Downtown a mess
As I enter Hilo daily over the “singing bridge,” my first sight of the gateway to downtown is the homeless camp in front of the historic Koehnen Building.
Why in the world has Hawaii County allowed our storefronts to be a camp site for the homeless?
It just doesn’t stop there. Go to the corner of the former National Dollar Store and view the wooden cart on wheels blocking the sidewalk, and any attempt to walk around the corner is a knee-breaker.
As past president of the Downtown Improvement Association, we negotiated, debated, fought and stopped short of begging for laws that would eliminate camping on sidewalks. We finally contacted building owners to sign a no trespassing edict in order to enforce the law, but to no avail.
So, when our elected officials sit on the dais and wonder what we can do to improve the quality of our downtown, how about driving over the bridge and tell me what your first impression of our gateway to downtown is?
Ghetto. Maybe a little strong, but how about collective indifference at the highest level?
Steven Markham
Hilo
Terrible service
A large ironwood tree fell on the fiber optic trunk line cable in front of my home. No one was home at the phone company. No one answers the phone, and you can’t leave a message. Imagine this, the phone tree for the phone company doesn’t recognize the prompt “operator.” Those pesky customers, how do we get rid of them?
My spouse’s employer moved location and needed to efficiently transfer their business lines and internet. No one answered the phone. They might call you back in two or three hours. Fortunately, they were able to get the competition to provide service for less cost in the required time span.
What bothers me are the prime-time commercials while they are losing existing customers due to terrible customer service. Why aren’t these funds being used for additional customer service representatives?
It used to be the call center was in Texas, and they could not pronounce or spell any of our street names. Now, they are just purposefully understaffed so they don’t have to answer the phone.
Here’s a clue. Have seniors and the disabled at home provide on-call services as operators during high call volume. Easy answer. Not rocket science.
Later, I talked to a employee and subcontractor installing fiber optics at the next pole down from my house and showed them the problem, asking both of them to call it in. Two weeks later, and nothing.
The speed test for my internet is a miserable 26.3 MB.
The large tree is still laying on the trunk line (as of Jan. 21) and my internet rates are going up. Do you see any problems here?
Answers. Not excuses, please.
Michael Xavier Mamczarz
Kurtistown
