Councilman fights
for Waipahu city hallBut a Harris official says Garcia
voted against a measure
to restore funding
City Councilman Nestor Garcia has been collecting signatures outside of Waipahu supermarkets in a last-ditch effort to prevent the July 1 closing of Waipahu's Satellite City Hall.
After two days, Garcia said he has gathered 2,100 signatures.
"I'm not going down without a fight," Garcia said by phone yesterday as he was wrapping up his afternoon stint in front of Pacific Supermarket.
But the Harris administration said that the closing of the satellite city hall is the result of the City Council's reduction to the satellite city hall budget and Garcia had an opportunity to save the $100,000 in funding but did not take it.
"We didn't want to close that satellite," said Carol Costa, director of the Department of Customer Services, which oversees the satellite city hall operations. "We were forced to."
Costa said the budget that Mayor Jeremy Harris sent to the Council earlier this year included funding for all the satellite city halls and the mobile city hall on wheels.
After the Council cut the funding from the satellite city hall operations, the administration warned the Council that if it didn't restore the money, two satellite city halls and the mobile operation would close, she said. Harris allowed most of the $1.2 billion operating budget to become law without his signature.
Costa said yesterday that no decision has been made on which satellite will be the next to close.
The mayor announced earlier this month that the Waipahu satellite would close July 1, the first day of the new fiscal year. Costa said that while use at the Kapolei and Pearlridge sites have increased, the Waipahu one has seen a 9 percent decline.
Garcia said that if Waipahu Satellite City Hall is closed, his district will be the only district without a permanent satellite city hall. The elderly and the needy would be the hardest hit by the closing because they will have to travel farther for basic city services, he said.
He also took exception to statistics that the Waipahu satellite use was declining. He said he believes that is due in part to it moving three years ago to the current site at Leetown Center on Farrington Highway. Some residents do not know it is there and many still think it is at the former site near Daiei.
Garcia said he hopes a compromise can be worked out with the mayor, including having one open for part-time or vital service or by negotiating a favorable lease with the landlord.
But Costa said there is nothing that can be done now. She said Garcia had a chance to vote for a budget amendment that would have saved funding for the satellites but he voted against it.
Garcia said he will be at Daiei and Times Supermarket today to collect more signatures.