• 1. Michael W. Perry of KSSK radio has been a consistent voice of reason in local news and politics. When other media sided with the environmental groups and aggressively investigated the Hawaii Superferry -- all the while ignoring important questions about who was funding the environmental groups and why -- Perry dug into the background of the groups and exposed their hypocrisy. He traced an email he’d received from an opponent of the Hawaii Superferry who wrote under the name “Kauai Warrior” all the way to Pennsylvania. The author claimed to be a Kauai resident when in fact she was using a vacation rental address to give herself more credibility with lawmakers. During the main legislative session, and subsequent legislative sessions, he challenged lawmakers who passed nonsensical legislation and he promoted legislation that helps victims and taxpayers. His commentaries about local, national and international politics are fresh, interesting and factual. Catch his show, Monday through Friday, from 5 to 10 a.m. and Saturdays from 8 to 11 a.m.

• 2. Rick Hamada hosts a morning talk show on KHVH 830 AM that provides a forum for him to discuss in depth the state’s most important issues: taxation, the economy, small business, current legislation on the county, state and federal levels, the military, crime and the Second Amendment. He also provides a regular weekly forum to local transportation expert Panos Prevadorous, City Council Member Charles Djou and Senators Colleen Hanabusa, D-Waianae, and Sam Slom, R-Hawaii Kai -- all who have important news to share that is most often not reported anywhere else. Catch his show, Monday through Friday, from 5 to 9 a.m.

• 3. Panos D. Prevedouros, PhD, is the president of the Hawaii Highway Users Alliance, a Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Hawaii-Manoa and one of the state’s top transportation experts. He explains with a combination of humor and facts why we get stuck in traffic and what can affordably be done to fix Hawaii’s traffic woes. He has an ability to make difficult things understandable and he has a broad basis of experience. Catch his show with Rick Hamada on Mondays at 8 a.m.

• 4. Dale Evans, president of Charley’s Taxi, founded the Hawaii Highway Users Alliance, an advocacy group for Hawaii drivers that seeks to influence public policy and opinion, promote highway safety, congestion relief, quality growth and freedom of mobility. She works tirelessly behind the scenes to promote free-market organizations and community non-profits helping the less fortunate. See more about her group at http://www.hhua.org

• 5. Cliff Slater, founder of HonoluluTraffic.com, maintains the state’s most informative traffic solutions Web site. He and his wife Bobbie work tirelessly to ensure that city, state and federal officials are held accountable for taxpayer money being used for rail and bus subsidies. He and his coalition helped to defeat the now defunct Bus Rapid Transit System in Waikiki in 2004 and the first rail proposal for Honolulu in 1992. See more at http://honolulutraffic.com

• 6 & 7. Bob Kessler and Paul Smith co-founded “Let Honolulu Vote” -- a grassroots organization that is working to change the City Charter to empower citizens on taxes and get a tax initiative on the ballot. In a letter explaining the organization’s purpose, Kessler says: “Don’t forget the GET Surcharge, which took $450 out of the family purse during 2007, a few cents at a time. Plus all of the other city tax and fee increases (sewers, water, parking, etc.) that compound the tax burden we carry here in Hawaii. How long can we continue to pay such a heavy premium to live the Hawaii lifestyle? While our housing and food taxes have risen as a result of governments inability to rein in spending, look at the pay increases scheduled for state legislators and city council members …. The city’s token reduction in residential real property tax rates was accompanied by increased commercial real property tax rates because the Council couldn’t imagine reducing overall city income growth. So they chose to reduce ours. We all pay those commercial taxes one way or another as part of the housing and food tax -- the GET tax -- that is levied on rent, food, prescriptions, doctor bills, everything. Our petition is the necessary first step in getting control of continually escalating city spending and its impact on the cost of our housing and food.”

• 8. Sam Slom, president and executive director of Small Business Hawaii and a Hawaii state Senator, is a tireless advocate for Hawaii’s small businesses. He publishes the monthly Small Business News (found at http://www.smallbusinesshawaii.com ) and regularly gives speeches in the community and on the floor of the Senate about issues important to taxpayers and small business people. As a former economist for the Bank of Hawaii, former director of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii and law school graduate, Slom combines his education, background and experience with humor to keep the public informed about their government and other happenings in the community. Catch his weekly radio show with Rick Hamada and Senate President Colleen Hanabusa on Thursdays from 7 to 8 a.m. on KHVH News Radio (830 AM).

• 9. Ken Schoolland, who received the top George Washington Award this year from the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, is an Associate Professor of Economics and Political Science at Hawaii Pacific University. He is best known for authoring “The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey.” His book has received worldwide attention since being published by Small Business Hawaii 20 years ago; it is now distributed in various languages in 41 countries. This year alone, Schoolland published Jonathan Gullible in Polish, Mongolian, Turkish, Georgian and Nepali versions and he has 10 more books planned. His book has been recognized by the top economists and think tanks in the world and brought accolades from Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate in economics.

