. Ben Cayetano has named Davis Yogi, 44, to head the state's human resources department. Yogi will also keep his job as chief labor negotiator for Cayetano."I will be wearing two hats ... It is consistent with trying to gain more efficiencies," Yogi said.
He succeeds Mike McCartney, who is resigning to work on his planned 2002 campaign for lieutenant governor. McCartney, a 10-year veteran of the state Senate had been in charge of Cayetano's civil service reform effort.
"I am disappointed that Mike is leaving, but I understand that he is a person with other ambitions and he has to follow those," Cayetano said. McCartney joined the Cayetano administration in 1998 after helping to run Cayetano's re-election campaign.
Yogi joined the administration last year. He is the former vice president for environmental operations and government affairs at Brewer Environmental Operations and also worked as director of employee relations for C. Brewer.
The changes will be effective August 31.
Kamehameha Schools hires finance officer
The Kamehameha Schools hired accountant Eric Yeaman as its first chief financial officer.
The $6 billion charitable trust said Yeaman, a senior manager in the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen L.L.P. and a director of the estate's internal audit office, will oversee budget functions, short-term investments, tax issues and financial planning.
Yeaman, who assumes his new post Monday, was part of the Arthur Andersen team that conducted a court-mandated financial and management audit of the Kamehameha Schools that led to major reforms of the trust's operations.
Yeaman is a University of Hawaii graduate and is a certified public accountant. At the estate, he will oversee a staff of about 50 employees.
Suit says EPA remiss in cleaning isle waters
A federal lawsuit alleges that state and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency efforts to protect and clean Hawaii bodies of water are inadequate.It names the EPA as defendant and says that although the Ala Wai Canal was among the first water bodies the state identified as polluted, state remedies have been inadequate. "The Ala Wai Canal remains one of Hawaii's most severely polluted water bodies."
The suit, filed yesterday by Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund on behalf of Hihiwai Stream Restoration Coalition and the Center for Biological Diversity, says EPA repeatedly approved inadequate anti-pollution measures set forth by the state Department of Health.
The 1972 U.S. Clean Water Act requires each state to submit a list detailing all bodies of water within a state that don't meet, or aren't expected to meet, water quality standards, the suit says. It says EPA approved a list from Hawaii with 18 sites when it was known that more than 50 had failed to meet water quality standards.
Federal law requires EPA to take control if the state fails to identify all its polluted water systems, and EPA has failed to take action, the suit says.
UH expert to help city on street performers
The City Council has hired constitutional law expert Jon Van Dyke from the University of Hawaii to help fight a challenge to its Waikiki street performers ordinance.The law requires that musicians, mimes and others defined as "street performers" be restricted to certain times and places, and perform only with permits.
The local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union charges that the ordinance is unconstitutional because it violates the rights of performers to free speech and expression.
Van Dyke is to be paid $145 an hour, but no more than $25,000 total.
Woman, 58, dies after traffic accident
A 58-year-old woman died after being injured in a traffic collision yesterday at McCully Street and Kapiolani Boulevard.The woman was a front-seat passenger in a late-model Honda traveling east on KapiolaniBoulevard which was broadsieded by a Toyota traveling mauka on McCully Street.
Police said speed appears to have been a factor in the 3:01 p.m. collision. The impact sent the Honda spinning into a taxi, which then bumped a city bus.
A 24-year-old man, who was driving the Honda, is in serious condition at Queen's.
Three women in the Toyota -- the driver, 58, and two passengers, ages 30 and 40 -- were treated at Straub Hospital and released, police said.
In the Courts
Man judged insane in 1993 strangling case is set free to die
A state judge granted conditional release to a man acquitted by reason of insanity for breaking into a woman's home and attempting to strangle her to death and gag her, while saying, "Let's see how it feels to die."Charles Jeffrey has terminal lung cancer and will enter hospice care tomorrow.
He was committed to the Hawaii State Hospital after his trial in the 1993 attack and most recently has been confined at the Queen's Intensive Care Unit.
His court-appointed attorney, Jeff Arakaki, said Judge Frances Wong and Prosecutor Kevin Takata yesterday showed compassion in allowing Jeffrey to live out his last days as peacefully as he can.
"He's not going anywhere; he's going to hospice and will remain there until he passes away."
Takata said the woman, whom Jeffrey had followed home after meeting her at a pizza parlor at Puck's Alley, had come within a minute of losing consciousness after he allegedly attempted to strangle her with a telephone cord and then put his finger down her throat to gag her.
Police, Fire, Courts
By Star-Bulletin staffHonolulu Police Department Crimestoppers
An early morning fire at a Kapahulu auto repair shop was deliberately set, investigators said today. Auto shop fire said to be arson
Swedish Motors Inc. at 1130 Kapahulu Ave. was burglarized before a fire broke out in the ground-floor office at 2:47 a.m., Arson Detective Robert Carvalho said.
Fire investigators found a flammable liquid and determined the fire started in several places, said Fire Department Capt. Richard Soo.
The fire was confined to the office of the repair shop for Volvos, Soo added.
The shop owner walked though the scorched office this morning and reported a couple computers and printers were missing.
Damage was estimated at $30,000 to the structure and $10,000 to the contents.
Gunman ties up, robs housekeeper in Manoa
Police are searching for a man who robbed a woman at a Manoa home yesterday.A housekeeper, who was expecting someone from an extermination company, let the man in to the home at about 11:10 a.m..
Once inside, the suspect brandished a handgun, ordered her into an upstairs bedroom and tied her up, police said. He took money and personal property and fled.
The suspect is described as in his 20s, 6 feet tall, 180 pounds with dark hair and a fair complexion. He was wearing an aloha shirt, khaki pants and white athletic shoes.
Woman arrested in beef over 'stolen' bananas
A 45-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after she allegedly tried to run over a man with her car and threatened him with a machete over allegedly stolen bananas.The man said he saw the woman stealing bananas from his brother's field at Kawela Bay on Kamehameha Highway at 3:30 p.m., police said. He confronted her and the suspect reportedly drove her blue Chevrolet Camaro at him. He hid behind a tree and she drove her car into it and then tried to run him over again, striking him in the leg with her car, police said.
The woman got out of her car with a machete and said, "This time I finish you," according to police.
Witnesses came across the incident and scared the woman away, police said.
Stolen paintings found during domestic call
Police responding to a domestic argument at a Oopuloloa Street home yesterday recovered paintings allegedly stolen from the Turtle Bay Hilton.Police were told about the paintings when they arrived at the home. The suspect, who is on probation for an third-degree assault conviction, was arrested for domestic abuse, possession of a firearm and detaining stolen property.
