A proposal to enable Hawaii County to remove abandoned vehicles from properties free of charge was widely popular at a County Council committee hearing Tuesday.
Puna Councilman Matt Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder introduced at the committee on Regenerative Agriculture, Water, Energy and Environmental Management a bill that would establish a program to allow the Department on Environmental Management to dispose of derelict vehicles from private property at the request of the owner.
The program would be funded through vehicle registration fees already collected by the county.
Brenda Iokepa-Moses, deputy director of Environmental Management, said the county has “several million dollars” currently sitting in an unused fund that could be used for the program.
“It won’t cost the taxpayers anything,” Iokepa-Moses said.
Iokepa-Moses went on to say that the program would save the county money in the long run, because the current process for dealing with abandoned vehicles is inefficient and time-consuming. When abandoned on a public roadway, vehicles must be reported, tagged and examined by multiple agencies, including DEM and the Hawaii Police Department, before they can be removed.
Until a state law passed earlier this year that allows the counties to determine the minimum threshold for a vehicle to be considered abandoned, that process could be interrupted at any time if the vehicle is moved even a few feet.
Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder’s bill also included, via an amendment, an update to the county’s definition of “abandoned vehicle.” Under the new definition, a car left on a public road is considered abandoned unless it is moved more than a mile within a day after receiving a county notice.
Several Big Island residents, largely from Puna, attended the meeting to voice their support for the proposed program.
“There’s abandoned vehicles everywhere around here,” said Heather Garvey. “It’s visually appalling.”
Garvey said she had to pay more than $1,000 to have three derelict vehicles removed from her property, adding that most people on the island don’t have that kind of money to spare.
A representative of the Fern Acres Community Association said about 25% of the association’s time and resources are spent dealing with abandoned vehicles.
Other council members lauded the program, with most of them pleased that the blight of broken-down cars on the sides of Big Island roads might finally be addressed.
But Hilo Councilman Aaron Chung was not without misgivings.
“Is it good to use public funds on private property like this?” Chung asked. “I don’t want to do trash work for private property owners.”
However, Chung said he would “take a leap of faith” and voted to support the bill. With his vote, the committee voted unanimously to forward the bill to the full council.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.