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Lower energy bills offer financial options
Remember, a penny saved is a penny earned, so with gasoline and energy bills coming down, Hawaii residents might finally be able to make some headway on savings. Thanks to a drop in oil prices, gasoline prices lately have been less than $3 a gallon and February electric bills for Oahu customers will be the lowest they’ve been in four years.
Of course, many folks will quickly spend those dollars without a second thought. Others, thinking twice, might apply those dollars to reduce their debt, or save. More power to them, we say.
Sometimes there’s just no fun in winning
Every family has dirty laundry — but luckily, for the most part, it doesn’t get aired in public. No such luck, unfortunately, for the family of Katherine Kealoha, a deputy city prosecutor and wife of Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha. After a pair of messy trials involving charges of financial malfeasance involving her grandmother and uncle, Katherine Kealoha was cleared Thursday when a civil-case jury found in her favor. She is now due $658,000-plus.
Although Kealoha legally prevailed, it’s difficult to declare anyone a winner, given the ruined family dynamics. At the unfortunate center of it all was matriarch Florence Puana, who at 95, had a front-row seat to the unpleasant fight over her money.