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Hawaii Vacation Rental
Travel Blog
February 2008
| [Events] [Natural History] [Arts & Culture] [Braddah-Nics] [Local Grinds] [Hawaiiana] |
We've added a new feature - Hawaiiana! This month: The Hawaiian Alphabet. |
Special Announcement
Whalers Realty Inc. Joins Renowned Kaanapali Beach Resort Association
January 2008 Whalers Realty Inc. became a member of the renowned Kaanapali Bach Resort Association (aka KBRA). The KBRA PARTNERS consist of major businesses in the Resort including hotels, condominiums, shopping centers and restaurants within the Resort. The Association promotes the interests of Kaanapali and has been successful at attracting major events to the Resort such as the Wendy's Champions Skins Game Pro/Am Golf Tournament that will be held at the Royal Kaanapali North Golf Course February 23-24, 2008. The KBRA website has consistently ranked at the top of links in the natural selections (not pay per click listings) when searching key words such as Kaanapali, Kaanapali Beach Resort the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Whalers is the only real estate firm that has been accepted as a KBRA Partner. As a part of the Partnership, Whalers now has a web page on the KBRA web site that links to the company's web site, http://www.whalersrealty.com. Check out the KBRA web site link provided below to learn more about the Kaanapali Beach Resort Association. To view the Whalers Realty Inc. web page on the KBRA Home page select the drop down menu for the PARTNERS on the left, then scroll down to Services. Whalers Realty Inc. is the only firm listed in this category, now click on the Whalers Realty Inc. link.
http://www.kaanapaliresort.com/
The Wendy's Champions Skins Game Comes to Kaanapali Beach Resort
The 21st edition of the Wendy's Champions Skins Game will be played at the stunning Royal Ka’anapali Golf Course on Feb. 23-24, 2008. For the third consecutive year, the players will compete in the alternate-shot, team format that lends itself to drama and spectacular shots. The players will play nine holes each day, with ESPN televising the Wendy’s Champions SKINS GAME on a same-day, tape-delayed basis.
This year's field features Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player, along with Jay Haas, Loren Roberts, Fuzzy Zoeller and Peter Jacobsen. Nicklaus and Watson are defending champions of the Wendy’s Champions SKINS GAME
Scheduled shuttles will run between Whalers Village and the tournament.
WMIF: With community support, ’we will get a hospital’
BY MARK VIETH/EDITOR / LAHAINA NEWS
LAHAINA – West Maui has a critical illness: no acute care emergency hospital for the region’s 50,000 residents, visitors and workers, said Norm Bezane of the West Maui Improvement Foundation.
“It is time for intervention; the time for a cure is now,” he told the audience at WMIF’s recent Annual Meeting.
Bezane likened WMIF’s grassroots campaign to pursue a West Maui Hospital to triage, a process in which limited medical resources must be allocated in a time of crisis, and factors are ranked by order of importance.
On the hospital case for eight years now, WMIF believes the diagnosis is dangerous.
“West Maui is a disaster ready to happen,” Bezane commented.
“Population growth, demographics and the economics of West Maui merit an acute emergency care hospital.”
InnoVative Capital LLC is partnering with Ameris Health Systems LLC to research the possibility of developing, financing, operating and owning an acute care community hospital and long-term care facility on the West Side.
Design of the facility will factor needs of the community, but expectations are that the medical center would include 25-40 acute care beds and 40 long-term care beds. The projected budget is $40 million to $50 million.
Low-cost financing would be sought by the FHA Section 242 Mortgage Insurance Program.
As part of the planning process, InnoVative Capital will enter into a cooperative agreement with Maui Memorial Medical Center, allowing InnoVative and Ameris to analyze Maui’s healthcare market to best chart the size, scope and services of the new facility.
To move forward with the hospital proposal, the partnership needs strong support from the community, health care providers and government.
First, the group needs to complete a land donation agreement that meets federal government hospital financing requirements.
“Under Innovative Capital’s current analysis of hospital financing, a HUD loan would provide $50 million; investors would put on $10 million. The land would need to be virtually free to allow the delicate financing balance to work,” Bezane noted.
