Thank you West Hawaii for publicly exposing the property tax income for West Hawaii. We are at a critical time in West Hawaii’s future and need the public to start putting pressure on our council to make some positive plans and changes for the west side.
Until West Hawaii is clean, green and accessible, we have to stop improving other areas of the Big Island. West Hawaii is the cash generator for the entire island’s future with property tax and tourism revenue. Positive changes will benefit both tourism and local use of the west side. We now know it is not from the lack of money, just a lack of willingness by our elected officials to upgrade this area. All calls to the Parks and Recreation Department’s PIO found they have no plans to do any upgrades mentioned below. After attending the Planning Commission forum meeting last month, we found they have no concrete plans for upgrading except for 2,500 Hawaiian Home Land homes near Kahalakehe High School and a possible 2,000 more on Kamehameha land near Target.
Let’s take some areas that could be improved as examples:
1. Kamakahonu beach and the pier area suffer from a lack of parking for locals to launch their standup boards and swim. The four three-minute parking areas are not enforced and regularly have cars park in them all day. The pier used to be the center of town with a fish market and boats bringing in their catch for all to see. Why can’t we make it that way again?
2. Magic Sands is junk. There are rocks strewn all over the beach and shoreline. Most of these rocks came from a seawall that was knocked down in 1992 from Iniki. One afternoon with a backhoe would remove these rocks. This would allow the sand to recover quickly and make more room for sitting on the beach. South of the Lua’s could be a small grass park, instead of an abandoned concrete pad. The sacred area is fenced with Lowe’s buckets and concrete. We can do better than that. Over 100,000 people a year visit this beach.
3. Four Mile. How about a small pier here so that we can safely launch standup boards? Also some proper safe steps leading from the parking lot would be nice.
4. Kahaluu. This was one of the finest snorkeling beaches in all the islands. Now it has 50 percent less fish and looks like a rock quarry. According to the Reef Teach organization, it is visited by 300,000 people a year. Even though it is a preserve, people regularly net hundreds of fish from the bay each day. Several letters from tourists have been written to WHT about this. There is no reason that the lifeguards can’t enforce the hunting rules in this bay. And how about some green? People come to Hawaii for it’s beauty, it would not be difficult to plant drought resistant flowering plants and trees around the bay.
5. Keauhou. This is a great mixed-use beach, But the walkways to the beach are crumbling and dangerous to walk down with outriggers and standup boards. If it wasn’t for the outrigger clubs care of the land around the bay, it would look terrible. A thousand people fought to save this bay from the state’s mooring plans, how about our council trying to buy this inlet with the land funds. Instead of buying lands in the middle of nowhere that nobody will use?
7. Kailua Town is rotting away. Many of the buildings need to be condemned. They are full of dry rot and illegal plumbing. We sat through the planning commission meeting last month about the 2005 to current development plan. We heard they have no plans to force an upgrade. They recognized since 2005 that the area needs help. They don’t even have architectural standards in case some on actually wants to rebuild there.
3. Quality of Life ordinances protect the neighborhoods that are not covered by homeowners association against uncaring neighbors. Dengue should have taught our council a lesson on junk. All it takes is one or two bad neighbors with old cars abandoned on their yards, piles of belongings outdoors to contribute the breeding of pests. To say nothing about lowering of the property values of their neighbors. Also the running of service businesses should be regulated in neighborhoods. Our street has a home with two backhoes and a dump truck parked on the lawn.
I think you get the idea. If you agree with these things call or email the council to get on them. My kids started elementary school and are now off island in college. They saw nothing improve only get worse on the west side. Let’s not take another 19 years to make West Hawaii better.
Charles Watanabe is a resident of Kailua-Kona.