A Hauula-based company with strong ties to Koolauloa has started up Kaleo: Koolauloa News — a new community newspaper patterned after the former Kaleo o Koolauloa, which published its last issue in December 2005.
Moa Mahe, owner of Koolau Business Center (KBC), which publishes the new newspaper, explained some of the similarities to its predecessor include:

  • “Our name, Kaleo: Koolauloa News, builds on ‘brand’ recognition the old Kaleo established over the 10 years that HRI [Hawai‘i Reserves, Inc.] published it.”

“We’re delighted Koolau Business Center and other community interests are supporting a new newspaper in our moku [district], and look forward to reading future issues,” responded HRI President & CEO R. Eric Beaver. “Our Laie Shopping Center has also already taken out an ad.”

“The look, feel and content will be similar, but we’ve also got some new ideas that call for more community involvement.”

  • “We’ve asked Mike Foley, editor of the old Kaleo for 10 years, to help us get started. Mike, who has lived here for 40 years, is amazing in his ability to capture not only the words and pictures, but the spirit that characterizes Koolauloa and our people.”
  • Mahe has strong commitments to Koolauloa: He and his wife, Riana Kaka Mahe, have sent all six of their children to Laie and Kahuku schools. He is currently president of the Kahuku Booster Club, which supports activities and athletics at Kahuku High. He is also president of the Koolauloa Educational Alliance Corporation (KEAC) — a nonprofit association of local school, business and community members that helps Kahuku Complex students with career pathways support.

Originally from Tonga, Mahe was raised in the San Francisco area and first came to Laie in 1982 to attend BYU-Hawaii. After working on the Polynesian Cultural Center sales team in Waikiki, he eventually started his own tour and support services company, Present Hawaii. He started KBC, which also operates a call center in their Hauula Kai Shopping Center location, as a subsidiary in 2005.

“KBC is designed to support young entrepreneurs and other business initiatives in this area,” Mahe said. “It’s also available to Kahuku athletic teams for study hall and other purposes. It’s available to other groups at a minimal charge.”

Affordable housing

Mahe said one of those initiatives is an ambitious plan to build affordable housing in Kahuku. He explained a Kahuku Booster Club project to resurface the high school football field several years ago led club member Eldon Campbell to develop a relationship with the former Campbell Estate [no relation].

Mahe, Campbell, his bro-ther Aaron Campbell and Al Gardner, a retired United Airlines captain from Maui, purchased 452 acres from the Campbell Estate on June 9, 2006. The property is located on the mauka side of Kamehameha Hwy. Bridge to the Kahuku fire station but not including it, the Catholic Church compound or seven homes. “One reason we wanted to buy the property is, hopefully, to provide affordable housing for our workers and the community. We have 40 employees who live in Koolauloa, and only two of them own their own homes. The other 38 have a difficult time finding reasonably priced rentals, and there’s no way they can buy in today’s present market.”

“We didn’t want to be a victim to our circumstance; we wanted to do something about it, and one of the first things to do was to secure land from Campbell Estate — an opportunity we
knew would not come around again.”

“Since then, we’ve held several discussions with the Kahuku Village Association (KVA) to discuss our plans to provide affordable housing for our community. We met with the late on Hurlbut, former president of the Kahuku Community Association,” Mahe continued.

“We also hope to come up with a way for Kahuku High School to implement its master plan that calls for a new campus outside the flood zone, but they don’t have any land,” he said, adding the groups has had discussions where a new campus might fit into their project with Windward District Superintendent Lea Albert, the former principal of Kahuku High.

Mahe stressed their plans are “very preliminary. We hope in the next six months, as we go through due diligence, we can share with the rest of the community what we would like to accomplish.

“We know anything having to do with the land and the project has to be supported by the Kahuku community and go through City and State planning and entitlement processes.
In our presentation to KVA we told them we’re not developers: We’re their neighbors. For example, Eldon (’85) and Aaron (’89) are Kahuku High graduates. We want this to be a grass roots effort that we as a community can all be proud of.”

Eldon Campbell president of Laie-based Kiwi Construction, Inc., is the construction consultant for the proposed project. He started his own construction company in Utah and was also a superintendent with a major homebuilder in Arizona. He and his family now live in Laie.

After graduating from Kahuku, Aaron Campbell served an LDS mission in Hong Kong, graduated from BYU Provo with a bachelor’s in international relations, and graduated from BYU Law School in 2000. He returned to Koolauloa in 2005 and now lives in Laie.

Gardner flew from the mainland to Hawaii for most of his airline career, including the inaugural nonstop flights from Los Angeles to Kahului, Maui, and Lihue, Kauai. He presently volunteers his time coordinating scholarship funding activities for students who attend BYU-Hawaii.

“We see the 452 acres as a tremendous opportunity to empower the community,” said Aaron, who currently manages the property. “We intend to educate those interested in affordable housing about mortgages and how to prepare to get them, so they can be in a position to qualify for these homes. A lot of people say they can’t afford to buy, but we hope to change that and help them get ready. That’s why we see this development as being different.”

“Kaleo: Ko‘olauloa News is an example of this,” Mahe added. “By publishing the paper, our goal is to inform the community of what’s happening. For example, Kahuku went from one major landowner, Campbell Estate, to seven new ones, and we want you to know about our particular efforts.

“We also want to facilitate the process of getting information out, and we felt reviving our community newspaper is a good way to do that.”

Other initiatives

Mahe said he’s involved with two other recent initiatives to help keep the community informed: “First, we are working with a local group to develop kahukuaina.com, a website that will share the history of Kahuku and the surrounding areas, and the land planning processes we’re going through.“

Second, we’re forming a coalition to support affordable housing in Ko‘olauloa. As of now, we’re aware oftwo other affordable housing developments in the Kahuku–Laie area. Our coalition will be working with all of them, as well as the community.

“Through this coalition, we intend to show City and State governments that we are of the same voice in our desire to get affordable housing out here, and support their efforts to do the same,” Mahe said.

“We will inform the community how to join the coalition through the Kaleo newspaper, and the kahukuaina.com website, which will be up-and-running by mid-summer.

“We want this to be a community paper,” he added. “Feel free to submit letters to the editor, photos, etc.” Online submissions should go to aaroncampbel@gmail.com;
call Campbell at 944-0700, ext. 212; or fax 944-0955.


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