LIHU‘E — The Kaua‘i State Office has resumed operations, according to Donalyn Dela Cruz, press secretary for Gov. Neil Abercrombie. Hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., except furlough Fridays and holidays. State IDs are issued from 8 a.m. to
LIHU‘E — The Kaua‘i State Office has resumed operations, according to Donalyn Dela Cruz, press secretary for Gov. Neil Abercrombie.
Hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., except furlough Fridays and holidays. State IDs are issued from 8 a.m. to noon, and 1:30 to 3 p.m.
The lack of some state services due to the closure of the governor’s liaison’s office on Kaua‘i caused some residents to voice their frustrations last month.
With the transition from Gov. Linda Lingle to Abercrombie in December — combined with a clerk in the governor’s liaison’s office in the Lihu‘e State Building on maternity leave and another having left for another job — the office was temporarily closed.
Cruz had said in December that it could be February before the office is staffed and reopened. But this week she said the office has already been re-opened.
There were some frustrated Kauaians calling the O‘ahu state ID office. Four or five people were gathered outside the liaison’s office one morning last month wondering how they were going to get state identification cards needed for, among other things, cashing checks for those who do not have a driver’s license or other official form of photo identification.
They were told by a security guard that they would have to travel off-island either to the governor’s office in Honolulu or one of the Neighbor Island liaison offices to get the paperwork processed and pictures taken for issuance of state ID cards.
A woman in the state ID office on O‘ahu said normally one of the two clerks in the Kaua‘i liaison office would have been held over from the Lingle administration to the Abercrombie administration to process state ID cards and requests for marriage licenses, but one of the clerks is on maternity leave and the other left for another job.
Once a new clerk is hired on Kaua‘i, he or she will have to travel to O‘ahu for training before coming back to Kaua‘i to be able to process state ID cards in the liaison office, the woman in the state ID office on O‘ahu said via telephone.
The closing of the office until “further notice” also meant anyone seeking a marriage license would have to travel to Wailua, Kapa‘a or Hanalei, where agents authorized by the state to issue marriage licenses are located.
Cruz said this week that the Department of Health is handling marriage licenses.
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