Recently, I had some work done on my car by Pacific Auto Imports on Puuhale Road. When I picked up my car, I was surprised to find them storing cars at Puuhale Elementary School. Not only cars they are working on, but also cars they are planning to sell. They had at least 20 cars there. Is this legal? Who authorized the use of public grounds for private enterprise? School stops practice
of renting out car spaceBecause of your query, the school has decided it wasn't such a good idea after all to rent the space, said Department of Education spokesman Greg Knudsen.
In September, because "we have a lot of space on that side of the school grounds," the school decided to allow the outside parking, said Principal Gary Oyama.
The agreement was for a maximum of five cars, Oyama said. While it seemed like a lot more, many of the cars belonged to people coming on campus, he said. No cars were being sold from school property, he said, adding that it was no different from people renting school facilities for meetings or events.
But when asked about the general DOE policy on such arrangements, Knudsen said the provision for use of school facilities "really didn't provide for that kind of arrangement." The general rule is that the public may use school facilities only if it doesn't interfere with "the normal and usual activities of the school."
An outside group planning a community activity "can approach a school and ask, if, during some off hours, it could rent parking space," Knudsen said. But outside parking "is not intended to be on a day-to-day, ongoing basis."
I keep seeing an increased number of bikers on sidewalks and have been nearly hit by a few who come up behind you and narrowly scrape by. What's the law on this, and do the police nab anybody? Old people especially can be badly hurt by bikers going fast. Sec. 15-4.6 of the city ordinance specifically prohibits bike riding on Waikiki sidewalks, while Sec. 15-18.7 says: "No person shall ride a bicycle upon a sidewalk within a business district."
Other than that, the right-of-way belongs to the pedestrian. Bikers "shall give an audible signal before overtaking and passing such pedestrians." There is no mention of speed, although common sense would dictate that you'd go slower on a sidewalk than on a road.
As for bikers being "nabbed," police do give out citations.
In 1996, 355 violations were recorded in the Waikiki district, with 492 citations issued for the first nine months of 1997. However, these may have involved nonbikers. Sec. 15-4.6 is on the "use of bicycles, skateboards, roller skates and similar devices."
For bikes in business districts, eight violations and one accident were recorded in 1996, and 21 violations and two accidents for the first nine months of 1997.
These figures were obtained from the Honolulu Police Department's Research and Development Office, which got them from the state Traffic Violations Bureau.
To all who helped when my car stalled on Victoria Street on a busy Saturday morning, Nov. 15. A man in a Kaiser Permanente van and police Officer Koanui (#444120), who was off duty, pushed my car to the side. Officer Koanui also let me use his cellular phone and left a note on my car. Mahalo also to my co-worker for driving my grandson to school. -- W.S.Y Mahalo
To the driver who cut between myself and the person I was letting back out of a parking stall at the Hawaii Kai Post Office on Nov. 26. You loudly informed me there were other stalls available, so that justified you racing between us because you and your wife were in a hurry. I don't know how it works elsewhere, but here we have the aloha spirit. With the holiday season upon us, show some ALOHA! Auwe
