Check out the story by Rob Perez in Sunday’s Star-Advertiser concerning Stoneridge Recoveries, the company that has held a controversial towing contract since 2003, along with a second story about the company’s failure to pay off court judgements.
There’s likely to be much more to this story, it seems to me.
I wrote about the towing company here back in June following an Advertiser story by Dan Nakaso. Perez has updated the story with news of a criminal investigation and follow-up on past lawsuits.
The long history is truly tangled.
During the short period that I worked in the late City Councilman Duke Bainum’s office, the Pineridge contract was being researched. Here’s a memo prepared by the Office of Council Services concerning the contract, along with a packet of documents tracking the legal controversy. These are worth wading through.
In addition, here’s a link to the Intermediate Court of Appeals decision rejecting the last Stoneridge court appeal. The Supreme Court declined to review the matter.
But the reason I think it’s potentially more interesting is the company’s connections. State business registration records list the members of Stoneridge Recoveries LLC as Deyton G. Stone and Trenton P. Silva.
Stone is an officer or owner of several other companies, according to the business registration records, including Stone Holdings Inc., Stones Towing & Recovery Inc., Silverstone Leasing Co, LLC, and Stone’s Leasing Co., LLC.
Silva is also an officer of JGTT LLC, along with other members of the Silva family.
The family controls Pineridge Farms, reportedly the state’s largest construction trucking company, and West Oahu Aggregate Co, a leeward refuse and recycling company. Pineridge and West Oahu Aggregate operate a quarry on the site of the former Kaiser cement plant on Lualualei Naval Road, where area residents are at odds with industrial businesses.
It would appear that the Stoneridge name comes from a combination of Deyton Stone and Pineridge Farms, although that’s just a guess on my part.
With those kinds of connections typically come political power and influence, which could help explain why this contract has stayed in place so long despite ongoing protests and complaints. I’m betting that tunneling down into Stoneridge will yield more interesting results.