Center for sex
offenders staying putPearl City residents want
the 10-bed facility to relocate
A public meeting last night with state officials on the future of the Pearl City juvenile sex offender treatment facility left some attendees with more questions than answers.
"We've been dangled along," said resident Bev Kaneshige after the meeting. "We should know what's going on. I think we need a lot of answers."
Health Department officials gave no new information about the facility's future, but reiterated that they have no plans to move or expand the home, which opened two years ago within a half-mile of Momilani Elementary and Pearl City High School.
About 30 residents attended the meeting at Lehua Elementary School Cafeteria, and some said they were not satisfied by pledges that any change to the facility would be made with public approval.
"I don't trust the Department of Health," said attendee Lois Miyashiro. "I can't trust them."
Former Gov. Ben Cayetano and his administration promised that the location was temporary and that the 10-bed facility would be moved as soon as an alternative was found.
But the state Health Department, under Gov. Linda Lingle, has said there are no guarantees that the center will be relocated.
"We are not prepared to make any definitive statement on moving the facility," Michelle Hill, deputy director of behavioral health, told residents. "I've been charged to make sure that whatever plan and process we embark on does not eliminate the community from that process."
She said that because any relocation or expansion would take at least three years, Pearl City residents do not have to fear being surprised by an "overnight change."
She also said that she is unaware of any plans to convert the facility into a 22-bed drug rehabilitation center -- talk that surfaced at a Pearl City Neighborhood Board meeting earlier this year.
Recently, the Health Department announced it could need up to six years to evaluate whether the facility should be moved.
The department took the first step in that evaluation in June by commissioning a $1 million study, which in part will look for existing facilities that could house the program, currently at the Waimano Training School and Hospital.
At the meeting, which was set up by state lawmakers, officials with the Health Department and state Department of Land & Natural Resources also discussed the state's plans for other facilities on Waimano Home Road.
The 240-acre area is owned by DLNR and leased to the Health Department.
