ROD THOMPSON / RTHOMPSON@STARBULLETIN.COM
With guitar in hand, Clifford Tavares was visited by friends at his cabin at the Puu Maile area of Hilo yesterday. With him was Gerard "Ka'aina" Cole, left, Roy, with fish, and Mark Rupke.
HILO >> A woman who gives her name simply as Bo lives in a tent on a sandy patch of rocky Hilo shoreline popularly known as King's Landing. Puu Maile squatters
fear evictionA state official says that at some point
they will probably be leaving the areaBy Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.comShe has a regular job, but her home has been King's Landing for several months while she gets away from an unhappy relationship.
Bo is one of about 20 individuals and families living in a squatter camp in the area more correctly called Puu Maile for a former hospital washed away by the 1946 tsunami.
Bo is one of the people that officers of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources want to meet tomorrow when they hold a "talk story" session at Puu Maile from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
A Land Department press release says, "We are hoping that communication and feedback from the community will strengthen ties established between our department and the public."
"Read between the lines," Bo responded.
The release says nothing about the state evicting squatters, but Land Department information officer Deborah Ward said, "Down the line, they'll probably be leaving the area."
"What is it that you would need to successfully relocate?" is the question Hilo-based Land Department officers will pose to the Puu Maile people, Ward said. The Hilo officers could not be reached for further comment.
Clifford Tavares, another Puu Maile resident, used to live in a squatter camp where the Hilo Bay breakwater touches land. "They kicked us out of there two years ago," he said.
Ward noted that that eviction was done peacefully. Tavares remembers that the state tried to evict them before Christmas, but the squatters went to court and got an order allowing them to stay until after the holidays.
Tavares, who is partly disabled from a hit-and-run car accident a few years ago, doesn't understand why the Land Department wants them out. "We're not knocking down trees," he said.
A friend visiting Tavares, who gave just his first name, Roy, said, "You see how jobs are hard to find. More people are on the streets. They cannot afford rent, electricity, water, so they take their families and live off the land."
Bo noted that "King's Landing," actually a site several miles down a dirt road from Puu Maile, was where Kamehameha I, before becoming king, was hit over the head with a paddle, inspiring the Law of the Splintered Paddle. Artist Herb Kane, in his book "Voyagers," says that law "gave commoners protection against wanton mistreatment by chiefs."
Bo said, "We just want to be left alone, and stop beating around the bush."
County of Hawaii
