Residents worry of ‘very unsafe’ area in Wailuku

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WAILUKU - The ongoing problem of speeding and unsafe street parking along Eha Street in Wailuku was revisited Tuesday night when area residents complained to top Maui Police Department officials during a community meeting.

"We are in a very unsafe environment here," said Iao Parkside resident Diana McKeague. "How can we work together?"

A couple of years ago, residents along with Maui police held a rally to get people to slow down, McKeague said. Residents and supporters held signs, and police clocked motorists, ticketing them if they violated traffic rules.

"For those couple of hours it worked, but nothing has been done since then," she said.

McKeague and other residents said there have been numerous car crashes on Eha Street, and recently a pedestrian was hit. Residents said school buses, county and state vehicles, commercial vehicles and even police cars speed in the 20-mph zone. Cars parked along the roadway also make it hard for residents to drive onto the roadway.

Resident Alan Enomoto said that although police are ticketing people going 15 to 20 mph over the speed limit on Mokulele Highway, motorists are going 45 to 50 mph, or 25 to 30 mph faster than the posted 20-mph speed limit on Eha Street.

Enomoto, who has lived in the area for around 10 years, said he has seen too many crashes.

"It's getting ridiculous," he said.

Around 40 people attended the Maui Police Department's town meeting at the Velma McWayne Santos Community Center on Tuesday night. Similar meetings have been held around the county for residents to listen to Police Department goals and share their concerns. The last scheduled meeting will be on Lanai beginning at 6 p.m. today at the Lanai Community Center, although Maui Police Chief Gary Yabuta said police officials intend to continue meeting with communities.

At Tuesday's meeting, Wailuku Patrol Division Capt. Jody Singsank said she appreciated the information about speeding on Eha Street as a way to allocate police personnel in the field.

"I've been waiting to hear where the spots are," she said. "Eha Street can be one of the targets."

As for police speeding down Eha Street, Yabuta told residents to take down the license plate numbers of patrol vehicles and report the incidents. He added that police will ticket anyone who speeds.

But what police said they couldn't do is enforce parking infractions along Eha Street because it is a private road, said Lt. Wally Tom.

Residents said they have waited for years for the county to accept Eha Street from property owners who developed the area. But before accepting dedication of the road, Maui County is requiring the road (which was constructed by C. Brewer) to meet current road design standards, although the road was developed under less-stringent, county-approved plans when it was built, said officials of Kehalani Holdings Co., one of the owners.

Kehalani officials said the cost for the changes will be a "few million dollars" and that the company has requested the county to reconsider some of the requirements to allow dedication of the road to the public. But so far the matter remains unresolved.

County Department of Public Works officials could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Kehalani officials said they are working with the Maui County Council to find another way to permit the road to be dedicated to the county.

The other owner of a portion of Eha Street is D.R. Horton, Kehalani officials said.

Another issue residents brought up was the concern over unlicensed dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles speeding on Malaihi Road.

Resident Bob Hanusa said he has kept count of the illegal dirt bikes and asked for police assistance to stop them.

"I share the same grief, too," Yabuta told Hanusa.

Yabuta, who said he lives nearby, said it is hard to catch the dirt bikers because the bikes are more maneuverable than police cars, which can't go everywhere the bikes go.

Yabuta said Singsank and Tom could work with Hanusa on the problem of illegal dirt bikers as well as getting some kind of speed-monitoring device for Malaihi Road.

Yabuta also shared crime statistics for the Central Maui.

Documented serious offenses for Central Maui (Wailuku/Kahului) showed a nearly 18 percent decline, with 1,861 documented offenses from Oct. 1, 2008, to Sept. 30, 2009, compared with 2,267 in the same period from 2007 to 2008.

During the same time frame, all areas of serious crime dropped except first-degree sex assault, which increased nearly 62 percent from 38 from Oct. 1, 2007, to Sept. 30, 2008, to 99 for the same period this year. (Yabuta later said most of the reports of sex assaults came from a single victim.) Robbery increased 14 percent from 21 cases in 2007-08 to 23 cases in 2008-09.

The number of documented lesser offenses, including vandalism and drunken driving, also decreased in Central Maui, statistics showed.

"The people that I give credit to, to a drop in crime is you folks," Yabuta told the crowd.

From May to October this year, the top five calls for service for Wailuku were at the Maui Memorial Medical Center with 307, followed by Baldwin High School at 102, then Sack'n Save with 62, and Iao Intermediate School and Maui Community Correctional Center, each with 51.

For the same time period, the top five calls in Kahului were at the Queen Ka'ahumanu Center with 483, then Maui Mall at 166, Wal-Mart with 141, Safeway with 120 and Christ the King Church with 108.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@ mauinews.com.