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Statewide computer failure to curtail driver’s licensing, vehicle registration Wednesday

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CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM

The scene outside the Kapalama Hale Satellite City Hall this morning.

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STAR-ADVERTISER / NOV. 2012

The Kalihi-Kapalama Satellite City Hall. A newly installed mainframe computer system for the city continues to malfunction today, affecting all five driver licensing centers on Oahu and possibly the entire statewide driver licensing database.

An attempt today to reboot the city’s mainframe computer that runs the state system to renew driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations failed, forcing people to face a third consecutive day of delays on Wednesday.

City officials said they will offer limited services Wednesday at driver licensing centers, where people can still get scheduled road tests but all other services will be unavailable. The city’s nine satellite city halls will continue to provide all services except driver licensing transactions.

The city also will extend the June 30 deadline for motor vehicle registrations to July 7.

And city workers are planning on coming in on overtime from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday to staff the Kapalama Driver Licensing Center. The Kapalama Satellite City Hall will not open on Saturday.

If the problem is not resolved by Saturday, when July starts, Maui County officials are considering asking police to waive citations to drivers’ with vehicle registration tags that expire this month, said county spokesman Rod Antone.

“It’s not going to be their fault if they still have June tags in July,” Antone said. “It’s not their fault they can’t register their vehicles.”

Like the rest of the state, Maui County workers this morning faced delays assisting people whose information is stored on the statewide main frame in Honolulu, Antone said.

“Yes, we are experiencing slower response times,” Antone said. “It’s affecting vehicle registration, state IDs, moped registration, out-of-state license transfers, anything that affects Maui County having to access the City and County’s main frame. However we can do taxi cab renewals and disabled parking placards.”

The computer problems come at one of the busiest times of the month, when vehicle registrations are expiring.

For those who can wait on renewing their driver’s licenses or vehicle registrations, Antone urged patience.

“If it’s not urgent, please come back later,” he said. “If your license is good for a few months, just wait.”

Kauai County today suspended processing driver’s licenses, state IDs and vehicle registrations but continued to process bus passes, sewer, landfill, refuse and sludge payments.

On Oahu, driver licensing centers in Kapalama, Kapolei, Koolau, Wahiawa and Waianae are giving road tests today but can’t process any transactions involving driver’s licenses or state identifications, the city said.

All nine satellite city hall locations and the motor vehicle registration office at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam are open but cannot help people seeking driver’s license renewals or duplicates.

The computer problems were detected on Monday and city spokesman Andrew Pereira advised people needing driver licensing help today to “delay their visit or call ahead.”

Workers at the five licensing centers — at Wahiawa, Kapolei, Koolau, Kapalama and Waianae — “can’t conduct any business on those computers,” Pereira said today. “They can’t service customers right now. All five are down as of 8:15 a.m.”

Hawaii County’s Vehicle Registration and Licensing Division said today that it’s unable to process vehicle registrations and driver’s licenses “due to the failure of a state mainframe system.”

“The county must rely on the state to resolve the problem, which is affecting DMVs statewide,” Hawaii County officials said in a statement.

“The Vehicle Registration and Licensing Division apologizes for the inconvenience this outage poses, and appreciates the public’s understanding in the meantime,” the statement said.

On Oahu, city workers with the Department of Information Technology and two subcontractors are working to figure out the problem and fix it, Pereira said.

He did not immediately know how much the city spent on the new mainframe or when.

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