There are heroes in Honokaa.
There’s a woman near Waipio Valley willing to stand in front of a bulldozer to protest building a baseball field.
She doesn’t want to play ball with the county.
It’s about a baseball field that many local residents do not want. According to a poll done by the Kukuihaele association near Waipio, signatures say they don’t want a baseball complex shoved down their throat.
In the beginning, the residents only wanted a bathroom and a small playground built in the public area, but the county got a hold of it and now wants to build Yankee Stadium. You get the idea. A strike-out for the community.
Big League stakes, but the game will not be played for the World Series, rather for the heart and soul of a village. Cue to a lush green park overlooking majestic Waipio Valley, a beautiful untouched area where the local ohana have picnics and gather together.
It is their only breathing space. Their place to be free to have first birthday parties, to stroll on their horses, picnic under tarps and laugh and strum their ukuleles. A place for weddings. It’s about the sweetest, natural place on the whole island.
It is what developers drool over, what makes them itch till they can subdivide it, chop it up and sell it off, this time for a baseball field.
The developers are being paid $5 million dollars of your money for this one, courtesy of Billy Kenoi. Suspicious yet?
They always have high-sounding reasons to justify their overdeveloping. When people oppose it they always trot out auntie or uncle who’s lived here for years to inform us that it is the newcomers, the hippies, who are standing in the way of whatever it is they want to pave over.
Many old kamaaina families living in the area are against it. There are many for it, but according to a county petition most live in Hilo or somewhere else. It’s easy to be for something that’s 60 miles away, not so if it’s next door.
They don’t realize it is not who wants the big fat park, it is what the big fat park will do to the area, its effect on the environment.
No one but a blind person will dispute that thousands of cars grinding along the tiny road into this area would be a total disaster. Many baseball teams and their families driving caravans of SUVs along a 12-foot wide road is not a good idea.
I don’t care what auntie says, this is dangerous. Besides being a hazard, this giant ballpark would be the ruin of a glorious place, one of our precious last.
If they build it, they will come, then drive back to Hilo and Waimea leaving ruts in the road and rubbish on the field. This is called progress and community improvement. Base-ballderdash.
This ball field means, no more first year baby luaus, no more picnics or weddings, unless they are performed on the pitcher’s mound or dugout. This is why one brave woman is standing up for her home.
To get a glimpse of this Eden they are fighting for, type on your computer savekukuihaelepark.com and see the beauty that all of us would be losing, a treasure gone forever.
Dennis Gregory is a writer, artist, singer, teacher and Kailua-Kona resident who mixes truth, humor and aloha in his biweekly column. He can be reached at makewavess@yahoo.com