Visitation canceled at prisons again
Staffing shortages prompted the Department of Public Safety to again cancel visitation at Oahu Community Correctional Center and Halawa Correctional Facility on Sunday.
Visits were also canceled Saturday.
In response to similar cancellations recently, DPS has begun posting visitation cancellation notices on Nixle, Facebook and Twitter to provide advance notice to those planning to go to the facilities to visit inmates. Notices are typically posted between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. on scheduled visitation days.
More information is available at dps.hawaii.gov.
Loved ones of those held at OCCC have been denied all but four of the 24 visitation days that should have been afforded to them in the last three months, for the most part because guards called in sick, leaving the prison understaffed and unable to accommodate visits.
On Super Bowl Sunday, 68 of 214 guards scheduled to work called in sick.
Odor closes Lihue Walmart
The Walmart in Lihue was evacuated Sunday morning and seven people were taken to Wilcox Memorial Hospital after shoppers and employees complained of a noxious odor, Kauai County officials said.
Store officials evacuated the building at about 11 a.m. following reports of an unknown odor causing eye and throat irritation.
Seven people were transported to the hospital via the Kauai Bus at the request of fire officials, and two more people reportedly checked themselves into the Wilcox emergency room, a county spokeswoman said. No critical injuries were reported.
Firefighters and the county hazardous materials crew responded to the scene. The fire crew and a state Department of Health official were investigating the cause of the odor, county officials said. Walmart was closed but reopened at 2 p.m.
Board suspends well project
LIHUE » The Kauai Board of Water Supply voted Thursday to suspend a $1.9 million contract for a well project even though the first phase is already underway.
The Department of Water said it is too short-staffed and there’s too much uncertainty about monetary savings to justify moving forward on the Kahili Horizontal Directional Drilled Well Project.
The decision comes two months after more than 100 people took over an informational meeting on the proposal, leading officials to shut it down before the presentation began, the Garden Island reported.
About $530,000 of the contract has already been paid to Mears Group Inc.
