Poamoho residents must
vacate by June 9
Del Monte Fresh Produce (Hawaii) officials have notified residents of Poamoho Camp that they have until June 9 to move out of their plantation homes.
Officials handed out 120-day notices Tuesday, said Vaeleti Tyrell, Poamoho Community Association president and Del Monte retiree.
"Before the notice came out, we went out house-to-house and explain to them (the residents), 'Don't panic, we're still negotiating'" with Del Monte officials to stay past the deadline, Tyrell said.
They will meet with Del Monte officials Tuesday.
Three hundred people -- most of them Del Monte employees and their families -- live in Poamoho Camp. The rest, like Tyrell, are Del Monte retirees.
They also have a meeting with officials from Bank of Hawaii, the trustee for landowner George Galbraith Trust, on Thursday.
Del Monte leases 2,200 acres of land outside Wahiawa, which includes the camp, from the Galbraith Trust. The lease expires June 30 and the company is not renewing it. Del Monte needs to tear down the camp before it returns the property to the Galbraith Trust.
Tyrell said the residents want to ask the bank if they can take over the camp after Del Monte's lease expires.
"If the association can lease this place, we pay rent to them," he said.
Company official Richard Contreras said Del Monte decided not to renew the lease because the type of pineapple it grows there is not in demand.
The company grows a sweeter variety of pineapple it developed, Del Monte Gold, on property in Kunia. It plans to shift the Poamoho workers to Kunia.
Del Monte also operates another housing camp for its workers in Kunia.
"I doubt they have room for anybody in Kunia," Tyrell said.
Tracy Takano, of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 142, which represents the pineapple workers, said some managers who live at Poamoho have been offered homes in Kunia.