• 10. Bob Sigall, a local marketing expert and professor at Hawaii Pacific University, authored four years ago the best selling book, “The Companies We Keep - Amazing Stories About 450 of Hawaii’s Best Known Companies.” The book, which documents important history about Hawaii’s businesses, was published by Small Business Hawaii. This December, Sigall released a second book, “The Companies We Keep 2 - More amazing stories about Hawaii people, places and companies,” also published by Small Business Hawaii, which was an instant success. The stories are fascinating and the book is a quick read. See more about these books at http://www.companieswekeep.com/companies2.html

• 11. Since January 2003, John Garibaldi, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Hawaii Superferry, has worked tirelessly to get launched the state’s first inter-island ferry service in 30 years. He and four principals invested $93 million in the all privately funded Hawaii Superferry, took on a $17 million debt and secured a $140 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Maritime Administration to build two catamarans deemed the largest aluminum high speed vessels ever built in the United States. While the trials of the Hawaii Superferry seemed endless with court appearances, protests, negative media, security meetings, and millions of dollars wasted on legal expenses and stalled operations, Mr. Garibaldi and his investors remained optimistic and they ultimately launched the ferry to Maui on Dec. 13.

• 12 & 13. Kawika Crowley and Jolyn Tenn, co-founders of the Hawaii Smokers Alliance, brought back true grassroots lobbying at the Hawaii State Capitol. They overcame enormous odds, by going to the Legislature every day during the 2007 legislative session, and successful showed there is another side to the smoking issue. They got lawmakers to sign onto the idea that there may have been a rush to judgment when they passed the smoking ban in Hawaii in 2006. They showed the smoking ban’s major impact on bar owners who are no longer allowed to let their customers engage in this legal activity.

• 14 & 15. Bill and Sandra Burgess co-founded Aloha for All, an organization that seeks to educate the public about special native Hawaiian programs and benefits they believe should be afforded to people of all races in Hawaii. They have dedicated recent years to fighting the Akaka Bill, which seeks to afford native Hawaiians even more benefits than now received by native Americans and Native Alaskans, such as government land and subsidies. Bill is the first opponent to testify before Congress on the bill, which passed the U.S. House this year and is pending a vote in U.S. Senate. They continue to try and kill the Akaka Bill because they strongly believe the race-based political system is dangerous for Hawaii. They say instead, Hawaii should be looking at ways to create racial harmony. Those who know the Burgesses say they have shown great courage in the face of much opposition, backed by tremendous power and money.

• 16. Amy Marvin of Pilaa, Kauai, lost nearly everything that she and her family had in a 2001 catastrophic mudslide, which caused severe damage to their property, home and small business and devastated the beach and bay. The saga began when automobile mogul James Pflueger illegally graded and grubbed portions of his 387-acre property behind the Marvins’ home. Around 50 to 100 acres were left raw and exposed. A heavy rainstorm turned Kauai’s famous red dirt into a muddy auburn swamp and the mud covered the Marvins’ property. More than 1,000 tons of dirt and debris oozed into the once sparkling emerald ocean, which was awaiting the same federal protection that Oahu’s Hanauma Bay already enjoys. Amy and her attorney Teresa Tico aggressively pushed for a local and federal investigation into the mudslide. Agents from Kauai County, state Department of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined that Pflueger should be charged with 14 felony counts. Pflueger opted to plead guilty to 10 of the 14 felony counts. Prison time could have been imposed, but instead, the 80-year-old multi-millionaire was ordered to pay a record $12 million in fines and restitution costs and repair the damage he caused. The EPA fine of $7.5 million was the largest penalty against an individual polluter in U.S. history. The state fine of $4 million and the 10 felony convictions were the most substantial penalties against an individual polluter in Hawaii’s history.

• 17. Teresa Tico is a fearless environmental attorney who represented the Marvin family after illegal grading by local automobile mogul James Pflueger caused a disastrous mudslide on their property surrounding their home and Pilaa Bay, Kauai. A certified film editor who produced dozens of independent environmental films, Tico used her talents to produce her own films on coral damage at Pilaa, which were used in trial and aired on local television. Earlier this year she was recognized by the Public Justice Foundation for her work on this case: “Beyond the impact on the environment, Marvin v. Pflueger leaves another kind of lasting legacy. The case proves that one person -- a solo practitioner representing just one family -- can stand up to wealthy and powerful wrongdoers and prevail, even when no one thought it was possible.” After James Pflueger’s Ka Loko Dam breached in March 2006 unleashing an estimated 400 million gallons of water, which killed 8 people and destroyed millions of dollars in property, Tico was the attorney many local residents turned to for help. She is one of a handful of attorneys representing the families of the victims who died as well as the private property owners who lost everything from farms, to tree crops to big sections of their land, to their fresh water source. She has become the focus of Pflueger’s ire and was named by him as a “conspirator” in his lawsuit over the Ka Loko Dam breach.

