Posted on: Thursday, June 17, 2004
Hawai'i briefs
Advertiser Staff
KAUA'I
Mayor approves $102.5M budget
LIHU'E, Kaua'i — Mayor Bryan Baptiste has approved the County Council's operating budget of $102.5 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
The budget is the largest in the county's history and the first to exceed $100 million. It is 5 percent more than the current fiscal year $97.4 million budget.
More than half the budget will be financed through property taxes, which have climbed fast due to increased values associated with a surging real estate market.
The council reduced the tax rate on property, but in many communities, the assessed value has increased by more than that reduction in tax rates.
Longtime homeowners are somewhat protected by a provision that does not allow residential real property taxes to increase by more than 6 percent in any one year as long as the property is not sold.
LEEWARD O'AHU
Man charged in stabbing
A 29-year-old man was charged last night in connection with the stabbing death of a man in Waipahu early Tuesday.
Asarin Airino was charged with one count each of second-degree murder and second-degree attempted murder. He was being held last night in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Airino is accused of stabbing S.T. Salle, 26, with a kitchen knife in an apartment on Waipahu Street. Police said Salle was stabbed in the chest during a confrontation between Airino and his wife.
Police said Airino had moved out of the apartment a few days before the attack and was living in Makiki. The woman was not injured.
HONOLULU
Storytellers will visit 20 libraries
Nationally recognized storyteller Nyla Ching-Fujii and her husband, Jeffry Stephen Babb, will be the featured performers for the 2004 HSPLS Children's Summer Reading Program at 20 public libraries through June 30.
Admission is free.
The husband and wife duo will perform a special program called Read-It In Books! They will present a musical version of Aesop's Fable, a poetry version of Hen and the Bottle and a reading of "Elephant's Child" from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. Call 831-6878.
