Hawai'i briefs
Advertiser Staff
NEIGHBOR ISLAND
Man gets 7 years in Internet sting
A Maui man was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge Alan Kay to seven years and three months in federal prison for using the Internet to try to lure what he thought was a 15-year-old girl into having sex with him.
Thomas Schnepper, 39, of Lahaina, chatted online over several months with someone he thought was a Wyoming girl named Mandy, with the expectation that she would arrive at the Kahului Airport on Feb. 14, 2002, to have sex with him.
But "Mandy" turned out to be a federal agent working with the Wyoming attorney general's office as a member of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
When "Mandy" said she was coming to O'ahu with her grandmother, Schnepper offered to pay her plane fare to visit him on Maui and have sex, according to testimony during his trial last summer.
LEEWARD
$4.8M set aside to expand school
Gov. Linda Lingle yesterday released $4.8 million for a new eight-classroom building at Wai'anae High School.
The building will include a biology and marine science classroom, a chemistry classroom and a food service lab, according to the governor's office. The new space will also hold a special education room, a faculty center and a student services center.
Construction is expected to start in March 2005, with completion by July 2006.
Hospital submits master plan
Castle Medical Center has submitted a five-year master plan for a plan-review use permit that outlines projects it might build, including a 16,700-square-foot building.
The master plan calls for the $15 million structure, expansion of the surgery area, expansion of the imaging services, a new MRI facility and a 60-space parking area near the existing helipad.
"It's more of a shopping list than a reality list at this point," said David Earles, marketing director for the center. The most likely expansions to the hospital will be the MRI structure and the parking lot, Earles said.
CENTRAL
Sewage again spills into lake
For the second time in eight days, an electrical power failure at the Wahiawa Wastewater Treatment Plant has caused a spill of partially treated sewage into Lake Wilson.
More than 16,800 gallons of effluent that had undergone tertiary treatment but not final ultraviolet disinfection spilled into the lake yesterday after a power disruption knocked equipment off-line for nine minutes starting at 9:02 a.m.
On Jan. 19, more than 6,300 gallons of partially treated sewage spilled into Lake Wilson after a six-minute electrical failure shut down equipment.
The state Health Department has been notified of the spill and considers the discharge a "disinfection bypass" and not a sewage spill, according to the city.
Warning signs have been posted at the lake, and the state is taking water samples.
