WAILUA — Sheila Gowen’s husband has come home to die. Besieged by three tumors, “Howie,” as Gowen calls him, may only have a few weeks left before the growths finally eclipse his brain. While Gowen hopes her last moments with
WAILUA — Sheila Gowen’s husband has come home to die.
Besieged by three tumors, “Howie,” as Gowen calls him, may only have a few weeks left before the growths finally eclipse his brain.
While Gowen hopes her last moments with her husband will be peaceful, she fears they will be shattered by the sound of “beep — beep — beep.”
The Gowens live one lot down from a home where two-to-three SpeediShuttle buses are kept. They beep when they back up for safety reasons, much like garbage trucks or similar vehicles of a certain size and class.
“Do you know what that sounds like 20 feet from my bedroom at 3 o’clock in the morning?”
“There is no schedule. There is no time I can rest,” Gowen later added.
Since a family associated with the Maui-based transportation business moved in to a nearby house, Gowen said she has been plagued by the incessant beeping.
On the other side of the private lot that separates the two homes, Alvina Morton and her son, Kaleo Collier, say Gowen has had a problem with them from the moment they met and it wasn’t over beeping vans.
“She just never liked me from the beginning,” Morton said.
The first quarrel
Collier, the general manager of SpeediShuttle, and Gowen agree that the first run-in occurred when she saw his mother cutting back foliage on the private lot between them in Wailua Homesteads.
“We didn’t want rodents to climb onto the trees and onto our house,” he said.
Gowen contends she asked politely for Morton to stop trimming the trees, as it would impact her privacy. Collier said Gowen yelled at his mother and cursed at him. He repeatedly called her a nasty name. Gowen’s 25-year-old nephew came out and police were eventually called.
“She said that we’re just renters and locals that will never go anywhere and she is rich and that’s that — ‘Who do you think they’ll listen to?’” Collier said.
Gowen said that’s a misunderstanding and this should not be confused with a class issue. She meant her neighbors’ home has held a number of tenants who never stayed long, and renters wouldn’t care if the trees didn’t grow back. She and other homeowners would.
The Gowens don’t live in their Kaua‘i home full time. They spend portions of the year at what they call the “Big House” in an upscale area of Seattle, Wash.
She added that her appearance at the time might have thrown them off. The pale, slender 5-foot-8-inch woman in her 60s had been gardening. Her hair was a mess, the retired aesthetician explained.
Collier and his mother, along with others in their home, have lived there for about six months. Morton said she grew up in the Islands.
Beeping and parking
Issues between the neighbors eventually turned to Speedi’s Mercedes Benz shuttles. The business operates three on the island, but dispatching administrative work and reservations are taken at SpeediShuttle’s headquarters on Maui. Speedi also runs shuttles on O‘ahu. Collier said the vans can leave — and beep — as early as 3 a.m.
For a while, the business parked the 12-person shuttles on the lot between the Gowens’ and Collier’s homes. Gowen complained, and a real estate agent eventually informed Collier they would have to be moved.
Two of the vans now park in the driveway of Collier’s home — he and his mother say two drivers live at the house — and another goes home with one of two other drivers, depending on their schedule.
Gowen said she has often seen as many as three shuttles on the property, and although a wall, bushes, and a lot separate the homes, the beeping keeps her up at night. Collier said his bedroom is directly adjacent to his driveway and the vans never wake him up. He said Gowen may be a light sleeper.
Collier said he had made an appointment with his mechanic to install toggle switches that would stop the beeping at night, but was advised doing so would go against certain government-required standards. The vans have been parked off his property before, but they were vandalized when he did so.
Gowen just wants the beeping to stop. It would be a blessing to her, she said, for that to occur in her husband’s lifetime.
“I want common decency, I want what’s legal and most of all I want what’s right,” Gowen said. “It’s about me now.”
While at Wilcox Memorial Hospital last week, Howard didn’t have much to say about the topic. Gowen explained he’s too far gone to comment; doctors gave him three to nine months to live.
“I don’t think he will make it to three months,” she said. “You wish you could die along with him but you won’t. And you must focus on tomorrow, or in my case only next year. Next year my husband will be just a memory.”
But there is some “good news” associated with Howard’s end, she said.
“I’m going to be a rich widow because of my husband,” Gowen said.
Complaints to county
Since Nov. 18, Gowen has complained to county officials about her neighbors. County spokeswoman Beth Tokioka said the first came in that day for unpermitted use within a residential district.
In response, the Planning Department sent out an inspector that day, Tokioka said in an e-mail. On Nov. 19, the county issued a Zoning Compliance Notice to property owner Willard E. Welsh via certified mail.
That letter was picked up around Dec. 3. Since that time, county employees have had three phone conversations with the owner and/or tenant and four site inspections regarding this matter to get the property owner to comply through obtaining a use permit, Tokioka said.
“To date that has not happened, so Planning is issuing a Notice of Violation to the owner today,” Tokioka said Friday. “If proper action is not taken by the property owner on today’s notice, the case will be referred to the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney.”
A conviction could mean a fine up to $2,000.
According to the Nov. 19 letter, Planning Inspector Patrick Henriques informed Welsh that the property violated the zoning code as no zoning permit had been obtained.
“The use of a commercial shuttle van base yard within the residential district without proper permits constitutes a violation,” the letter states.
The owner was asked to then submit an application, plans and filing fees for the use of a shuttle van base yard, which would be subject to review and approval by the county Planning Commission. He was asked to cease and desist in the meantime.
Gowen said she made a number of other calls to the county as well as the police department, and feels her complaints fell on deaf ears.
The letter sent Friday occurred two days after The Garden Island requested information about the issue.
Upon learning of the pending notice, Collier said the county was reacting to Gowen’s complaints, rather than to a specific problem with his property. He said although Henriques described it as a “commercial shuttle van base yard,” the term doesn’t apply.
The vans are kept at the house simply because the drivers live there. No other associated work, aside from some paperwork, occurs at the home, Collier said.
When asked for a definition for a commercial shuttle van base yard, Tokioka said she wouldn’t have one by press time. She did say, however, that driving a vehicle to and from work is not necessarily a violation. The problem is if the business is actually being conducted there.
Collier said he didn’t comply with the initial county letter because a county employee told him his property was not a base yard.
“There was nothing to cease and desist,” Collier said.
Once he learned of the letter, he attempted to make an appointment with someone in Planning, but was unable to do so. Last week, Henriques left a permit application and business card with Collier’s mother.
“I’m trying to comply,” Collier said. “She’s apparently complaining to the right people.”
Gowen was pleased to hear of the county’s decision to act against SpeediShuttle.
“I’m hoping that the old cliché ‘right’ wins out.”
• Jessica Musicar, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or by e-mailing jmusicar@kauaipubco.com.
