Postal services in Puna are sorely lacking and need to be expanded, decreed the Hawaii County Council last week.
In a nonbinding resolution discussed at Wednesday’s meeting of the council, Puna Councilman Matt Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder urged the U.S. Postal Service to improve its facilities throughout Puna, which he said currently has woefully insufficient access to mail services.
“The community has been requesting for a long time that this be addressed,” Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said. “Given the increasing population, the expansion of our district, everything screams we need help.”
Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said his constituents are especially critical of the Mountain View Post Office, which is very small and has a very limited number of mailboxes for residents.
Meanwhile, Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said, USPS is considering relocating its Kailua-Kona Post Office to a new, larger facility, which he said highlights an inequity in how Puna is treated.
“I’ve found the (Kailua-Kona Post Office) to be adequate,” Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said. “But if this is purely based on census data, given Puna is about one-third of the population of Hawaii Island, I really do have concerns that we’re catching the short end of the stick.”
Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder went on to say that the state of mail service in Puna amounts to a public health crisis. Because internet connectivity in Puna already is unreliable, the lack of convenient mail delivery options in the district could leave Puna wholly unprepared for a situation when rapid mass communication is essential.
“If you’re not connected, if you don’t have connectivity, you don’t have broadband — in what other form do people have to access critical information?” Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said. “If you don’t have access to mail, and you don’t have access to internet, how else are you supposed to vote? How else are you supposed to pay your bills, get medical attention?”
Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder’s fellow council members were supportive of the resolution.
Kohala Councilwoman Cindy Evans said Waikoloa, another rapidly growing part of the island, is also under-supported by USPS facilities, a comment that Ka‘u Councilwoman Michelle Galimba echoed regarding Ocean View.
The council voted unanimously to pass the resolution.
Duke Gonzales, strategic communications specialist for the USPS’ Hawaii and San Diego Regions, stated via email that USPS is aware of the council resolution and that the agency’s leadership “constantly reviews the evolving needs of our customers and makes decisions related to the expansion of postal services or the construction of new postal facilities as needed.”
“Our goal is to ensure the best possible service to our customers,” Gonzales wrote. “Especially in Hawaii, where so many of us rely on online commerce sites for goods, we understand how important the postal service is to the lives of our customers.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
