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City officials troubled
By Gordon Y.K. Pang
by parking-lot freezer
Star-BulletinThe mystery of the parking-lot freezer continues.
City officials say they still are trying to figure out what do about an industrial freezer that's been sitting in the municipal parking garage of the Kekaulike Courtyards project in Chinatown.
Ross Sasamura, director of the Department of Facility Maintenance, said he's searched four months for a record of how the freezer got into the parking lot.
Gerell Management, which holds the master lease on the commercial portion of the project, owns the freezer, which is being used to house frozen food products of vendors who sublease from Gerell.
"I still don't have any written documentation providing authorization for the installation of the freezer," said Sasamura, whose agency took over responsibility for the city housing project after the Housing Department was dissolved two years ago.
The freezer has been there several years longer.
Councilwoman Donna Mercado Kim, chairwoman of the Customer Services Committee, wants the freezer out.
"Given the fact that there is no documentation, there is no evidence, that they have been given (written) authorization," Kim said, "why shouldn't we evict that freezer out of the parking lot?"
Kim said the city would not allow others to trespass or store merchandise unlawfully.
Kim also chastised Sasamura for taking up valuable staff time to locate documentation on the freezer because she feels it's on the onus of Gerell to produce it.
Sasamura said he also has an obligation to be fair with Gerell because of its lease with the city.
"There's a commercial activity that's rightfully there, and if the commercial activity requires the support of ancillary equipment, then it's my purpose to go in there and make sure that equipment does not infringe on any other activity."
Sasamura said he wants a "harmonious" resolution, adding that "it is not out of the question that appropriate adjustments are going to be made and back payments are going to be levied."
City & County of Honolulu
