Another satellite city hall to close

By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

As Waipahu residents protest the imminent closing of their satellite city hall, other communities are waiting for Mayor Jeremy Harris to announce the closure of a second location, most likely Hawai'i Kai or Kailua.

The City Council cut $107,000 from the satellite city hall budget to close one site, but further cuts to overtime expenses will force the city to shut down another, said Carol Costa, city director of Customer Services.

Early in the budget process, Council members were warned that Waipahu and Kailua were likely to close, but state Sen. Sam Slom, R-8th (Kahala, Hawai'i Kai), said he had been hearing for a month from Hawai'i Kai satellite city employees that their five-month-old operation was on the chopping block.

Costa could not confirm which site would close, saying only that it would be determined by usage and operating costs. That would protect satellites in city-owned buildings — Kapolei Hale, Wahiawa, Fort Street and Wai'anae — as well as the popular shopping mall locations, Pearlridge, Ala Moana and Windward Mall.

Kalihi-Palama, which is attached to a driver's licensing branch, is another of the most highly used locations, Costa said.

That leaves Kailua and Hawai'i Kai as the most likely candidates.

"I'm really hopeful that it won't be closed," Councilwoman Barbara Marshall said of the Kailua location, noting that her district also recently lost mobile satellite service to Waimanalo.

While Marshall initially proposed closing one satellite city hall, she later voted in favor of a last-minute amendment allowing the city to keep all locations open. But that amendment was voted down 6-2.

Marshall said she would like to see the figures the administration is using to decide which satellite city hall will close. She pointed out that the Ala Moana, Fort Street Mall and Kalihi-Palama satellites are within a few miles of each other.

But Costa said the Ala Moana and Kalihi-Palama sites are two of the most popular, serving 150,000 and 125,000 people a year, respectively.

Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi also expressed surprise that a town location was not being considered.

"We thought they would close downtown or Ala Moana, because it's an urban area and satellite city halls are supposed to be in the nonurban areas" she said. "I thought (satellites) were for people who can't come into town."

However, she added, the Hawai'i Kai location is still new and not well used, and maybe it could be combined with an East Ho-nolulu police station in the future.

Slom, whose Small Business Hawai'i office is in same complex as the Hawai'i Kai satellite, argued that "usage has continued to escalate up here" since the office opened in January.

He said the decision to target Hawai'i Kai smacks of politics. Councilman Charles Djou, who represents the East Honolulu district, has been a vocal critic of the administration's fiscal practices.

Meanwhile, Councilman Nestor Garcia has launched a petition drive to save the Waipahu satellite. By Tuesday he had collected about 2,100 signatures, and said yesterday he expected to get about 1,000 more per day for the remainder of the week.

"It's not that difficult to get signatures, really," he said. "It's indicative of the people's outrage, I guess."

Garcia voted in favor of the budget, despite warnings that it would require closing one or two satellites. Although Waipahu had come up as a likely victim, he said, "I was never told what the criteria was to close a satellite city hall."

The Waipahu Neighborhood Board was warned in May, before the budget was passed, that their satellite would be the first to close.

The board this week sent a letter to the mayor urging him to reconsider the decision for the largest neighborhood board district, which they said has a disproportionate number of senior citizens and people who rely on public transportation.

Garcia said decreased use of the Waipahu location could be attributed partly to the fact that it was "temporarily" moved to a small, cramped space at Leetown Center three years ago. "People can't find it, and they can't find parking," he said.

He said he tried telling senior citizens they could still use the Kapolei Hale satellite, but they would respond that it's too far. "It's hard to tell senior citizens to catch the bus to Kapolei," he said.

Costa said it was too late to save the satellites. "They reduced the money and left me no recourse," she said. "I'm just very, very sad that this has to happen."

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.