Council panel OKs
funds for Poamoho
Poamoho Camp residents, facing eviction by Del Monte Fresh Produce Hawaii, are looking to the City Council to come to their rescue.
The Council's Budget Committee approved by a vote of 3-2 giving a nonprofit group $1.5 million in federal housing funding to purchase the 90 acres beneath the plantation camp.
Mayor Jeremy Harris opposes the measure because the money would come from $5.3 million appropriated for his proposed residential transitional center for the homeless.
"We are concerned principally over the transfer from the program that was originally the recipient of these monies and so our position is that the reprogramming of $5.3 million of (federal) funds ... is not appropriate principally because we want to do that program," Budget Director Ivan Lui-Kwan said.
The committee's resolution would redistribute the money among three projects, including the acquisition of the camp by the Waipahu Jack Hall Memorial Housing Corp., a nonprofit set up by Local 142 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents Poamoho's pineapple workers.
Members of the Council say the homeless transitional center, which would bring agencies together under one roof to aide the homeless, is stalled and they want to use the money before it expires.
"In reality, there is no program, correct? There is no site, there is no body to run such a site, to program it or anything. It's an idea at this point, correct?" asked Councilwoman Barbara Marshall.
But Marshall and Councilman Charles Djou voted against reprogramming the money for the Poamoho camp because it would set a bad precedent for the city to get in the middle of a dispute between private parties.
Committee members Ann Kobayashi, Romy Cachola and Rod Tam voted in favor of the measure.
Council Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz, who represents the district in which the camp is located, has introduced or initiated several measures to help save the camp.
"I'm confident that the Council will support these families that are being threatened," he said.
The camp is home to 300 Del Monte pineapple workers, retirees and their families. The company gave the residents 120-day notices in February to vacate their homes. The deadline is June 9.
The company's lease on the camp's 90 acres and surrounding 2,110 acres of agricultural land expires June 30. Del Monte needs to raze the camp before returning the property to landowner George Galbraith Trust.