What do to with
old hospital site?
I attended the recent meeting to discuss how best to use the Rainbow Drive property (the former Hilo Memorial Hospital).
My suggestions were warmly received, and copious notes were taken, both on huge displays and on sticky notes with my business card attached. However, since none of what I suggested was reported in the paper, I will repeat the main points here.
It is remarkably shortsighted to think that this location is suitable for people to receive services if those people are going to have to walk to the site. Why? It could not be a worse location: It is at the steepest, longest hike uphill of any county site in Hilo, making that walk in the rain or sun with a backpack, etc., up Waianuenue a perfect excuse not to participate.
Could you make that hike? Try it sick with addiction, with children in tow, etc., and what kind of sweaty mess are you in when you arrive?
No, for homeless and addicted populations, this site requires full-time housing, or it is destined to create a barrier to use much worse than a police substation might, and that variable was shot down. We need vocational training on site, because it is empowering and can be therapeutic.
I proposed a vocational training center that would teach dog training and would provide services to the medical community in that area. Moreover, we could use the spaces not suitable for building construction and would need no permanent structures at all. Cheap. Easy. Fun. And it creates real jobs challenged folks can learn to do well.
I don’t know why my input was not reported, whereas half a paragraph was devoted to whether the site is haunted, but the community needs to know.
Uphill? Bad. Dogs? Good!
Carl Oguss
Hilo
Expanding fiber
internet service
Hawaiian Telcom’s vision is to make a positive impact in Hawaii by shrinking the digital divide and enabling as many homes and businesses with fiber internet service as we can.
Over the past 10 years, Hawaiian Telcom has invested more than $1 billion to further expand our statewide fiber network, increase our network capacity, and support communications and technology solutions for our customers. We also applied for and were awarded federal grants to help accelerate the expansion of broadband access in designated rural areas.
We have made significant progress in expanding fiber on Hawaii Island. By the end of the year, more than half of the island will have access to our fiber internet service, and we plan to continue investing in Hawaii to expand access to as many locations as we can as quickly as we can.
The state of Hawaii will also receive federal funding under the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, which supports the expansion of broadband infrastructure.
For nearly 30 years, another provider had the exclusive rights to serve Hawaiian Home Lands. This changed recently, and we will continue to work with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands so we can serve more locations on HHL.
Hawaii is home to our 1,200 employees across our island state — it’s not just a place where we do business. As we celebrate 140 years of building connections here in Hawaii this year, Hawaiian Telcom remains committed to serving, supporting and caring for our communities.
Kelvin Watanabe
Hawaiian Telcom, Hilo
