During a sputtering and lagging livestream Thursday, all four mayors in Hawaii said they think the COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity to improve internet infrastructure and connectivity throughout the state.
As part of Gov. David Ige’s Community Connection livestreams, the mayors of Hawaii, Kauai, Honolulu and Maui counties joined a Zoom call to answer questions from the public about the state’s response to the pandemic.
However, the mayors and Ige were only able to answer two questions on video, as technical difficulties caused the stream to intermittently cut out.
One of the questions, not seemingly in response to the video quality, was whether the state will improve its internet connectivity infrastructure to accommodate businesses’ increasing reliance on employees working from home.
“This pandemic just expedited things for us to look at because of necessity,” said Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim. “(Working from home) is a good supplement to what we have, but we cannot forget … the many that do not have this capability.”
Each of the mayors noted that there are still homes throughout the state that cannot consistently connect to the internet.
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell pointed out that workers are capable of being as productive working from home as in an office, and added that the best way to do so is to develop a statewide 5G network to improve connectivity, which was met by dismay by some viewers in the video’s live comments who were concerned about 5G’s potential health effects.
No specific plan or proposal to improve the state’s online infrastructure was discussed during the livestream.
The only other question the mayors were able to address before the livestream cut out for good was one concerning the reopening of vacation rentals for quarantining visitors.
Kim confirmed that legal vacation rentals on the Big Island are open to Hawaii County residents and interisland travelers, but out-of-state travelers will be required to carry out their mandatory 14-day quarantines in hotels, in order to better ensure compliance with quarantine rules.
After their quarantine, Kim said, out-of-state travelers can stay at vacation rentals as they wish.
The other mayors confirmed similar policies, although Caldwell noted that the high number of unpermitted vacation rentals in the state makes enforcement challenging.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.