Kukuihaele Park is a special place of tremendous beauty. It is the last piece of green, open public land on the Hamakua coast where you can enjoy the view of the ocean and the Waipio Valley cliffs, other than directly at the Waipio lookout.
And yet, for some reason, the Kenoi administration remains hell-bent on building a multi-million dollar baseball park here, without any public input, despite the outpouring of opposition from the community.
To cut out public participation is a violation of Hawaii law. That was why the Supreme Court ruled against the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) — because the Board of Land and Natural Resources issued a building permit to TMT before the contested-case hearing allowed the people to give their input. They put the cart before the horse, just like the county is doing with our park.
It’s not that we in Kukuihaele are opposed to park facilities. To the contrary, a vast majority of us do want restrooms, a pavilion and a children’s playground. What we don’t want is a regulation Little League ball park with bleachers, dugouts, an 18-foot chain-link fence backstop, chain-link fences everywhere and lights at night. It’s like they are pushing on us a Hilton Hawaiian Village where an Uncle Billy’s would do.
But nobody asked what the people wanted. In fact, for months, we have sent surveys, letters, phone calls, emails, and resolutions to Mayor Kenoi, the County Council and the Department of Parks and Recreation. One survey, conducted in December, showed that 65 percent of the residents opposed this particular design. In a second survey conducted in February, 86 percent of residents wanted the bids for the elaborate plan withdrawn, in order to start the design process over to include public input. We have done everything we could to tell the county, “Please include the people in the process!”
The county has refused to listen, so we have no choice but to hire a lawyer. We will show how the county suppressed the people at every step of the way in planning these park “improvements.”
The county did make one concession to our clamoring: It held a special meeting in January after the avalanche of letters and phone calls. We were delighted to think that the county was finally listening to us. However, the meeting resulted in nothing, other than redesigning the plan in order to squeeze a space — only a space — for a small playground next to the parking lot. There is no playground equipment at all — just a raised area reinforced by concrete walls. Residents are disgusted that even the lowest bid to come in at just under $5 million (double the cost initially projected) still doesn’t pay for playground equipment.
Hawaii Island is already being left with an unbelievably huge debt by our indicted mayor. Why, then, should taxpayers be asked to pay for this expensive, unwanted project that will destroy the unique character of Kukuihaele?
Lori Johnson is a resident of Kukuihaele
