Swap meet vendors protest

Aloha Stadium Swap Meet vendors protested outside of the stadium before the University of Hawaii football game over rent increases and other practices that they say are hurting sales.

Neumann Shim, president of the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet Vendors Corp., said raising the rent over four years from $42 to $72 a day and doubling the swap meet's entry fee to $1 in 2006 has caused a decline in both customers and vendors.

Vendors are also protesting rule changes in a new contract they must sign with Centerplate Catering Services, the manager of the swap meet.

Shim said the vendors association wants a say in drafting the next contract to manage the swap meet when it goes out to bid next year.

Aloha Stadium officials said Centerplate's new practices are “;in the best interest”; of the swap meet and were reviewed by the vendors association after a consultant suggested the changes. Centerplate could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Big Isle civic center breaks ground

KAILUA-KONA » The groundbreaking for the West Hawaii Civic Center yesterday marked the start of a $50.5 million effort to consolidate 22 county and two state agencies in one complex.

Big Island Mayor Harry Kim proposed the civic center more than seven years ago, early in his first term as mayor. The project initially met with opposition as too expensive and extravagant, earning the nickname the “;West Hawaii Civic Palace”; from some detractors.

During the project's evolution an amphitheater, museum, playground and several other amenities were eliminated.

The 85,000-square-foot complex will sit along Kealakehe Parkway in North Kona and include a community center and enough office space for more than 300 employees.

County agencies currently are scattered along the Queen Kaahumanu Highway corridor from Captain Cook to Kailua-Kona, renting or leasing office space at an annual cost of about $1 million.

Construction is expected to take two years.

Obama citizenship lawsuit tossed

PHILADELPHIA » A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama's qualifications to be president.

U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick on Friday night rejected the suit by attorney Philip J. Berg, who alleged that Obama was not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible for the presidency. Berg claimed that Obama is either a citizen of his father's native Kenya or became a citizen of Indonesia after he moved there as a boy.

Obama was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan father. His parents divorced and his mother married an Indonesian man.

Internet-fueled conspiracy theories question whether Obama is a “;natural-born citizen”; as required by the Constitution for a presidential candidate and whether he lost his citizenship while living abroad.

Surrick ruled that Berg lacked standing to bring the case, saying any harm from an allegedly ineligible candidate was “;too vague and its effects too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters.”;

Sailor's ashes home at last

PORTLAND, Ore. » With his sister looking on, the ashes of Eldon Wyman were interred in Portland — nearly 67 years after he died at Pearl Harbor.

Wyman was an ensign on the USS Oklahoma the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. He was among 429 from the ship who died. He had been buried in an unknown soldier's grave in Hawaii until his remains were identified through the DNA of his sister, Kathleen Wyman.

After his death, she joined the Navy WAVES and eventually retired as a lieutenant commander.

She's now 94 and attended the service Friday that included military honors for her brother.