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Kokua Line
Question: A car repair business has been operating in a residential neighborhood since February 1998 in the 1300 block of Kuahaka Street in Pearl City. The city has not been able to shut this operation down. It's really causing a hazard. There are tall weeds growing on the two properties and there are derelict cars on the property. The city has cited the owner for at least three violations of overgrown weeds, derelict cars on property, and illegal business. I have seen 15 cars on the property -- five in front of the house on the street; two have expired safety stickers. What is going on? Home’s many
cars irksome, but
not illegalAnswer: City inspectors from the Department of Planning and Permitting visited the property Aug. 10 and cited the owner for the overgrowth.
But the inspectors didn't see any repairs being done. The renters at the duplex hold the titles for the 15 cars. The city's land ordinance does not place a limit on how many cars a person can maintain on his property. The occupant of the property in question was able to prove ownership for the cars. The city ordinance only limits to five the number of cars that can be repaired at one time and this is where the problem exists. Inspectors have to catch the two occupants repairing more than five cars they don't own.
The owner of the duplex has already amassed more than $11,000 in fines for failing to maintain the property and allowing overgrown weeds. Another citation was issued on Aug. 10. The city says it may take a change in the law to correct this problem and that is what they are working on now.
Q: Is there a city law that says people have to have addresses on the front of their buildings? Many buildings don't have any addresses on them.
A: Yes, every building must be properly numbered by the owner. The numbers must be at least two inches high. They have to be readily seen from the street and be of a different color than the background of the building.
Q: My mail from the Midwest has been taking longer than usual and I suspect United Airlines' flight cancellations are the cause. On Aug. 17 I received a letter postmarked Aug. 8 from Wisconsin. When they cancel 300 flights in a day, it's got to mean bags of mail are stalled at an airport somewhere.
A: U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Felice Broglio said the local transportation and network office has found "no significant delays, nothing out of the ordinary due to the United strike." But in tracing your package, she found there was a period in early August when the flight cancellations caused some slowdown on the mainland.
"There were some delays, not huge enough to bring complaints" to the local office, she said. After talking to you, she asked the airport plant to check. "In random checks, supervisors looked at dates and they did find some cargo from Los Angeles that was three or four days old," she said.
The Postal Service has mail contracts with several airlines so other carriers would take mail affected by daily cancellation of flights this month during a United Airlines dispute with its pilots. The local post office receives 160,000 pounds of mail per day.
"We check loads. For instance if 70,000 pounds a day arrives from a given location, we check the normal day it would arrive here," Broglio said.
The Postal Service here has recently tightened up its alternate routing of mail in the wake of a two-month disruption of service to American Samoa, after Kitty Hawk International Airline abruptly ended service.
Need help with problems? Call Kokua Line at 525-8686,
fax 525-6711, or write to P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802.
Email to kokualine@starbulletin.com