• 18. Mike Dyer, a well-respected real estate agent on Kauai’s North Shore who in the early 1970s managed Ka Loko Reservoir for then owner C. Brewer, is a key witness in the investigation of the breach of Ka Loko Dam. he told Hawaii Reporter how he’d documented unsafe activity at the dam in the late 1990s and reported it to both the dam’s owner, automobile mogul James Pflueger, and to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources Kauai office. Dyer noted construction with heavy equipment along the edge of the Ka Loko Dam, which fronts the reservoir. Dyer became greatly troubled when he saw the dam’s main safety feature, a concrete spillway about 15 to 20 feet wide located 8 to 10 feet below the dam, was no longer visible, and instead was completely covered by dirt. With a background in engineering, experience in the Peace Corps with earthen dams, and the knowledge he had of Ka Loko as its previous caretaker, Dyer knew right away the serious implication the covering of the spillway had on the dam’s integrity. Too much water in the dam would flow over the top eroding the dam’s structure instead of being guided safely down the spillway. Substantial erosion would mean the dam would not hold. With Ka Loko filling up to as much as 500 million gallons of water, Dyer feared the worst could happen. His warnings were never heeded or even acknowledged. He has become a key witness in the criminal and civil cases against Pflueger.

• 19. David Whatmore, a farmer on Kauai who has grown citrus, mangoes, and other exotic fruits on his 10-acre Hula Daze Farm since 1985, is one of the most outspoken farmers on Kauai. He and 20 other farmers rely on water from Ka Loko Dam via the Kilauea Irrigation System to maintain their crops, but James Pflueger who owns the reservoir where the water is stored, has petitioned the state to shut off the farmers’ water. Whatmore has been fighting against Pflueger’s plan, but the state Land Department has sided with Pflueger, which will put him and the other farmers out of business. Whatmore, like most of the Kilauea farmers, bought his property years ago specifically because of the access to Ka Loko’s fresh water. He says there is not enough county water in Kilauea to meet daily demands and in addition, the county water is considerably more expensive ($1.26 to $4 per 1,000 gallons for county water compared to 44 cents per 1,000 gallons for Kilauea Irrigation). If the farms go, so will an estimated 1 million servings of fresh produce harvested there and distributed to hotels, restaurants, grocery stores and farmers' markets on Kauai annually, in addition to exports to the U.S. Mainland and Canada, Whatmore says. He continues his fight on Kauai and at the Legislature and land board.

• 20. Dr. Ron Kwon, a Harvard educated Maui internist with his own practice, started the Malulani Health Systems and fought for 10 years to build a second hospital on Maui. Maui needs and deserves a second hospital, he says, because for the residents and visitors of Maui, medical choice “could be a matter of life and death.” Kwon notes between 1990 and 2000, Maui was the fastest-growing county in Hawaii, accounting for 27 percent of the state’s population growth. He says by 2015, Maui County will have an estimated 167,000 residents, up from the current 140,533. The state’s SHPDA agency and Oahu board of directors denied the Certificate of Need for the hospital in 2007, despite overwhelming support from the people of Maui. SHPDA claimed that the competition from the new 150-bed hospital in West Maui would financially hurt the state’s monopoly taxpayer funded hospital on another part of the island. Kwon is shelving plans for the Malulani, closing his practice and leaving the state. He will be returning to the private Emerson Hospital in Boston, where the management is excited to implement many of the plans he had for Maui. He is greatly respected on Maui, and although his medical center has not yet been built, he along with Jan Shields, a nurse and small business woman living on Maui, have built a tremendous coalition on Maui in support of the project and has helped shine the light on the powerful people who have shut the project down because of their special interest or political connections.

• 21. Jan Shields, L.V.T., B.S.N., R.N.C., a nurse heading up the Coconut Wireless newswire and the Association for Improved Healthcare on Maui, continues the fight for a second private hospital there. She launched a television series on Maui’s Akaku station, which will help expose the who’s who in stopping the second hospital from being built. She is helping to building a tremendous coalition of people who want choices in their medical care on Maui. See more about the organization at http://www.aihm-maui.org/

• 22. Rep. Colleen Meyer, Minority Floor Leader in the Hawaii State House, has served as a Republican Representative member since 1995. Meyer, who represents several small windward communities including Kaawa and Kahaluu, has been one of the few consistent voices in the State House advocating for Hawaii’s small businesses, private property owners and taxpayers. She served as the Co-Chair of the legislative Small Business Caucus, 1999-2004; is a member of the Hawaii Women's Political Caucus and the Honolulu Transportation and Traffic Management Planning Task Force; and is also on the House Interim Task Force on Standards of Conduct. She is a member of two special task forces: the Hawaii 2050 Sustainability Task Force and the Identity Theft Task Force.

