Kokua Line June Watanabe

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Marathon volunteers are welcome

Question: My wife and I would like to volunteer for the next Honolulu Marathon by picking up trash or passing out sponges or water. We asked people at one of the booths at last year's marathon, and they indicated we had to join a group to volunteer. Can you find out how we can go about volunteering and whether we do have to join a group?

Answer: To volunteer, contact the Honolulu Marathon office sometime around October: call 734-7200 or e-mail info@honolulumarathon.com, said Ken MacDowell, the marathon's co-director.

Approximately 10,000 volunteers are used each December to stage the race.

"It's not completely correct that a volunteer has to be part of a group," MacDowell said. "Sometimes our staff, or volunteers, interpret an inquiry into volunteer work as meaning the individual wants to work at one of the aid stations on the course."

Aid stations are mainly staffed by groups, although some volunteers might not be part of the organized group.

Generally speaking, MacDowell said, interested volunteers contact the office staff by e-mail or phone.

If the office staff, "which has a fairly large volunteer requirement race week," does not need more help, it will forward requests to MacDowell. He then generally will contact the inquirer to find out where he or she is interested in working and try to match them up as best as possible.

Large numbers of volunteers are needed at the start and finish lines, on the course as marshals and at the aid stations.

Asked who the volunteers generally are, MacDowell said, "My guess is that the largest number of people from one single group likely comes from the military."

One very large aid station is staffed by approximately 150 sailors, while another 150 or so Coast Guard and Air Force personnel assist on the course along Diamond Head Road and at Kapiolani Park.

Because of troop deployments, assistance from the Army "that we've enjoyed in past years is temporarily on hold," he said, although there might have been individual volunteers.

Q: I travel Kapahulu almost daily and notice that more than half the parking meters usually are expired. One mo-ped company seems to conduct business daily from a public parking stall. Are these monitored? The city is always asking for more money. It seems this is lost revenue.

A: This is similar to complaints we received a few years ago, in which businesses allegedly were parking vehicles in expired metered stalls outside their shops. The answer then holds today, Honolulu Police Department officials said:

Aside from the city ordinance prohibiting commercial vehicles over 10,000 pounds and/or 20 feet in length from parking for more than four hours at a time on a public street, there is nothing prohibiting a business from parking its vehicles in metered stalls, as long as it feeds the meters and follows the restrictions.

However, if there is a pattern of expired meters, call HPD's parking enforcement section at 832-7835, giving a specific location and times.