Kane'ohe residents without gas for four days

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward Bureau

Residents at the Kulana Nani apartment complex in Kane'ohe have been without gas for four days, forced to find other means to prepare their daily meal and do laundry.

Because of a leak in a main pipe, The Gas Company shut off the gas Monday to 120 units, said Steve Golden, manager for public affairs and planning for the utility.

A crew completed repair work yesterday and gas for stoves was being turned on late yesterday afternoon, according to the resident manager.

The president of the apartment's community association said the problem has persisted for seven to eight months and numerous complaints were ignored by the previous management company, which was replaced in April, and its building manager, who was replaced in May.

Dorothea Pale, president of Kulana Nani Apartment Resident Association, said the gas repair project has caused a hardship for many families, who can't afford to eat out.

She said she'll ask the city for some kind of compensation.

Several residents of the Kulana Nani housing project sued the city and Hawai'i Affordable Properties Inc. in February for allegedly violating tenants' constitutional rights by interfering with their efforts to organize and participate in a tenants' association.

The suit followed months of tension over what residents said was the intimidation of tenants, uneven enforcement of house rules and dishonest and abusive statements that began after the plaintiffs and other tenants voiced their concerns with management in a public demonstration in May of last year. In October, U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink called for a federal investigation of Kulana Nani.