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Ewa rejects The Ewa Neighborhood Board has voted against moving a juvenile sex offender treatment center into an existing psychiatric hospital in the area.
juvenile sex
offender center
'The governor overshot when
he promised Pearl City people to
move it,' says the chairwoman
of the Ewa Neighborhood BoardBy Mary Adamski
Star-BulletinThe unanimous vote last night went beyond "not in my back yard" sentiments to become a message to Gov. Ben Cayetano not to spend more state money to move the facility.
"The governor overshot when he promised Pearl City people to move it," board chairwoman Mary Miyashiro said.
"Give the message to Pearl City: too bad you got it; deal with it," Ewa resident Earl Arakaki said.
"We've already got more than our share of social problems. There's 66 registered sex offenders between Kalaeloa and here. We've got one of the worst drug problems between here and Waipahu."
But unlike the uproar in Pearl City, where hundreds of protesters turned out for community meetings, only a handful of people in the audience of 30 spoke against putting the sex offender unit at Kahi Mohala in Ewa.
The hospital was described as the least expensive of three prospective sites in a study by Kimura International. Legislators will also have the option of choosing a Kalaeloa location, where construction would cost $2.6 million, or a Wahiawa site north of Kemoo Farm, which would cost $2.1 million. Consultant Glenn Kimura told the board that Kahi Mohala remodeling would cost $593,000, and annual lease payments would be $645,000.
"Nobody likes a facility like this in their back yard," board member Pam Smith said. "It's the cost factor that's outrageous; it's open ended. Kahi Mohala would be a great place for this if it weren't for the cost."
The state spent $1.8 million to refurbish part of the former Waimano Training School in Pearl City for the unit that will house 10 male adolescents between 12 and 17 years old. Youth who were formerly sent to mainland facilities were brought back when the center opened in December, operated by Benchmark Behavioral Health Systems under a two-year contract with the Department of Health.
Cayetano promised to move the program in response to a groundswell of Pearl City residents' opposition because it is near Momilani Elementary School and Pearl City High School.
The program is one of the services mandated for youths with mental disorders by the Felix consent decree. The youths who would be sent there by the Family Court are not violent offenders but more likely are being treated because they had sexual relations with family members.
Dr. Alfred Arensdorf, medical director of the Health Department's child and adolescent services, said there are currently fewer than 10 youngsters found to need the "kind of intensity of treatment" provided. The object of the program is to prepare them to return to the community, he said.
"By duplicating the facility, we're diverting money needed to fulfill other consent decree needs," said Ewa resident Ruth Brown. "I'm not afraid to say it: No, not in my back yard."
Mark Hubbard of Ewa Beach said the youths should be kept in a correctional facility rather than a hospital. "Don't lie to them ... they are incarcerated. Let them know where they're at."