Librarian Mary Hurlbett is marking the slow progress
of the Kalihi Kai Library in a photo album.
Photo by Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Librarian Mary Hurlbett is marking the slow progress
of the Kalihi Kai Library in a photo album.
Photo by Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Construction started six years ago, and it is still not finished.
To make a bad situation worse, the 790 students started school this year without any library books.
Now, almost a month later, the children's books are still packed away. Their planned new library is over budget by more than $1 million, with the files tracking the project more than 2 feet tall.
It is a story of a system gone awry, with politicians, public officials, community leaders, educators and contractors all dedicated to the library but unable to make the system work.
"Our children and our community cannot live without books," said Mary Hurlbett, the school librarian since 1980. "Many of the parents are afraid to walk at night to the Kalihi library, but they will come around the corner to this library to borrow books for their kids."
Principal
Stanley
Kayatani
Principal Stanley Kayatani, who has called on Department of Education officials for help, doesn't hide his frustration.
"Six years of patience is a lot," he said.
Parent Teacher Organization president Richard Cummings has been sending his children to Kalihi Kai since 1982. He doesn't know if his youngest son, now in the third grade, will ever have an adequate library.
"They promised us this, they promised us that, they asked the PTO for help and then, when we went to the August meeting, we were told all the books still can't be used," he said. "A lot of parents are really angry."
Moving, packing and cataloging the books took a month.
When Hurlbett returned to school in August, she discovered that the painter never showed up, work on the new library wasn't finished and no one had any answers.
"Now I don't know if I should put the books back on the shelves or keep them packed," she said.
The contractor, Universal Construction, vows to have the library ready for books next month.
"We just want to finish this and get on our way," said Dean Asahina, vice president of the construction firm. "I empathize with the school and the community."
The project's champion was state Rep. Romy Cachola (D, Kalihi Kai-Palama), who tucked $400,000 into the 1987 state budget to "determine the economic and structural merit of remodeling" the building into a library.
The old library was too small. Hurlbett said schools as large as Kalihi Kai should have a library twice as large.
But the proposed new library was an old building. It was built in 1939 as a cafeteria and was left as a storage area after a new cafeteria was built in 1958.
"The old building seemed to bridge the old with the present," said Cachola. "Rather than demolish it we should retain the old to connect the old students with the new."
A sign from former Gov. John Waihee's days covers
an unfinished doorway of the library.
Photo by Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
The contract grew from the original $400,000 appropriation to $1.2 million. Along the way there were 27 change orders.
In April, the total cost of the change orders topped the cost of the original job, according to files at the state Department of Accounting and General Services. The final bill still hasn't been computed because the contractor is seeking damage claims and the state is considering legal action in the matter.
Asahina declined to discuss project specifics, except to say that his firm repeatedly advised the state about construction problems. If the company had not done so, Asahina said, the building would not be safe.
"Originally it was a plain reroofing job with interior renovation. We found the huge cement plaster ceiling was going to fall. Also there were termites and it needed to come down," he said.
The stack of paperwork for the project on file at the DOE stands more than two feet high.
First the state called for repairs to the rafters, then replaced the roof. Then the walls started buckling, then the roof system didn't fit.
Things got so heated that a state engineer carefully noted the contractor's attitude: "He (the contractor) furiously stood up and pounded the table with his fist, throughout this meeting, approximately 50 percent of the time he was talking loud and at a shouting level."
At one point the state threatened to cancel the contract after inspectors were sent to the site daily.
"The state inspector's daily log shows no activity for 19 of 31 working days, recommend the contract be terminated," an engineer wrote in February.
Ralph Asahina, president of Universal, wrote back, asking for more time.
"It is frustrating after all these years that the state is still questioning our commitment to the project," he said. "Few, if any, contractors would have given the kind of effort we have.
"We ask that DAGS show some patience toward this process because we believe we have earned that courtesy."
Outrigger Hotel President Dr. Richard Kelly was invited to Kalihi Kai School four years ago to read to classes. Since then he has been asking about the library project. He asked School Board member Lex Brodie to keep checking.
And the DOE had designated the project in the top one-third of all the state's school projects.
Still, the library sits unfinished today, waiting for books and students.
"I've worked with these children for 16 years. I have no plans to abandon them now," librarian Hurlbett said.
As construction started, the contractor found more and more structural damage. But the state and the contractor couldn't agree on what needed to be done.
Meanwhile, the school principal was forced to stand by, as the contractor could talk only to state Department of Accounting and General Services engineers.
Here's an example of just one of the 27 orders that slowed the project:
May 31: Subcontractor notes there is a discrepancy in type of doors ordered.