She began in journalism working on the Daily Pinion at McKinley High School, then one of a handful of high school dailies. She earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in journalism and political science at the University of Hawaii, where she edited the student newspaper, Ka Leo O Hawaii. After a year on a Rotary International journalism fellowship in England, Viotti began work in community journalism at the Sun Press/Midweek weekly papers (Midweek is now part of Oahu Publications Inc., which owns the Star-Advertiser).
She covered news and features at The Honolulu Advertiser, with a particular focus on covering Hawaiian issues and concerns of Hawaii's varied ethnic communities. The migrating into editorial writing, which she has continued since the newspapers combined to become the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in 2010. Local and national politics, as well as social-service issues, remain principal interests.
Viotti is an active member of the Society of Professional Journalists. She is married with a grown daughter, pursuing hobbies in music, theater, books and technology.
There are many Oahu single-family homes built on lot sizes of roughly 10,000 square feet. Meeting the needs of many households may hinge on developing more projects like Nohona Hale, developed by the nonprofit EAH Housing. Read more
Robin Danner, Hawaiian homesteader and in the thick of Native Hawaiian issues for years, has found one way to address a particular large-scale community concern. Read more
The Merchant Street office occupied by Deborah Zysman, executive director of the Hawaii Children’s Action Network, is a long way from places most frequented by children. Read more
Protecting Hawaii’s environment against the damaging effects of invasive species is a matter of reducing risk as much as possible, using the available tools to their fullest extent. Read more
Lori McCarney pedaled in, checked in her bike in an empty stall and sat down for an interview at Auahi and Keawe streets, fronting the ninth most popular out of 89 Biki stations in Honolulu. Read more
Damien Kim, wearing the hat of business manager of the electrician’s union, has seen a lot of construction projects in his time, all embedded with risk and worry. Read more
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Why all the hoops to jump through to put a new crop into the ground, especially considering that Hawaii agriculture needs replacements for sugar? The issue here is that hemp and marijuana are two varieties of the same species: cannabis sativa. Read more
Centuries ago, governments not only allowed hemp cultivation, they encouraged it: The plant produced fiber useful for cordage and cloth essential to ship-building. Read more
Stephen Levins, executive director of the state Office of Consumer Protection (OCP), has recently graduated into the class of people especially protected by Hawaii’s laws against unfair or deceptive trade practices. Read more
There are two sets of “food stamp beneficiaries” shopping at the Blaisdell Farmers Market every Wednesday. Read more
President Donald Trumps budget proposed deep cuts to whats been popularly known for a half-century as food stamps. When that news broke recently, a lot of people in Hawaii swallowed hard. State Rep. Bob McDermott, however, wasnt among them. Read more
Catherine Graham, one of the leading lights of the Housing Now! Coalition throughout the just-finished legislative session, would describe herself as a passionate advocate for affordable housing — but not any kind of expert. Read more
David Carey, the just-retired CEO of Outrigger Hotels and Resorts, now has more time for meetings as chairman of the Military Affairs Council at the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii. Read more
It may be the desire for revenue — desire by the government, not the homeowner — that finally forces Oahu to confront its regulatory problem with short-term rentals. Read more
The land-use conflict arising from vacation rentals can be resolved — or, at least, San Francisco has managed to settle the issue for itself. Read more
Adrian Contreras, keeps an eye on the 90-day turnaround window for families, who should move into permanent housing by then. On average, the Family Assessment Center reports it has met that target in its first six months of operation. Read more
At 65, with two grown children, Max Sword’s attention can turn to his current goal to appoint “the best person we can find” to the top HPD job. All things being equal, a local resident has an advantage, Sword said, but all things aren’t always equal. Read more
To observers at the state level, the health-care reform enterprise is seemingly rudderless in the U.S. Capitol these days. So leaders of local health-insurance markets are finding there is only one useful coping strategy: Pick up an oar, and row as best you can. Read more
Conrad Nonaka, director of the Culinary Institute of the Pacific, knows his way around a kitchen, even the sparkling, video-enabled workstations at the institute’s new Diamond Head campus. Read more
Jesse Souki is executive director of the Hawaii Community Development Authority, a state agency that has oversight of land uses in Kakaako, Kalaeloa and Heeia — the latter being a site where preservation more than development is the concern. Read more
City officials have made progress at turning a mountain into a molehill — the mountain being Oahu’s mammoth heap of trash. But the fact remains that there will always be excess material, and the need to stow it someplace. Read more
