City plans additional workers to help handle state ID crush

Help is on the way for those stuck in line waiting for a state identification card or driver’s license.

The city is hiring seven part-time people on a temporary basis to help deal with the influx of people showing up at Oahu’s five licensing offices, Mayor Kirk Caldwell announced Tuesday.

The City Square licensing office, the busiest in the state, will get two of the additional staffers, while each of the four other Oahu offices will get one each, city spokes­man Jesse Broder Van Dyke said. The seventh hire will go to whichever office is busiest on a given day, he said.

Additionally, the city has established a state ID card hotline (768-2489) for those who have questions about what documents they need. The city’s state ID Web site has also been upgraded.

The driver’s licensing sites, already more crowded since the summer when the city began cracking down on documentation to comply with the federal Legal Presence Act, began getting inundated last week after the city officially took over responsibility issuing state ID cards from the state.

People trying to get their licenses and state IDs waited two to three hours to complete their transactions, longer if they did not have the proper documentation.

The situation has continued into a second week.

Ashley Miller, 21, recently moved to Hawaii and had her Texas ID card stolen on New Year’s Eve.

Miller said she needs an ID card to board a plane back to Texas to pick up the rest of her things. "And I’m 21," she said. "You can’t go out anywhere if you don’t have an ID." Miller had spent about two hours in line and had an extra hour or so to go.

Kaheka area resident Rowena Pacson was spending her 41st birthday in line to renew her driver’s license. Pacson said she doesn’t know why driver’s licenses can’t be handled in one line and state IDs in another.

Still, she said, she’s grateful Caldwell made the move to bring in additional staffing.

"Anything to speed up the process," she said.

The seven temporary hires are in addition to four full-time, former state ID workers who transferred to the city from the state last week, said Dennis Kami­mura, longtime chief of the Division of Motor Vehicles, Licensing and Permits. Four other full-time workers are being hired, he said. These are in addition to existing city licensing employees.

The seven temporary hires will help people in line verify documents, freeing up permanent staff to process applications behind the counter.

Caldwell said Tuesday that the situation was "unacceptable."

Some of the people he spoke with at City Square were in line three hours or longer, the mayor said. "One guy got here at 8 this morning, found he didn’t have the right documents, went home, got it, he’s still here and now it’s almost 1:20."

The changes in requirements for obtaining driver’s licenses and IDs stem from stricter requirements put in place by the federal government in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001.

The REAL ID Act of 2005, also known as the Legal Presence Act, requires certain documentation and procedures for the issuance of driver’s licenses, state ID cards and other state- or county-issued ID cards. Cards issued by states or counties not meeting those requirements will not be recognized by federal agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration, according to information provided by the state attorney general’s office, which until the end of December operated the now permanently closed state ID office on South King Street.

Technically, the 2010 bill passed by the state Legislature transferred responsibility for state IDs to the state Department of Transportation, which is working with the counties to have them issued at their sites.

The switch allows people more locations at which they can obtain ID cards, the attorney general’s office said.

Additionally, "since the state ID cards have the same requirements as the driver’s licenses, it makes sense to have them all issued at the same place," said Caro­line Sluyter, state DOT spokes­woman.

At least six other states allow people to obtain driver’s licenses and state IDs from the same agency.