In the news

Here are a bunch of stories carried in the local press about our community's opposition to the mill and power plant being located in our residential community. We're grateful for the interest in this issue. There's a saying that goes, if the press doesn't show up, nothing happened. Well, the press has been showing up. The press showed up when Governor Lingle vetoed the $25 million special purpose revenue bonds earmarked for Tradewinds. In fact, that was when we got wind that Tradewinds had their sights on the old O‘okala mill site. Prior to that, Tradewinds had held meetings only with focus groups and had bypassed notifying all 89 households in our community. We would not have known what was going on if the story had not been covered by the local paper, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald. The Trib also published letters to the editor that we wrote on behalf of the community. And most recently, the Trib closely covered the county council race in our district, where the incumbent Fred Holschuh supported the mill coming into O'okala, and the challenger Dominic Yagong came out in all his stump speeches against Tradewinds coming into O‘okala. What’s more, Yagong came out against any industrial business being located in any residential community. We're happy to say, Yagong was elected Sept. 23 as our new county councilman.

Protect O'okala Ad Hoc Steering Committee