Newsmaker Luncheons have returned!

Patricia Tummons to speak Saturday, January 14 at Restaurant Kenichi in Hilo!

Join the Big Island Press Club for a behind-the-scenes look at how Hilo journalist Pat Tummons dug into shady dealings in the county Office of Housing and Community Development and broke the news about a scheme that cost the county $10.9 million in affordable housing credits and ended with the indictments of a county employee and several others in the community.

In announcing the charges this past summer, U.S. Attorney Clare Connors praised the reporting by Tummons' nonprofit newsletter Environment Hawaii that first raised red flags about the scheme and, Connors said, led a county employee to alert the FBI.

The event, scheduled for 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Restaurant Kenichi at 684 Kilauea Avenue in Hilo, is BYOB. BIPC members are donating wine and beer to the event, free with luncheon while supplies last.

Guests are requested to park in the county lot across the street at Aupuni Center, a parking is limited near the restaurant.

Tickets for this event are $30 for members and $45 for non-members. The lunch will include a buffet menu of delicious food:

White rice
Steamed veggies
Potato-Mac salad
Panko furikake salmon
Boneless Korean chicken

Non-alcoholic beverages are also included.

Tummons, a BIPC president many years ago, came to Hawaii in 1985 on a Gannett Fellowship to do a year’s graduate work in Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. In 1989, she decided to leave St. Louis and relocate to Oahu, where she hoped to sell freelance articles about the environment.

At the time, there was not a lot of interest from commercial publishers in the subject. So, in July 1990, the first edition of Environment Hawai`i appeared. Since then, it has not missed a single month of publication. A full archive of every one of the thousands of articles that have appeared in its pages is available online, free of charge, at www.environment-hawaii.org .

TICKETS MUST BE PURCHASED BEFORE JANUARY 6, 2023 OR WHILE SUPPLIES LAST.

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