Join the Big Island Press Club for a behind-the-scenes look at how Hilo journalist Pat Tummons dug into questionable 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.
The event — scheduled for 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 14, at Restaurant Kenichi (684 Kilauea Ave. in Hilo) — is BYOB.
BIPC members are donating wine and beer for the event, free with the luncheon while supplies last.
In announcing the charges last 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.
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 at Manoa.
In 1989, she decided to leave St. Louis and relocate to Oahu, where she hoped to publish freelance articles about the environment.
At the time, there wasn’t much interest from commercial publishers in the subject. So, in July 1990, the first edition of Environment Hawaii appeared. Since then, it hasn’t 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 for this event are $30 for members and $45 for nonmembers.
The lunch will include a buffet menu of delicious food: white rice, steamed vegetables, potato-mac salad, panko furikake salmon, boneless Korean chicken. Nonalcoholic beverages also are included.
Guests are requested to park in the county lot across the street at Aupuni Center, because parking is limited near the restaurant.
Tickets must be purchased by noon Monday, or while supplies last.
Go to https:// www.bigislandpressclub.org Click down to “News &Events” on the menu that’s in the upper right corner and select “Events.”