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QUESTION: I live across the street from the Halau Ku Mana Charter School and am wondering why the city has not posted any school zone signs near the school. The traffic in and out of the nature center and up and down Makiki Heights Drive can be moving very fast, and there is no signage to tell drivers that a school and children are in the area.
ANSWER: The charter school, at 2101 Makiki Heights Drive, has asked that signs be posted but has not received a response from the city, said Patti Wright Cronin, executive director.
She said the school shares your concern, not only for the students, but for hikers and tourists who visit the nature center directly above the school, and bicyclists who travel the roadway.
"It’s a heavily walked, driven and cycled area," she said, so "we’re concerned on many fronts."
The school also has mandatory classes on Saturdays four times a year, Wright Cronin said.
Under the Revised Ordinances of Honolulu’s Section 15-2.21, a school is defined as "any public or private organization giving regular instruction and having an average daily attendance of 50 students or more," said Wayne Yoshioka, acting director of the city Department of Transportation Services.
Halau Ku Mana has a current enrollment of 64 students in grades 6-12.
Yoshioka invited school officials to make a request for a review of the situation by personally writing to him.
"After receiving the request, DTS would conduct an investigation of the situation," he said. "If the evaluation shows a need for school zone signs, DTS would issue a work order to install the signs."
Wright Cronin said she would follow up with Yoshioka.
QUESTION: Can you please investigate whether and how baggage scales at airports are monitored for accuracy? On a recent trip from Maui, my hotel’s concierge weighed my bag twice (45 pounds each time). But when the bag was weighed at Hawaiian Air’s Kahului Airport counter, it weighed 54 pounds. If I was unable to do some rearranging with my hand-carry luggage, I would have been charged an overweight fee.
ANSWER: The state Department of Agriculture’s Measurement Standards Branch inspects airport scales (archives.starbulletin.com/content/20090331_Airport_ scales_at_check-ins_are_inspected).
If you believe the scales aren’t accurate, you can file a complaint; call the branch on Oahu at 832-0690 or e-mail hdoa.info@hawaii.gov.
In fairness, it could be that the hotel’s scale is off.
MAHALO
To a kind man named Eric and a cabdriver. On the evening of Dec. 30, I was jogging in Waikiki and tripped on the uneven sidewalk at the Diamond Head end of Kalakaua Avenue, lacerating my knees and face. I began walking back to my hotel to get my ID and insurance cards for the emergency room when Eric stopped, asked what happened and offered to drive me to my hotel. He swung by the Princess Kaiulani Hotel to show me where a medical clinic was. After he dropped me off at my hotel, I caught a cab to the clinic. I ended up at Straub Hospital’s emergency room. I had several stitches to my chin, and my fractured jaw had to be wired shut a few days later. I only know that Eric’s from Vermont and Colorado, lives in Kaimuki and does home remodeling. I didn’t catch the cabbie’s name or company, but will forever remember their kindness and concern. Mahalo also to the wonderful staff at Straub. — Linda, Big Island
