emiller@westhawaiitoday.com
BY ERIN MILLER | WEST HAWAII TODAY
Just one step remains before West Hawaii residents will learn where the region’s new judiciary complex will be located.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie late last week approved the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the planned Kona Judiciary Complex. Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Mark Recktenwald must now select the site.
“After so many years, we are elated that the governor has approved the environmental impact statement,” West Hawaii Bar Association President Robert Kim said Monday.
Judiciary spokesman Mark Santoki said Recktenwald has not finalized that decision. Santoki said Recktenwald’s office did not provide a timeline Monday for when that might happen.
Bar association members have met with Recktenwald several times, expressing their preference for a site across from the West Hawaii Civic Center, Kim said. Recktenwald is fully aware of all of the issues surrounding the existing courthouse locations, Kim added.
“We feel confident he’ll make a good decision,” he added. “We just want our courthouse.”
West Hawaii attorneys, residents and judges have sought a new, consolidated courthouse complex for decades. Courts convene in three buildings now, with limited parking and intermingling of defendants and witnesses in some of the courts’ waiting areas. The West Hawaii law library is located in the former Kona Hospital morgue.
Legislators appropriated $11 million for the planning last year. The full complex is estimated to cost about $90 million.
Seven sites made the final list. The farthest south is on Queen Liliuokalani Trust land near Makalapua Center. Moving north, sites that were considered are one at Laiopua, one on Lanihau and Department of Hawaiian Home Lands property, two adjacent to the West Hawaii Civic Center, one on Kealakehe Parkway just mauka of Queen Kaahumanu Highway and finally a site at Kaloko Makai, off Hina-Lani Street.
The West Hawaii Bar Association’s preferred site is a 10-acre site the Department of Land and Natural Resources now owns. To use it for courthouse construction, the Board of Land and Natural Resources would need to approve the usage, and Abercrombie would need to issue an executive order.
emiller@westhawaiitoday.com