Honolulu City Councilman Trevor Ozawa is again demanding the city step up its bulky-item pickup service in East Honolulu.

Standing beside piles of disposed mattresses, a couch and vehicle seats covering a sidewalk along Hawaii Kai Drive on Friday, Ozawa said he continues to receive complaints from East Honolulu residents about the nuisance and safety hazards caused by bulky trash items that haven’t been picked up for weeks.

“The bulky-item pickup is taking way too long for Hawaii Kai and East Honolulu. This district has been suffering because of it,” Ozawa said. “We can’t even walk through on the sidewalk.”

Under the existing bulky-item collection schedule, neighborhoods are serviced once a month, with removal happening over a three- to four-day period. Collection in Hawaii Kai, for example, is scheduled for the fourth Wednesday of each month.

Ozawa said the problem started over the holidays in December, when a backlog developed.

Under the monthly routine, there isn’t enough time during workers’ shifts to make multiple runs to and from the drop-off site, Ozawa said. But when it comes time to volunteering for overtime shifts, Hawaii Kai routes are the “least desirable” bulky pickup route because it’s the farthest away from HPOWER, the city’s waste-to-energy facility in Kalaeloa.

“They need to pick this stuff up faster,” Ozawa said. “They need to prioritize East Honolulu and Hawaii Kai … maybe add another route.”

The service is currently free of charge. The 2019 budget package Mayor Kirk Caldwell submitted to the Council on Friday includes a proposal to have residents pay $10 per cubic yard for a bulky-item pickup.

“Bulky-item (pickup) has become a big issue,” Caldwell told reporters Friday. “We increased the fines, we have crews that go out and enforce, and yet people abuse it every single day. And the question is, Do we just do away with the program altogether and let people just take their bulky-item stuff to the transfer stations? Do we let the private sector do it? Do we continue to do it the way we’ve been doing it, or do we do something else differently?”

“We need to figure out how we’re going to charge and … who measures — the resident or the city — and when do you pay — before or after?” Caldwell said. “We surely don’t want people to just dump their stuff in a neighbor’s yard or dump it down the street in the bushes, either. So this is something we’re going to study, but I think the time is right to do exactly this.”

But Ozawa opposes that idea, contending that residents should “absolutely not” have to pay a fee.

“It’s something that our constituents in East Honolulu felt that their property tax should already cover — it’s a core service,” Ozawa said. “We also (pay) the largest portion of property taxes in my district, and that’s just not really fair. We paid the most, and we get the least amount of core services. That’s not OK.”

Star-Advertiser reporter Gordon Y.K. Pang contributed to this report.