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Kokua Line June Watanabe |
4 city pools still not
ready to be reopenedQuestion: You were not given correct information for your March 29 column on why four city pools remain closed after months. We were initially told by the Kaneohe Regional Park pool director that the pool would reopen in December. The renovation was supposed to take three months. We have been teetering on the fence since December, being told every couple of weeks that it would open on such and such a date, to the point that we are sick of the excuses. The bottom line: The pool is not open, and the city apparently doesn't plan on opening it any time soon. Did the hiring city agency bother to check the Better Business Bureau before giving the contractor the business? Who in the city should be held accountable for this fiasco? We have a right as taxpayers to expect better.
Answer: It's apparent how valued a community pool is when it's suddenly taken away.
At the risk of reporting a date that again comes and goes without a reopening, "mid-April" was being mentioned as a possible finish date, but that might be optimistic. The caveat also is that rain might affect the time line.
When we first asked when the Kaneohe, Kanewai, Booth and Palolo pools -- closed since August or September -- would reopen ("Kokua Line," Feb. 11), we were told early March. Last month, we were told the city Department of Design and Construction was not accepting the "workmanship" on the tiling of the pools, and no reopening date could be given.
Copies of e-mails from other Kaneohe residents to the mayor and his administrators detail their anger and frustration over the continued and unexplained closure of the Kaneohe pool, and allege pool users were "lied" to over what was going on and when the pool would reopen.
One person noted that "many lives have been altered by this fiasco." Not only is the future of the Kaneohe Swim Association (youth team) said to be in jeopardy, but senior citizens who looked to the pool for exercise and interaction have had nowhere to go, and lifeguards and instructors, who get paid only when they work, have had to find jobs elsewhere.
City spokeswoman Carol Costa acknowledged the administration has received many complaints about the pool closures. The city is assessing the contractor $100 a day in "liquidated damages," going back to early March, for the delays, she said.
"Liquidated damages are included in all contracts, and when assessed and upheld, they come out of the final payment," Costa said.
Renovations for the four pools totaled around $976,000, and the contractor, KD Construction, was chosen based on "low bid, as specified by the state procurement code." It is a subcontractor that is doing the tile work, Costa said.
For Kaneohe, the work included pulling out plaster and putting in tiles, replacing half the pool lights and adding new mechanical equipment. During the closures, pool managers and custodians have been reassigned to other duties.
The delays are "regrettable," Costa said. "But the contractor is being assessed liquidated damages and is on a fast track -- if the rain does not impede that -- to get those pools open as soon as possible."
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