Question: The Kapolei Satellite City Hall opens at 7 a.m., which is great for area residents who can use it before they go to work. I don’t live in Kapolei. Do any satellite city halls in town open this early? Or will they?
Answer: For now only the Kapolei SCH is open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, in a pilot program that has the facility’s nine employees working 10-hour shifts four days a week, with three days off. This allows the facility to offer two more service hours a day; its previous hours were 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Whether the expanded hours will continue beyond year’s end or be offered at any of Oahu’s other satellite city halls won’t be decided until after the pilot period, the city said.
The pilot program began Sept. 18 and is to run through the end of 2023, except for two weeks in November and one week in December that have holidays. Kapolei SCH will revert to its previous operating hours during the weeks that include Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and be closed on the holidays.
The city says this location is Oahu’s busiest satellite city hall, handling more than 124,000 transactions in fiscal year 2023, which ended June 30. Along with offering standard satellite services, Kapolei SCH also accepts applications for new U.S. passports, by appointment only. It does not renew driver’s licenses or state IDs, which the adjacent Kapolei Driver Licensing Center handles.
Other satellite city halls are open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. or 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information about any of Oahu’s satellite city halls, go to Honolulu.gov/csd and click on “Satellite City Hall” at the top of the page. To make an appointment for service at a satellite city hall or a driver licensing center, go to AlohaQ.org.
Q: A purpose of the gun buyback is to keep unwanted firearms away from children, potential suicides and burglars. Since ammunition won’t be accepted, what are people supposed to do with it?
Q: I know not to throw bullets in the trash — dangerous. Garbage trucks use enormous pressure to compact the trash they collect for incineration at H-Power. So what do we do with bullets for the old guns we turn in?
Q: Regarding the buyback of unwanted guns, since ammunition won’t be accepted, how do we dispose of it?
A: Readers reacted favorably to news that law enforcement agencies would collect unwanted guns — no questions asked and with no ID required — at two Oahu locations on Oct. 21; Foodland gift cards will be given in exchange (808ne.ws/1012kline). However, several asked how to safely dispose of the guns’ ammunition — which they don’t want to keep, sell or give away — and which won’t be collected at the buyback event.
Members of the public can turn in unwanted ammunition (and guns) at any police station or call 911 to have an officer sent, said Michelle Yu, spokesperson for the Honolulu Police Department. They will be required to sign a property receipt, she said.
Toni Schwartz, a spokesperson for the state Department of Law Enforcement and the state Department of Public Safety, said officials hope to broaden the scope of future anonymous buyback events. “We cannot take ammunition right now, but we are looking to expand the program later to include it,” she said.
Most of the readers we heard from knew not to throw ammunition in their household trash; they are correct.“With our compactor hydraulic trucks, unused ammunition would not be good,” said Markus Owens, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Environmental Services.
Mahalo
On Oct. 5, I was involved in an accident in a restaurant parking garage. My van rolled backwards across the aisle and hit a pickup truck and a sedan.
Amid this nightmare I had the good fortune to receive the kindness and concern of three people: the parking lot attendant, the owner of the truck and the owner of the sedan. I wish I could describe in full their sympathetic, reassuring and generous reactions to my carelessness, but I will keep it brief. The parking lot attendant saw me through the whole incident and even made sure that I safely exited the parking lot.
The sedan owner reassured me that there was no damage to her car and went with her friend to see a movie, leaving her car there as my car was blocking it. The truck owner was amazing, so calm and matter-of-fact. He surveyed the situation, disengaged my car from his truck, checked the damage to both our vehicles and told the parking lot attendant “let’s drop it” in terms of calling the police.
He then got into his truck and drove out of the lot. His generous response brought tears to my eyes.
My heartfelt thanks to these three special people. You are wonderful. — Grateful driver
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, HI 96813; call 808-529-4773; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
