By NANCY COOK LAUER ADVERTISING By NANCY COOK LAUER Stephens Media Hawaii A software vendor is scrambling to get Hawaii County’s online building permit system back online, three weeks after the county took down the public portal because it wasn’t
By NANCY COOK LAUER
Stephens Media Hawaii
A software vendor is scrambling to get Hawaii County’s online building permit system back online, three weeks after the county took down the public portal because it wasn’t working correctly.
The system — a 2008 campaign promise by Mayor Billy Kenoi for a “transparent tracking system” and permit application process for the public — was put in place in 2011. The software vendor, Computer Software Inc., was paid about $200,000. In addition, the county purchased computer hardware and iPads to operate the custom-built bar code-based system.
Kenoi touted the system as one that would increase efficiency, save money, boost transparency and create construction jobs.
Public Works Director Warren Lee told Stephens Media Hawaii on Tuesday the system started slowing down and began delivering error messages, so the county shut down the public Web portal while CSI troubleshoots the problem. He couldn’t say when it would be repaired.
“It could be tomorrow, it could be next week … it might take a month or two months to make the corrections,” Lee said. “The software vendor is going through the process right now.”
Lee said the county was implementing the new system in phases. He said the troubleshooting won’t cost the county extra.
“It was working perfectly until early November,” he added.
A permit-tracking system generated the highest percentage of support of any of the various ideas floated in an online customer survey Public Works commissioned in 2009. Of the 102 people who answered how often they’d use an online tracking system, 78 respondents, or 77 percent, chose the “all the time” answer. Only 3 percent selected “not at all.”
The survey also prompted requests for updates on code changes and complaints of poor customer service.
Michael Bonahan, owner of Kohala Creative Construction, said he really liked the online system because it would email him when a permit application moved from one department to another. He said Wednesday he hadn’t noticed the system was down because he hasn’t applied for a permit online in the past several weeks. A subcontractor is more likely to use the system more often than a general contractor such as his company, he said.
“We do maybe a dozen permits a year,” Bonahan said. “This probably affects the subcontractors more than the general contractors.”
Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com.
