Question: Due to the recent rain, grass on most medians around Honolulu are overgrown. Who is responsible for cutting this?
Answer: The city Department of Facility Maintenance is responsible for the maintenance of most medians along streets that are under the jurisdiction of the City and County of Honolulu, said Ross S. Sasamura, the department’s director and chief engineer. Landscaped areas maintained by resident or property owner associations and medians along privately owned streets are excluded, he said.
Kokua Line has heard from a few other readers over the past two weeks concerned about conditions in their neighborhoods. We passed areas of concern along to the city, when readers provided specific locations.
One reader, for example, wrote to say that the weeds and grass along University Avenue had grown up to 3 feet high. The median cited there has since be mowed and trimmed. Other readers let us know about overgrown medians in Aina Haina and Waipahu.
Sasamura apologized on behalf of the department for the lengthy intervals between regular maintenance. “Due to the number and locations of landscaped medians requiring cutting and trimming, DFM crews may not return to a specific location until six to eight weeks later,” he said. “The department is presently focusing efforts to increase the staffing level to reduce the intervals between grass cuttings on city medians.”
Q: Did the city have to divert crews from other work to clean up the Kakaako homeless camp?
A: No. The recently publicized enforcement actions in Kakaako were conducted by DFM, but no crews or staff were diverted from other activities, Sasamura said.
“The enforcement crew is a work group dedicated solely to enforcement of the city’s stored property and sidewalk nuisance ordinances,” he explained. It was established in 2013 shortly after Mayor Kirk Caldwell took office.
You had wondered whether the grass on city medians was overgrown because maintenance crews were diverted elsewhere, but as Sasamura explained, that is not the case. The DFM also is responsible for cutting the grass on medians along city streets and is focused on better addressing that issue.
Q: Are candidates in the Native Hawaiian election raising campaign funds? If so, do they have to disclose that?
A: Yes and yes, but not until after the election.
Na‘i Aupuni, the organization guiding an election, convention and ratification process to help establish a path to sovereignty for indigenous Hawaiians, spells out information about the process on its website, naiaupuni.org.
Dozens of candidates are competing to be among the 40 delegates chosen for an aha, or convention. Those elected will convene to debate whether and how to move forward as a self-governing Hawaiian entity; whatever governance framework the delegates come up with would be put to a referendum of registered indigenous Hawaiian voters.
Na‘i Aupuni is not providing prospective delegates any campaign funds, but candidates are free to raise money on their own.
Candidates will be required to say how much they spent on their campaigns and the sources of the contributions. This information is due via an electronic disclosure to Election-America, the firm administering the election, the day after voting ends. Campaign spending will be publicly disclosed at an unspecified date after the election, according to the website.
Voting in the delegate election is to begin in early November and end on the last day of the month. The aha is tentatively scheduled to occur on Oahu over the course of two months, wrapping up by April. If the delegates recommend a form of self-governance, the ratification vote among certified Native Hawaiian voters would be held two months after that.
Auwe
More and more, Ala Moana Center is morphing into another Waikiki. Stores are geared more toward young, transient tourists instead of us kamaaina, who actually live here. To me the “old” Ala Moana was much more friendly and welcoming to us local residents! It was truly “our” shopping center. Now? Not so much anymore. — Misses the old days
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