KEN IGE / KIGE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Francine Wai, executive director of the Department of Health's Disability and Communication Access Board, holds two handicap parking placards. Four hundred of these are unaccounted for. The blue ones are good for four years; the red ones are good for up to six months.
HPD looks into missing
disabled-parking permits
Police are investigating the possible theft of 400 disabled parking permit placards that have been missing from the satellite city hall in Waipahu since last month.
A representative of the company contracted by the city to deliver the placards said he believes the placards were properly delivered and are probably lying around in unmarked or mislabeled boxes.
Security Armored Car Service of Hawaii picked up the placards May 2 from the city's Motor Vehicle and Licensing Division office in downtown Honolulu and was supposed to deliver them to the satellite city hall in Waipahu, which is scheduled to close at the end of the month because of budget cuts.
"When they close down that place, they going find 'em. I guarantee they going find 'em," said Ray Bagor, Security Armored Car operations manager.
The city discovered the placards were missing a couple of weeks after they were picked up by Security Armored Car Service, said Dennis Taga, chief of the city's Satellite City Hall program.
"Somebody called from Waipahu, said they were running low (on placards). They said they never got the ones that were supposed to have been delivered," he said.
Taga filed a police report June 18 after attempts to track down the missing placards were unsuccessful. Police are investigating the case as a possible second-degree theft, a Class C felony.
Detective Dwayne Takayama said Security Armored Car signed for the placards when they picked them up but does not require city officials to sign for them when they accept delivery.
Half of the missing placards are red for people with temporary injuries and are good for up to six months. The other 200 are blue and can be good for up to four years after they are issued.
None of the missing placards have expiration stickers.
The state buys the placards for about $1 each. The fee for the red placard is $10. The blue ones are issued free, but if they are lost, a replacement costs the user $10.
But the potential value of the placards is much greater if sold on the black market, said Francine Wai, executive director of the Disability and Communication Access Board, the state agency in charge of the disabled parking permits.
"They have value because they afford people privileges," Wai said. "If I knew they fell into the ocean and are at the bottom of the ocean, the $400 to replace them would be insignificant."
Taga expressed similar concerns. "We're kind of worried about them. We're hoping there's no abuse, that they're not being sold," he said.
Sgt. Bart Canada, the Honolulu Police Department's Disabled Parking Enforcement program coordinator, notified his volunteer enforcement officers of the missing placards and to be on the lookout for them. Canada said 28 volunteers are deputized officers who can cite people for using altered, expired or fake placards, or for misusing or failing to display them.
The red placards have serial numbers T012401 to T012600. The blue placards have serial numbers P027601 to P027800. Anyone with information about the missing placards is asked to call Takayama at 547-7211.
