A final town hall meeting in Hilo on Saturday provided a series of minor updates about various Hawaii County projects.
The event, the last of a series of community meetings held around the island since June, once again gathered Mayor Mitch Roth and several county department heads to discuss their current operations and answer questions from the public.
While previous town halls had occasionally dropped significant bad news, most of the county officials’ updates Saturday were minor but positive.
Public Works Director Steve Pause said his department paved 34 miles of roads last fiscal year, the greatest amount on record. This fiscal year, he said, DPW is on track to pave more than 50.
At the same time, Pause said the ongoing work along Kilauea Avenue and Keawe Street in downtown Hilo is proceeding ahead of schedule and should be finished before the previously estimated completion date of August 2024. Pause also added DPW has worked to end the county use of Roundup to manage vegetation along county roads, which garnered applause from the audience.
Parks and Recreation Director Maurice Messina said renovations at Kolekole Beach Park should be completed by December, and the park will reopened that month.
Other projects in Hilo and Keaukaha are also nearing completion, including accessibility improvements to the NAS Swimming Pool in Hilo which should be finished by April, and upgrades at Richardson Ocean Park that are on the verge of completion.
Also, through a partnership with the county’s IT and Research and Development departments, Parks and Rec is working to improve internet connectivity at county facilities, Messina said.
“We’re hoping by the end of next year, we’ll have a large percentage of our facilities where you can go and hook up to the internet and broadcast games and other activities that are happening,” Messina said.
Meanwhile, Messina added that the county is in the process of hiring an information specialist who will be able to make timely, centralized social media notifications about closures and construction at all county facilities.
Assistant Fire Chief Darwin Okinaka addressed the lingering fears about wildfires following the recent Lahaina disaster, emphasizing that the fire department is increasing its community outreach so that people are able to make their properties as fire-resistant as possible.
“We were lucky,” Okinaka said. “The outcome of our fires was great … but anything can happen.”
Okinaka responded to one attendee’s concerns about the fire hazard presented by high concentrations of wild eucalyptus trees in East Hawaii, saying that while fires are possible in such areas, the greater fire risk comes from when those trees are cut down, piled up and not properly disposed of.
Other officials hinted at larger projects on the county’s horizon. Environmental Management Director Ramzi Mansour, noting that the island’s only operating landfill in Kailua-Kona has only about 20 to 25 years of usable life remaining, said the county is conducting analyses about whether another landfill could be sited in Hilo again in order to extend the Kona landfill’s lifespan.
Mansour did not specify whether this would entail reopening the South Hilo Landfill, which reached capacity and closed in 2019.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