Kaanapali Development Corp. has pledged to donate 14.9 acres near Lahaina Civic Center to WMIF to pursue the hospital.
West Maui Improvement Foundation has proposed modifications to its land agreement with KDC. WMIF would receive the land, reserved for medical use, and long-term lease it for a very nominal fee to developers and builders of the hospital.
Maui Land & Pineapple Co. Inc. has offered land for a medical facility near Kapalua-West Maui Airport.
WMIF supports the Lahaina site because, through community donations and fund-raisers, the nonprofit group has conducted studies required during the permitting process, “saving several years of startup time,” said Bezane.
“Investors, WMIF and Kaanapali Development need to negotiate, complete and sign the land agreement with all deliberate speed,” he commented.
With medical facility staffing a concern in Hawaii, the second need is physician support.
“Interested physicians who would have the opportunity to relocate to the hospital campus need to wholeheartedly support and participate in the hospital plan,” he said.
Third, to obtain financing and navigate the state Certificate of Need and land use approval processes, there must be strong public support for the West Maui Hospital.
Bezane said Kaiser Permanente and other HMOs must allow their subscribers to utilize the facility.
The visitor and real estate industries should support the project and help through fund-raising, Bezane said. In turn, the hospital would improve health care and provide a safety net in the event of an emergency.
The fourth critical need is cooperation and support from Maui Memorial Medical Center and the State of Hawaii.
A West Maui Hospital with a long-term care component would free MMMC acute care beds currently housing long-term patients, WMIF reported.
Acute care emergency patients – including stroke and heart attack victims, or motorists seriously injured in crashes – would be stabilized at the West Side facility, and then transferred to Maui Memorial.
Maui Memorial and West and South Maui Sen. Roz Baker are involved in the discussions. Unable to attend Thursday’s meeting, Baker sent a message that she supports building the West Maui Hospital.
The final need is support from residents in West Maui and around the island.
Residents in Central Maui and Upcountry must grasp that a West Side facility will take pressure off Maui Memorial and allow it to expand services, Bezane said.
West Maui is also a key cog in the island’s economy.
“We would like you to recognize that the county budget is at risk by not having a West Maui Hospital,” Bezane told the packed house. “If West Maui revenues fell, as much as 40 percent of county money could disappear.”
West Mauians should back a change in zoning for the hospital site before the County Council and Planning Commission, ask the mayor and government officials to actively support the facility, and contribute money to the project through WMIF’s Golden Hour Fund, said Bezane, who writes a cultural column called “Beyond the Beach” in the Lahaina News.
“Help convince those who need to act? that their help in moving the hospital forward rapidly will be a real, well-recognized contribution to the community that will pay dividends for everyone,” he stated.
“Contributing now helps us get the land ready. It is the availability of land that is crucial to getting the investors to move forward.”
According to WMIF, a Lahaina hospital would improve Maui’s emergency readiness – a state and federal government priority.
In the event of a disaster, a satellite facility of another hospital, or helicopter transport to another location, would be insufficient, the group reported.
For people in remote West Maui, a new hospital in Kihei is irrelevant in terms of providing immediate hospital care in an emergency, Bezane said.
Through concerted effort and financial support, “we will get a hospital,” Bezane said.
“This team is making no promises, but it does say if we can muster the right support, if we can overcome the many challenges, including some peculiar to Maui and Hawaii, if the model works, they will build a hospital," he commented.
In a statement to be read into the record at the “Future of Health Care on Maui” Forum in Kula on Feb. 15, Alan Richman, CEO of InnoVative Capital, noted, “we are delighted to reaffirm our strong support for a West Maui community hospital and our expressed intention in working to see this venture to fruition as expeditiously as possible.”
“But with this statement, I want to formally declare that a hospital in West Maui should be viable under the right circumstances and further, our group stands ready to make this a reality if we can get the cooperation of all parties concerned.”
