The city has issued 278 violation notices and 24 fines against property owners for leaving beds, sofas and other bulky-item trash on sidewalk areas since May 2013, when enforcement of a 2010 ordinance first began.

City Environmental Services Director Lori Kahikina said she thinks the program has been effective, noting that only a small number of those issued violations failed to heed the warnings.

But Ron Lockwood, chairman of the McCully-Moiliili Neighborhood Board, which helped spark the law, said his community contends that the program was slow to develop and that results have been less than satisfactory.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser requested information about the ordinance in light of the recent introduction of Bill 41. The bill, introduced by Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, would eliminate during a one-year pilot period the city’s policy of picking up bulky items for free from sidewalks in various neighborhoods once a month. Instead, bulky-item pickup would only occur when requested by property owners, who would then be charged a fee for the service.

The city began picking up bulky items from residential curbsides for free in July 2006. The law says the trash is not supposed to be placed on sidewalks until the day before a scheduled pickup — and asks that it be left curbside up to four days for refuse haulers to take it away.

But partly as a result of abuse by property owners and neighbors and partly because of delays in clearing up the items, trash piled up, and city officials said they received more than 650 bulky-item trash complaints in 2008.

Former Mayor Mufi Hannemann, who argued that piles of refuse were not only unsightly, but could pose hazard and environmental health concerns, introduced a bill allowing city inspectors to fine property owners for putting out bulky items too early.

Under the rules, a property owner with bulky items left out more than 24 hours before a scheduled pickup day are issued a notice of violation, a warning to remove the items. If items are left curbside seven days later, the property owner can be slapped with a notice of order carrying a $250 fine.

Because enforcement switched to the Department of Environmental Services from the Honolulu Police Department, three new inspectors were to be hired.

Kahikina, in written responses to questions emailed by the Star-Advertiser, said,"The law is effective in the sense that there are hardly any repeat offenders."

There are currently six inspectors who are paid $2,817.50 a month, or $33,810 annually, Kahikina said. There will be only five inspectors come July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

In McCully-Moiliili, where large piles of illegal bulky items got so pervasive that residents pushed for the fines, Lockwood said he doesn’t think the city is getting an adequate bang for the buck.

He said his neighborhood board questioned city officials about apparent delays in enforcement. Even after the May 2013 start date, there have been few sightings of the inspectors, he said.

The Sector 5 bulky-item pickup area, which includes McCully-Moiliili as well as Kapahulu and parts of Kaimuki and Diamond Head, ranked the highest in violation notices with 62 issued during the 13-plus months of enforcement.

However, Lockwood said, "Iwould’ve expected somewhere between 40 to 50 a month in just our sector based on our own, walking-around numbers."

At one time, residents who walked the neighborhoods counted as many as 250 violations in one month, Lockwood said. But after a massive information campaign about the bulky-item law, aided greatly by the donation of fliers by major area landowner Kamehameha Schools, the violations dropped to about 50 a month, he said.

But Lockwood said he worries that the numbers of violations are creeping back up and that it may be time to remobilize the community.

The six inspectors should be able to issue many more citations than they’ve been issuing, both in McCully-Moiliili and throughout Oahu, he said.

"We’re concerned,"he said. "The stuff sits out there. The kids are out of school, they start playing with it and they can get hurt. And then the vermin start gathering."

Lockwood said he and other neighborhood board members intend to renew the call for frequent updates on the effectiveness of the enforcement program.

Part of the problem historically in McCully-Moiliili, where an estimated 85 percent of residents are renters, is that most people move out at the end of a month, but bulky-item pickup for the area is the third Monday of the month, he said.

There’s a different story along Ala Ilima Street in Salt Lake, where a cluster of tightly packed high-rises makes it one of the most densely populated areas of Oahu. Sector 1, which runs from Foster Village to Palama and includes Salt Lake and Moanalua, recorded 33 violation notices issued, making it the area with the third-highest notices issued.

Dennis Egge, chairman of the Aliamanu/Salt Lake/Foster Village Neighborhood Board, said the bulky-item trash situation has improved along Ala Ilima largely because he and others have gone around the neighborhood reminding people about their scheduled bulky-item trash pickup day on the first Monday each month.

Egge said he also follows the advice given to him by city officials to contact Environmental Services with any complaints about violators, often including pictures in emails.

Kahikina said it took the city through December 2012 to go through the administrative rule-making process, which included a public hearing and public input period. The rules were for not just bulky items, or even the Refuse Division, but for the entire Environmental Services Department, she said. The agency, in the ensuing five months, "re-educated the public before the fine system was implemented by issuing warning letters to residents not following proper set-out procedures."

City spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke said there should be no correlation drawn between how much in fines has been collected and the cost of inspectors.

"Similar to how the revenue from speeding tickets don’t cover police salaries, the fines for bulky (items) were not intended to be a revenue-raiser,"Broder Van Dyke said.

The fines are designed to "encourage compliance with the law," he said.

Learn more about the city’s bulky item trash pickup laws here