About three dozen members of the public learned Monday night at a community meeting at Aupuni Center called by the Hawaii Police Department that construction of a temporary morgue started about two weeks ago adjacent to the as yet-unopened call center for police and fire dispatchers in Hilo — and that didn’t sit well with most who spoke.
County Department of Public Works Director Hugh Ono, who wasn’t at the meeting, said the $2.3 million temporary facility off Mohouli Street is being built without a formal environmental assessment under what he called “an exception” recommended by the Corporation Counsel, the county’s civil attorneys.
Ono, in an email to the Tribune-Herald, said no emergency proclamation was made by either Mayor Kimo Alameda or his predecessor, Mitch Roth.
The notice to proceed with the facility — two 40-foot refrigerated shipping containers on a concrete foundation with 10-foot-high acoustic fencing and gate — occurred on Feb. 18, and the anticipated completion date is April 18. Construction is Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., weather permitting, with work on weekends and holidays, if necessary.
Stan’s Contracting Inc. is the project’s contractor.
According to DPW spokeswoman Sherise Kana‘e-Kane, who co-hosted the meeting with HPD Assistant Chief Sherry Bird, each container can store up to 40 bodies.
“We bought the second container as a redundancy in case the first one breaks down. But, if needed, we have the capacity for an additional 40 (bodies) in the second container,” Kana‘e-Kane said.
Under state law, the chief of police for all counties except Honolulu — which has a medical examiner — serves as county coroner, and all officers serve as deputy coroners.
Hilo Benioff Medical Center’s morgue was built in 1984 and is well beyond its capacity of 15 bodies. HBMC almost a year ago requested that HPD remove by Sept. 1, 2024, what are referred to as “HPD bodies” from its morgue. Those are the bodies of individuals who died somewhere other than the hospital or bodies in coroner’s inquest cases and in criminal investigations.
Bird said autopsies will continue to be done at HBMC and that no medical procedures will take place in the temporary morgue.
One woman noted the meeting was called with less than a week’s notice to the public and lamented “that we’re not going to have a full conversation about solutions.”
“Chief Ben (Moszkowicz), I don’t see him here today, but when he refers to ‘our HPD bodies,’ I … think that’s a bit of overreach,” she said. “They are not ‘our HPD bodies,’ they are our community’s deceased. And it should be a conversation with the entire community about that.
“… And now we’re being delivered this plan as if a fait accompli, it’s done. And I think that’s objectionable, given what a sensitive and profoundly sacred matter we’re dealing with.”
Another, a resident of the Mohouli Senior Housing, across the street from the project, said her notice about the project came last week when she “saw all of the heavy equipment there.”
“When the 911 call center was being built, we put up with dust, we put up with noise, we put up with laying sewer pipes alongside of our building, and we put up with centipedes and fire ants. So, those are the challenges we face downwind of that construction site,” she said. “And it’s disappointing that nobody came and talked to us and said, ‘This is what we’re planning.’”
Toby Hazel, who also lives in the senior housing complex, said she’s “very concerned about the traffic … when the call center and this other facility gets opened” — which, according to Bird, are both scheduled for mid- to late-April.
“We are old. We need help,” Hazel said. “The speed limit is higher going up the hill from the intersection than it is going down. And I’ve had several near misses with cars trying to pull out of there, because there’s also, coming down from the mountainside, a lane that doesn’t have to yield. This is dangerous. There are more than 200 people who live in the senior housing there. We don’t need our insurance to go higher because of fatalities or car wrecks that could’ve been avoided.”
Hazel asked Kane-Kana‘i for a car count at the intersection of Mohouli Street and Kupuna Place.
“Maybe you need a (traffic) light there,” she suggested.
The County Council approved last year, and Roth signed into law, a $1.5 million appropriation for design and land acquisition for a permanent county morgue to HPD’s capital budget, and authorized the issuance of general obligation bonds to fund the project.
Roth’s predecessor, former mayor Harry Kim, said a permanent facility is where the emphasis should lie.
‘This temporary is the wrong temporary,” Kim said. “I want to take a strong stance that this temporary is no more than three years for a permanent place.”
After the meeting, Kim told the Tribune-Herald his three-year timeline is to complete construction of a permanent morgue.
“I’ve seen parks built that quickly,” he said.
Ron Terry, a private environmental planning consultant, said although there isn’t an EA for the project, he did some consulting work, including “noise attenuation,” noting acoustic material on the 10-foot-high walls.
“When the sound comes in, it gets absorbed, and when it echoes back, it gets absorbed, as well,” he said. Terry added that generator noise, which was mentioned by some residents, will happen “only when the power goes out.”
“We’re not talking about that 24/7,” he said.
Mitchell Dodo, vice president and operations manager of Dodo Mortuary, called the project “something that has to be done.”
“But what I’m hearing is focus on East Hawaii only,” Dodo said. “What many people may not know is West Hawaii is also facing the situation, and it is perhaps even more dire than East Hawaii, because their morgue facility is even smaller.”
Shannon Matson’s father, Bob Northrop, was fatally mauled by dogs in Ocean View on Aug. 1, 2023. She became emotional while saying her family received his body in a week, but wondered what happens when next of kin can’t be found.
“It’s kind of a gruesome question, but I’m curious,” Matson said. “How many people are we currently storing for a long time, and there is, like, a cutoff … a time limit if somebody doesn’t come to claim them?”
Bird replied police are required “to make every effort” to find the family.
“For the unclaimed bodies, there’s a process with the Department of Health that forms need to be filled out, etc., etc.” she said. “And they will also make sure that we’ve … done what we need to do. Once all that’s met, then they’ll arrange with the mortuary for that individual to be picked up and cremated.”
Michael Bennett called the entire circumstance “not pono.”
“So, what’s driving your decision?” he inquired. “You already bought the containers in advance. So, there’s something else here you’re not saying.”
“No, there’s nothing else,” replied Kana‘e-Kane. “There’s more deaths that has happened in these past months.”
“You made decisions that were not involving the people, and that’s what I’m most concerned about,” Bennett shot back. “I mean, you’re damage control. Let’s be honest about what’s going on here. You’re damage control. You’re nice, you’re polite, all the rest of that stuff.
“But the bottom line here is, you made decisions that are not involving the public.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