For information on the hospital campaign and making a donation, visit http://www.westmauihospital.org
New $70 million plan will deliver more than a hospital for West Maui
VIEWPOINT by BRIAN HOYLE
January 13, 2008
With the West Maui Improvement Foundation's new plans for a West Maui medical center in the news and the Maui Heath Care Initiative Task Force about to issue its recommendations, the rumor mill is alive, and not necessarily so accurately.
Some are wondering what is the so-called Hoyle group that wants to bring acute emergency care to West
Maui. Others are hearing rumors about our plans, some undoubtedly true, some not true. The foundation, through its president, Joe Pluta, joins with me in providing this overview.
Some 40 years ago, my uncle developed the Maui Eldorado Resort and still owns land in Kaanapali. As hospital and nursing home developers, my father and uncle worked to improve medical care on Maui and throughout the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s. Today, after my own 30 years of owning, developing and building hospitals and nursing homes throughout the U.S., I am pleased to return to Maui to try to meet the west side's need for a complete emergency hospital and long-term care facility.
All the plans we previously released are still on the table: acute emergency care, a 25-bed critical access hospital, two operating rooms, a medical office building and clinic, a 40-bed skilled nursing facility and 40 long-term assisted-living units.
To be clear, the central role of the medical center we are planning with the West Maui Improvement Foundation will be to provide acute emergency care to everyone on the west side regardless of income level or the insurance people carry. By law, acute emergency ambulance crews are required to bring patients with threatening illnesses to the nearest acute care hospital. In our case, this means anyone in West Maui in need of assistance.
It should also be clear that we have not abandoned the idea of building an assisted-living or long-term care facility. Although it is true that long-term care beds are expensive to maintain and can be a drain on finances, we continue to work with health care providers and area business people throughout the community to bring long-term care to West Maui. We could build and own a long-term care facility or have space for it on the 14.9 acres of land that is being made available. If someone else wants to build it, we are prepared to run it and staff it.
The "we" is not just Brian Hoyle. I am a principal of Southwest Health Group whose management and partners have a combined 140 years experience in health care development and management. The group has built and operates five community hospitals, including the only hospital in the New Orleans area that continued operating after the Katrina disaster.
It should be pointed out that, American Healthcare Investment LLC, a firm I founded in 1998, now has 15 nursing facilities in Iowa, Utah and Colorado. My Newport Hospital Corp. is a health care investment and consulting firm with operations in 10 states and also owns a 34-bed geriatric psychiatric hospital in Newport Beach, Calif.
The $70 million in financing for the West Maui medical center will be provided by Newport Hospital Corp. and its investment partners, including the Southwest Health Group. Its officers include Irvin Gregory, developer of 130 hospitals or surgical centers the last 30 years; J. Michael Mullin with 25 years of in health care financing and accounting experience with health care companies; CEO James Parkhurst of Newport Bay Hospital in Newport Beach; CEO Ira Jackson of hospitals in Houston and Victoria, Texas; and Promod Seth with 30 years experience in the health care industry.
We are pleased to be associated with the community-based West Maui Improvement Foundation, a group that deserves a great deal of credit for spearheading the hospital effort over the last eight years and laying all the groundwork for the anticipated zoning changes necessary to build on land near the Lahaina Civic Center. We are also most appreciative of the generosity of the folks at Ka'anapali 2020 and their long-standing offer to make the land available.
We have a good team and strong financial support. But we do need the support of everyone in Maui County to assure that we can move this all-important effort forward and secure a certificate of need from the state.
Improving the quality of health care is a worthwhile goal for everyone. To learn more, you can go to westmauihospital.org. or attend the West Maui Taxpayers Association annual meeting, at 5 p.m. Jan. 17 at the Lahaina Civic Center.
We humbly ask for your support.
Brian Hoyle, principal of Southwest Health Group, is working with the West Maui Improvement Foundation to develop and operate a critical access hospital in Lahaina. He is headquartered in Newport Beach, Calif.
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Featured Properties
Check out these wonderful properties and the photographs on our website.
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Meet Tess and Bud Burrid at Mewe Creations.
