Source: Maui Time, Maui News, Best of Maui, Maui Activities

Remove Images Maui County The Exchange November 16, 2006 WHO GAVE:  Dale Castleton WHO RECEIVED:  Charmaine Tavares DATE:  Oct. 6, 2006 AMOUNT:  $250 From 2002 to the first weeks of 2006, county officials were more or less in constant contact with Kihei nursery owner Dale Castleton. They wanted Castleton to allow Maui Invasive Species Committee people onto the property to spray for dreaded coqui frogs, which at the time were infesting the place. Alternately sympathetic and then intransigent, Castleton—who also has a proposed subdivision slowly making its way through the county's Planning Department—dragged negotiations on into the winter of 2005. Mostly he insisted that the frogs were beneficial to his nursery. Just a couple days before New Year's, Mayor Alan Arakawa—who lost his reelection bid to Tavares—took the unprecedented step of appearing at Castleton's nursery in a last ditch effort to get him to agree to spraying. It worked and sprayers began visiting the nursery a few weeks later, though the whole matter clearly didn't endear Castleton to Arakawa. -Anthony Pignataro