i L i n d . n e t

Former Star-Bulletin assistant managing editor Rich Somerville died over the weekend at his home in California.

I got the news from John Hollon, former executive editor at the Advertiser. Here is John’s note:

I knew Rich from when we both were at The Advertiser in the mid-1990s, and I kept in touch with him over the years, especially after he moved to California. You and many others probably remember him well from his time at the Star-Bulletin.

Rich always was warm and gracious. I could count on him for an insightful comment about journalism, or newspapers, or people we both knew. I will miss that, and him, greatly.

Here’s the last e-mail I received from him in early November of 2007. It updates what he had been doing, and knowing Rich, he wouldn’t mind me sharing it with you or anyone else:

John:

I just signed up for LinkedIn, on your advice, so I don’t get lost again.

I have been moving around a lot since I left Hawaii the second time in 1996. I had a doctoral fellowship at Missouri (still trying to finish the dissertation), worked on media research at the Readership Institute at Northwestern, went back into the newsroom to try out some of our research findings (at Grass Valley, CA), then did consulting around the country for several years on newsroom change before being tapped for this job. It’s kind of a troubleshooter position, an extension of the consulting.

An archconservative businessman here started a free, home-delivered daily to drive this MediaNews paper out of business because it endorsed his wife’s opponent for mayor a couple of years ago. It costs him maybe $5M a year to stay in business, but he sees it as a crusade against Dean Singleton. Singleton made me an offer I couldn’t refuse to come in and strengthen the news side.

A year later, and things are going well. Our paper keeps improving, circulation is up, and word comes that the other paper (The Eureka Reporter) is laying off and tightening their belts. I’m enjoying the battle a lot, plus this is a great place to live.

Thanks for agreeing to check out Sharon’s stuff. Meanwhile, if you’re ever want to get away from the heat, this is a great place to visit, and I have room for guests where I live, in a little seaside town called Trinidad.

All the best; good to touch base again.

Rich

I ran into this profile of Somerville, which will give you a bit more insight into the man.

Condolences to those who were close to him.

A group of Maui residents is scheduled to go to court today to press their lawsuit over alleged sunshine law violations by the Maui County Council, according to a good story in the Maui Weekly. The plaintiffs claim the county improperly approved the Honua‘ula development by avoiding public opposition.

In April, Wailuku Attorney Lance Collins filed a lawsuit on behalf of five Kihei residents for the alleged violation of Hawai‘i’s Sunshine Law, or the open meetings law, which provides transparency in government decision-making, in addition to requiring public commentary be accepted at every meeting of a public board or agency. The suit alleged that the residents had been denied the opportunity to provide testimony over a two-month period, and that council members had also distributed documents and engaged in private discussions concerning proposed amendments related to the issue. Collins filed the motion several days after Mayor Charmaine Tavares signed the bills that would move the project forward. Collins requested that Second Circuit Court Judge Joseph Cardoza void the council’s decision to grant zoning for the project. In order to fairly review the case, Judge Cardoza issued an injunction preventing any further development on the project, giving both parties an equal chance to prepare their case.

In an interview with The Maui News, Collins said the members of the council’s Land Use Committee violated the statute by improperly conducting 13 council hearings, citing a continuous pattern of abruptly recessing and erratically scheduling hearings on different days of the week. It is suspected by many that the committee employed these tactics to avoid public testimony at the deliberations.

From our neighbor in Kaaawa:

Sometimes you just can’t believe your eyes. This week is one of those times.
On Wednesday night, June 18th, step outside at sunset and look around. You’ll see a giant form rising in the east. At first glance it looks like the full Moon. It has craters and seas and the face of a man, but this “moon” is strangely inflated. It’s huge!

You’ve just experienced the Moon Illusion. This web site explains the phenomenon and gives moon rise times for major cities

So weather permitting, take a peek when the moon rises tonight.

Am I the only one who thinks that this brief report on a local indictment deserved a bit more attention? I recall the early reports of this incident, which followed a series of disputes between the state airport officials and officers of the small Pacific Wings airline. Articles at the time left open just which side was responsible for the violent incident. Now, three years down the line, it’s the security company’s personnel who allegedly committed tried to rig up false witness reports and are facing prison time. What about DOT? We need a better assessment of its role in the whole sequence of events leading involving Pacific Wings.

Great. PBN reports that Hawaii now has the highest diesel cost in the nation. We have a diesel VW Jetta. When we bought it just a few years ago, diesel cost quite a bit less than premium gas. Today, well, every fill up is an occasion for comment, despite the car’s excellent mileage. We filled up yesterday morning for $5.199 per gallon, two cents less than the $5.22 quoted in the PBN story. Wow. We got away cheap!

An editorial in the Maui News ties the current water crisis on Molokai to the County Council’s past delegation of authority regarding provision of utilities to the developers behind new projects. It’s worth a read.

Here’s an interesting story here from Law.com on “loaded words” like “victim” and “crime scene” being barred from trials. Can’t help wondering if this has happened here yet.

I ran into a couple of CDs yesterday with some of my first digital photos taken in 1998.

Here’s one dated June 1998. It’s Kili and Wally at six months, taken with my original digital, a Ricoh RDC-2, I believe was the designation. With resolution slightly more than 640×480 that prevailed at that time, it was my gateway to the digital world. I’m so glad to discover that those early digital images have survived, although I had to download Graphic Converter, the only software I could think of capable of opening the non-standard image format.