NEWS ABOUT MICHAEL KIONI DUDLEY

Kioni Dudley led a fight against the Hoopili development
By Erika Engle
KIoni Dudley, a retired professor and high school teacher, led the battle against D.R. Horton-Schuler Hawaii in its bid to urbanize 1,500 acres of prime agricultural land in Ewa to build 12,000 homes in a community it calls Hoopili.


FL MORRIS / FLMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Kioni Dudley stands outside his home in Makakilo, which overlooks the rejected Hoopili project seen in the distance between the homes in the foreground and Pearl Harbor.
His Friends of Makakilo group, with backing from the state Office of Planning and the heads of the state Transportation and Agriculture departments, won a state Land Use Commission ruling rejecting the developer's plan.
Dudley does not claim a single-handed victory.
"We certainly have a good, large number of people ... working with us," he said. "They were not only members of Friends of Makakilo, but also concerned citizens from Ewa, Ewa Beach, Kapolei and the Waianae Coast.
"They were the people who went door to door and waved signs. They were the people who helped me in getting together town hall meetings and so forth," he said, naming Glenn Oamilda as well as his own wife, Doris Dudley -- "the super-organizer."
But the August decision ended just one battle.
The ruling was based on D.R. Horton-Schuler's failure to submit a plan detailing the timing, phasing and location of developing the community. Such detailed plans are required if a project will take more than 10 years to complete, and the Mililani- or Hawaii Kai-sized Hoopili development would take some 20 years.
"Obviously, we're disappointed in the decision," Horton President Mike Jones told the Star-Bulletin at the time. The developer vowed to push forward "to plan for the future of Hawaii, for future job growth and local housing."
There are currently 29,000 houses on the Ewa plain. Zoning has been approved for 33,000 more.
The additional 12,000 homes at Hoopili, on what is now prime farmland mauka of H-1, would require hauling away the rich topsoil and "filling up our farmland with coral so they can build their houses," Dudley said. "So it just plainly does not make sense."
The traffic problem is already huge, "and we're going to double the population out here and try to put them on H-1," he said. "Let's consider that for a minute."
Federal law will also require construction of "10-foot, solid concrete cement-block walls along the freeway in order to prevent the sound of the freeway from going in to Hoopili," Dudley said. "It's an urbanization of the country that is just unpalatable."
For Leeward-bound drivers, seeing the open space past Waipahu is good for the soul, Dudley said.
"If we allow Hoopili, it's going to cause solid houses from Hawaii Kai to Ko Olina, unbroken city," he said. "The Second City was supposed to be separate from the First City."

MIKE DUDLEY COMMENTS ABOUT CHUCK MARTINEZ

Yesterday, Friday, the Job Corps where Chuck worked held a service for him at their Center on Maui . It was a wonderful experience. Chuck's US Job Corps activities were with the section that works with Micronesians--who are citizens of the US Territories. The Corps trains Micronesians in Kwajelein, and then bring them here (to Maui) for further training, preparing them for life in the US once they are able speak the language well enough to live on their own. There is an island just off of Kwaj, where many Micronesians who work on our base there live, and where the Job Corps trainees come from. While working with Job Corps on Kwaj, Chuck got to know a lot of the families who have kids in the program. All of the trainees yesterday seemed like high school to college age kids. They really loved Chuck and called him Jimma, which means Grandfather. You could tell that he had really become Marshallese and had been 100% accepted by them as one of them. He really loved them, and they really loved him. It was a real "family" experience that went on for two and a half hours. Chuck's son, Charlie, his wife Barbara, and his sister Cathy were there and all spoke. In the eulogy and in their talk, they mentioned his life in the Brothers, and I was introduced as one of the ten who joined the order from Notre Dame High School . The kids seemed to be aware of the Big Ten. One of the few pictures prominently displayed was of Chuck in his habit with his nine brothers and sisters from the '50s.

I want to pass on to you an unusual happening. When I heard of Chuck's death, I immediately started thinking about going to the funeral. Given the outrageously high cost of gasoline and everything else that skyrocketed along with it in the last six months or so, things are pretty tight these days. And when I mentioned it to Doris , she said we just could not afford that luxury now. Airfare alone had shot to $170 each way, for the fifty mile trip. I really wanted to go, but agreed it would be selfish.
Meanwhile, we had a timeshare exchange that going to expire next week. We had decided to advertise it on Craigslist as a vacation rental, and to use it ourselves if there were no takers. I got only one bite, a Canadian fellow who was getting married in two weeks, and wanted a place for three-days-only in later October. My week for the timeshare began this Sunday. I wrote him back, jokingly telling him he should move the wedding up a week or so.
The night before the funeral, I woke up a little before 4. Being wide awake, I decided to have a glass of milk, hoping to get back to sleep. I sat down in front of my computer to drink it, and I thought of Chuck, and realized that I would have arisen about this time if I were going to Maui . I said out loud, "Well, Chuck, I'm sorry. You know I really want to come today, but it doesn't look like it is going to happen. If there is any chance I am going to be there, you're going to have to do something to get me there." I didn't have time for more than another sip of milk before I heard the "bedoinK! You've got mail" sound from the computer. "Well, shit, that was fast!" I said, as I turned to the computer, expecting to see a junk mail ad arriving in the middle of the night. Instead, it was a message from the Canadian who had written some days before, saying he would not only take the timeshare starting this Sunday, but he would take it for the whole week, rather than three days—a bonanza of unexpected cash for us. Then I noticed his name, Mike Doom. Yes, that gave me shivers, too. Doris was awake when I got back to bed and asked if there was any news. When I told her, she said that I had better go to Maui. This is really a true story. I would not have been there if it had not happened.

Mike