Posted on: Sunday, June 15, 2003
Rising costs may delay Kamiloiki renovations
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer
HAWAI'I KAI — Kamiloiki Elementary School has been dealt another setback in its bid to get second-floor renovations done.
For a decade, teachers and the administration have wanted to install partitions in large, noisy classrooms on its first and second floors shared by two or more classes simultaneously.
But recently the school was informed that the planned work on the second floor triggered a need for an elevator in accordance with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
The state Department of Accounting and General Services, which imposed the elevator requirement, later indicated that the work might be able to proceed without an elevator if 20 percent of it went toward ADA compliance measures, such as lowering light switches and chalkboards.
And if there was enough money for both floors.
State comptroller Russ Saito says the $200,000 allocated isn't enough to do two floors of work.
Principal Loretta Yee was dismayed at the news.
"I have a teacher who is very passionate about this project," Yee said.
If there isn't enough money to do the four classrooms on the second floor, Yee said she would like to solicit bids or donations from the community to install temporary partitions.
"We need an option," Yee said. "We want to be in on the planning rather than plans being presented to us."
Planners came to the school a few months ago to assess the work planned for the four downstairs classrooms. The plan was to divide the rooms down the middle, but that would have left one side without access to trade winds, Yee said.
The plans didn't take into account the way the trade winds blow or the need for ventilation, Yee said.
The work required a redrafting of the project so that doors would be installed linking the classrooms.
Now the lights will have to be redone and the windows changed, possibly air-conditioning added, Saito said. All of these things come at an additional cost, Saito said.