Tell Me The Story
(QuickTime Movie - 3829KB)
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Check out Maui Community Television brought to you by:
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Allamanda, Golden Trumpet
(Allamanda cathartica)
There are about twelve species of Allamanda. Some are woody climbers and other are more shrub-like in habit. The Golden Trumpet is called lani-ali'i, "heavenly chief," by the Hawaiians and is one of the most widely used plants in Hawaii for landscaping. One expert says the Hawaiian name may have been given to the allamanda because it was recognized as a flower "fit for a king." (In ancient times, yellow and gold were considered royal colors.)Natives of Brazil, they are usually vigorous, sprawling green vines. They are often used as ground cover in dry, sunny places or to add softness to walls and terraces, especially in sandy seaside gardens where they do particularly well. They are grown in parks, lowland resorts, gardens and yards for the fragrant, large, velvety golden-yellow flowers, from three to five inches in diameter. The flowers cover the vines almost every day of the year. The vines rarely bear fruit in Hawaii.
Each flower is a tube that spreads into five thick lobes. The flowers grow in terminal clusters with two or three buds opening at a time. The buds are pointed, brownish in color and can look as if they have been varnished.
The leaves are smooth, thick and a pointed oval, growing in fours and forming a cross or whorl where they join the stem. They are a light green. In India some people consider a tea made from the allamanda bark to be a good laxative. In Columbia and in Cuba the sap or a tea made from the leaves was also used in medicine. However, be aware that all parts of the plant including its milky sap are considered to be mildly toxic and is likely to cause vomiting and diarrhea. Still, allamanda is not a common cause of illness or skin rash in Hawaii. Usually the symptoms produced by this plant (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and/or rash) disappear without treatment.
Other Allamanda varieties include A. oenotheraefolia, a native of Brazil which is more of a shrub, and A. violacea, another native of Brazil, which has reddish-purple flowers rather than the customary yellow ones. There is also a form with silvery-gray leaves.
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Hospital Dance
When the sugar plantations were in the development stages, the companies provided medical services as well as housing, transportation and other community services for the large numbers of immigrant workers that they imported to work in the fields. The rivalry during the late 1800's between the two top sugar producers in East Maui - HC&S (Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar, a California corporation owned at the time by California sugar magnate Claus Spreckels) and the various permutations of the Alexander and Baldwin conglomerate of smaller, independently owned plantations, started an interesting hospital "dance"One of the first hospitals to be opened for these workers and other Maui residents of the area was built by HC&S in 1885. It was located at Spreckelsville.
In 1898 (around the time Alexander and Baldwin became the principal shareholders of HC&S and Spreckels left the islands for good) a small hospital was established in Lower Paia by their Paia Plantation. Dr. Aiken was the resident physician, succeeded by Dr. McConkey. (In later years the buildings for that hospital were used for the Paia Club House and for the East Maui Community Association headquarters).
Then in 1903, the Paia Plantation formed a partnership with the Haiku Sugar Company to allow for joint operation of a sugar mill and other facilities. This partnership was called Maui Agricultural Company, Ltd. (Eventually, the original companies merged with five other small companies - Kailua Plantation, Kalialinui Plantation, Kula Plantation, Makawao Plantation and Pulehu Plantation so they could pool their resources.)
That same year, a wing was added to the Spreckelsville Hospital and an X-ray machine was added.
In 1909, the new Paia Hospital in Upper Paia, one of the largest, most up-to-date hospitals in the Territory of Hawaii, replaced the old hospital in Lower Paia. Built by the Maui Agricultural Company, it stood on Baldwin Avenue below Makawao Union church. (The site is marked now by a small monument set on the roadside next to waving sugarcane.) The hospital was built just as the plantations were expanding their work forces with immigrants from Russia, Portugal and the Philippines. In 1910, an epidemic of smallpox broke out among the Filipino worker population, and they were cared for by the medical staffs of both the Paia and the Spreckelsville hospitals.
Then, in January, 1912, a Maui News article announced that the Paia hospital had obtained a "fine new ambulance," and said it was "the first one to arrive on Maui. The vehicle had been ordered from the factory of the White Automobile Company.
