And the city says there is no current plan to fix the cameras, five of which are in Chinatown and one in Waikiki.

The 26 Chinatown cameras cost a total of $436,000. The six Waikiki cameras cost $117,000 to install and look onto the sidewalks of Kalakaua Avenue and side streets.

Malfunctions began plaguing the system four years ago.

"Every Tuesday night, we stop in at the police station and ask how many cameras are working,” said Dolores Mollring, a member of Citizen’s Patrol in Chinatown since 1995.

Mollring said the citizen’s patrol gets different stories at Neighborhood Board meetings “about why they aren’t working. We are getting the runaround and I’m getting tired of it.

In 1997, the city spent $400,000 to install the first 14 closed-circuit cameras on the streets of Chinatown. Twelve more cameras were later added along King Street at a cost of about $3,000 each. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Lon Shealy, an account manager for contractor Sensormatic Hawai'i Inc., said the six cameras have power and fiberoptic cable problems that are "outside the scope of our maintenance agreement."

Sensormatic started work in March on a one-year contract to fix and run the system.

"What we can do is replace cameras and fix them," Shealy said. "We would very much like all the cameras to be up. We are the ones who originally put them in. We are waiting until those issues can be taken care of."

Shealy said just four cameras in Chinatown were functioning when they took over the contract. Now, 21 cameras in Chinatown and 5 in Waikiki have been repaired and are being maintained weekly, he said.

The Chinatown cameras are monitored at a police substation at North Hotel and Maunakea streets.

In 1997, the city spent $400,000 to install the first 14 closed-circuit cameras on the streets of Chinatown. They were touted as a tool to catch criminal activity on tape and use it for evidence in court. Twelve more cameras were later added along King Street at a cost of about $3,000 each.

Problems with the Chinatown cameras began in May 2000 when police moved their substation from South Hotel and Nu'uanu Avenue. The company that had provided the maintenance contract for the cameras declared the agreement void because it was not used to move the equipment, police said. So the city was left without the expertise to maintain the system and it soon became unreliable.

The cameras are mounted on utility poles, and a camera operator watching a video monitor can zoom in and out, rotate a camera 360 degrees and even look straight down — when the cameras are working.

City spokeswoman Carol Costa confirmed that "infrastructure" repairs are not the responsibility of the contractor.

Costa said city Department of Facility Maintenance is checking with the city Department of Design and Construction to deter-mine if any projects under way in the downtown area might have caused the damage to the cables.

Until that is determined, she said via e-mail, the city will not be able to say who will do the repairs, how much they will cost or when they will be done.