• 23. Robert Thomas is the designated attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation in Hawaii and he has worked diligently to protect private property rights here. The most high profile case that Pacific Legal Foundation took on with Thomas’ help, was the Kauai Property Tax case, which went to the Hawaii Supreme Court. Hawaii Reporter and the Wall Street Journal covered it here: “This Side of Paradise” Pacific Legal Foundation, a non-profit that helps people throughout the country with private property rights issues, continues to help Hawaii residents on every island.

• 24. Tammy Kubo is well known in the Hawaii community as a Maryknoll Schools graduate, the owner of Hawaii Pet Nanny, a community volunteer, and the wife of Hawaii’s U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo. She is also the queen of birthday parties -- at least at the homeless shelters around the state. Tammy is known as the angel who brings wonderful gifts -- the best being a party, cake and all -- just to acknowledge each of the birthdays of the children living at the state’s transitional shelters. Some children in the shelter have never celebrated their birthday before. “Every child should have a birthday,” Tammy says. “These parties make the children feel good and are a self esteem builder.” For more information on how to get involved with the Keiki birthday parties for the homeless, log onto http://www.keikibirthday.com

• 25. Ed Kubo, U.S. attorney in Hawaii, has put his focus on reducing illegal drug trafficking in Hawaii. He emphasizes collaborative partnerships between law enforcement, the community and the private sector in fighting crime and helps establish and support the. “Weed and Seed” programs to help local communities reclaim, restore and rebuild neighborhoods. His efforts, in partnership with other agencies, have yielded record drug busts and indictments of major drug lords whose illegal activities sometimes stretch from Hawaii to Mexico, the Philippines and the U.S. mainland.

• 26. Mark Bennett, state attorney general, has worked behind the scenes at the Hawaii State Legislature to help get judges confirmed who will focus on the right of the victims and enforce the law rather than legislate from the bench. He and his staff also have focused on catching and prosecuting internet predators and getting laws passed that protect victims and establish minimum sentences for serial criminals.

• 27. Bert Corniel, then Bank Security Manager for American Savings, pushed for the bank’s senior management to aggressively pursue an investigation into Assistant Bank Manager Marilyn DeMotta, who allegedly took hundreds of thousands of dollars from her 91-year-old customer, Ada Lim, and to reimburse Lim and fire DeMotta. Instead, the bank’s senior officials claimed they believed DeMotta’s claim that she borrowed the money and that it had all been repaid. They fired Corniel after he reported the crime to the federal authorities as he is required by law to do. He settled a whistleblower lawsuit this year, and helped get a settlement for Lim. His report to the federal government also resulted in an indictment against DeMotta this month on 10 counts including bank fraud, embezzlement by a bank employee, and theft of public funds. The federal government continues to investigate the bank’s top officials for their handling of this case and other matters.

• 28. Linda Rasmussen, MD, who serves as president of the Hawaii Medical Association, is not only a talented doctor, but she also spends considerable time fighting to make working conditions better for doctors so they will stay in Hawaii. Right now, doctors are retiring or leaving Hawaii in large numbers because there is a hostile business climate and no much needed tort reform. On some islands, no specialists in key fields remain, forcing patients to come to Oahu or go to other states or countries for treatment. She is working diligently to change that by lobbying the legislature, educating the public and the press, and rallying doctors to speak out.

• 29. “University of Hawaii football coach Junes Jones and his colorful coaching staff have had their ups and downs, but consistency is the name of the game. They stuck with it and stuck together. Just as this team has truly advanced an unselfish team effort, it teaches many important lessons beyond the gridiron. Jones' decision to take a chance on Colt Brennan -- and Brennan's own personal redemption -- Jason Rivers' return to the narrow path and dozens of other mentoring and personal stories make the '07 Warriors the stuff good movies are made of. Colt is the real deal and his future in sports and life is secure. We're lucky to have had him with us. Jones' spirituality and the moral code of the players as genuine role models echoes far beyond the Superdome. They have already given us all in the community many riches.” Sam Slom, state Senator and loyal UH football fan.

• 30. Colt Brennan is the “real deal.” He faced his adversity, overcame it, and took a second chance on himself. While many athletes today are poor role models for the youth, and will tell you they don’t want to be a role model, he has been a great role model for Hawaii’s young people and he relishes it. His unselfishness as a team member and team leader has paid current dividends, and also ensures his future in whatever he does.

To nominate someone for the Heroes of Hawaii, write to Malia Zimmerman, editor of Hawaii Reporter, at mailto:Malia@hawaiireporter.com

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