In 1913 a new HC&S hospital was built at Puunene in central Maui and the old Spreckelsville Hospital was closed. Six years later, in 1919, there was a major influenza epidemic. A "total of 4,000 cases of influenza with perhaps 50 deaths," were reported between January 25 and February 21, 1919, according to the Maui News. Half of the cases were in East Maui and seven deaths there were attributed to the epidemic.
By 1930, HC&S, the largest sugar plantation on Maui, had as many as 26 camps housing more than 7,000 people. Within the plantation there were four public schools, three Japanese language schools, 10 churches, 12 day nurseries, three theaters, one gymnasium, a public swimming facility and the hospital. Government policies enacted in the late 1940's and in the 1950's, as well as a more articulate, independent workforce that organized themselves into unions, and an exodus of the workers' children from the camps as more opportunities for other kinds of work opened up would lead to the eventual breaking down of the old plantation camps and villages and to the birth of new towns and communities.
By 1948, the Territorial Senate had appropriated funds for the construction of the Central Maui Memorial Hospital. By the late 1940's the Paia Hospital was getting old. It was closed, and then reopened as the Maui Children's Home in 1949. (The orphanage closed in 1965.)
The new Maui Memorial Hospital was dedicated on August 17, 1952. World War II veteran Masao Aizawa spoke for the County's ex-servicemen at the celebration. He said, "This is indeed a fitting memorial to those who gave their all...."
On September 17, 1952, at 7:33 a.m. Gerald Lau Hee was the first baby born in the new hospital. His father, Thomas Lau Hee, was a World War II veteran. His mother was the former Alma Komatsu of Wailuku. He was delivered by Dr. Katuyuki Izumi.
Puunene Hospital was closed four years later, in 1956, and its services consolidated with those of Maui Memorial Hospital.
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History behind the Hawaiian Alphabet Before the arrival of Captain James Cook, Hawaiian was only a spoken language. They did not write to preserve history, instead they preserved their history in chants and legends. When Captain James Cook arrived to the islands in 1778, he realized how similar the Hawaiian language was to Tahitian and Maori. When the missionaries came in 1820, they wanted to spread Christianity and set up schools and churches. So, the missionaries created a 12 letter alphabet based on their own roman alphabet and the sounds they heard. The alphabet was 5 vowels a, e, i, o, u and 7 consonants h, k, l, m, n, p, w. Today the modern Hawaiian alphabet includes those 5 vowels and 8 consonants, the eighth consonant is the ( ‘ ) ‘okina, and one grammatical mark, the kahakō, which is used to lengthen vowels. Learn the Hawaiian Alphabet |
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In the Hawaiian alphabet there are 5 vowels:
There also is those same 5 vowels with a kahakō over each vowel:
A Kahakō is a symbol that whenever its over a vowel, the wowel is drawn-out, you just lengthen the sound, don't raise the pitch of your voice. |
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Then there are 8 Consonants:
To pronounce H, K, L, M, N, P is the same as in English. The "W" is usually pronounced as if it was a "V" sound, but when the "W" is after the vowels "U" and "O" it's usually pronounced as a "W" sound. The ‘okina is a "Glottal Stop," You stop whatever vowel sound you are saying, then switch to the next one. ("Oh-Oh" is an example with a break in it)
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Rules To Remember:
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Braddah-Nics Lexicon
STANDARD: Charlie would be the one to do that.
BRADDAH-NICS: Charlie da man fo' do 'um.
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STANDARD: He's got all kinds of degrees, but, frankly, he's rather ineffectual.
BRADDAH-NICS: Braddah get educationals. No can do nuttin'.
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STANDARD: He refused to admit defeat.
BRADDAH-NICS: Da buggah no go down!
Local Grinds
Citrus Punch
Ingredients:
- 1 bottle chilled ginger ale
- 2 cans guava juice
- 1 1/2 cup unsweetened pineapple juice
- 1 cup fresh orange juice
- 3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 Tbsp. grenadine syrup
Procedure:
Combine all ingredients in pitcher, stir until sugar is dissolved, pour and enjoy!
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