������Ƶ

Communications breakdown: So The Sunshine Blog probably wasn’t the only one surprised to see Maui County Council member Tamara Paltin pop up on a video screen during the council budget meeting last week looking like she was sitting in a restaurant somewhere. Later she showed up on a train.

Turns out that was a bullet train. In Japan.

Paltin was one of about 20 people including county officials, at least one state lawmaker and local business and civic leaders who ventured across the Pacific on an educational tour of Japanʻs Tohoku Region at the invitation of the Japanese government.

When it became apparent during the meeting that Paltin was with a bunch of Hawaii folks in Japan, The Blog checked the Maui County website to see what was up. But got nothing. In keeping with Maui County’s dismal communications practices the whole group had skipped town with nary a public mention of where they were going.

The Blog dashed off an email to the Maui County comms office to find out more. And surprise! We got an actual response from someone, although we don’t know who because as usual the email had no name on it and came from “Communications Team.”

It looks like Mayor Richard Bissen led the group which included a trip to the Fukushima Prefecture to learn more about disaster recovery after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in that part of the country.

According to Communications Team, besides Bissen and Paltin the VIP tour group included state Sen. Troy Hashimoto, Kuhio Lewis of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement and Colbert Matsumoto of Island Insurance.

“Mayor Bissen will be bringing back with him valuable lessons learned from the disaster recovery and reconstruction efforts, as well as the countryʻs innovative practices to maximize resiliancy (sic) efforts,” Communications Team wrote.

A family affair: Another Logan will be taking over as Hawaii’s next adjutant general and commander of the Hawaii Army National Guard when Maj. General Kenneth Hara steps down on Oct. 1.

Brig. Gen. Stephen Logan, who’s currently the deputy adjutant general, will ascend to the top job, Gov. Josh Green announced Friday.

It’s the same job that was held by his brother, Joe Logan, before Hara got the gig when Joe Logan resigned in 2020 not too long after that false missile alert debacle.

And that’s not the end of the Logan Dynasty in Hawaii. Besides Joe and Stephen there’s also a third brother Mark, who retired as a colonel in the Hawaii National Guard.

Joe has since gone on to be chief of the Honolulu Police Department, where he worked for a number of years before he went on to a career in the National Guard.

Same with brother Stephen and brother Mark. Both of them were HPD officers prior to joining the Guard. Stephen retired from HPD as a lieutenant in 2004 and became the state aviation officer in the Guard.

They’re dropping like flies: And another departure to report.

Dutch Kuyper (real name Neil) is leaving his job as president and CEO of Parker Ranch, the giant Big Island agricultural operation, to take a gig as vice president of one of Alaska’s largest Native corporations.

Kuyper, who has been with Parker Ranch for the past 13 years, will head to Anchorage to work for Cook Inlet Region Inc., also known as CIRI and long one of the most successful of the 13 Alaska Native regional corporations.

“I have loved working for Parker Ranch and contributing to its success,” Kuyper said in a press release. “Perpetuating the legacy of the paniolo and preserving the way of life in Waimea is truly one of the greatest experiences of my life.”

Parker Ranch is on the hunt for a new CEO, the press release says.

Buried in the inbox: We’re a little slow on this news but Derek Turbin was elected as the Democratic Party of Hawaii’s 2024-26 chair at the party’s convention May 18 when more than 400 party loyalists gathered online and in person at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. He replaces Adrian Tam, a state lawmaker.

The delegates voted to approve nearly three dozen resolutions and also approved an amendment to the party’s constitution that will put in place a ranked choice voting system for future state conventions.

Now if only they could get their Democratic lawmaker members to push that through for the whole state and its elections systems. As we’ve reported before, the party actually has a pretty solid accountability platform that gets very short shrift when it gets translated in the real world of the Legislature.