Zoogoers and equestrians alike pushed back Friday against a series of proposed fee changes for the Pana‘ewa Recreational Complex.
At an evening public meeting, about a dozen Big Island residents urged the Hawaii County Department of Parks and Recreation to reconsider a plan to impose admission fees at the Pana‘ewa Rainforest Zoo and Gardens, as well as hike stall deposit fees at the Pana‘ewa Equestrian Center.
While the proposed new rules go into more detail about how the facility would be operated, Parks and Recreation Director Maurice Messina said Friday that the most significant changes will be to fee schedules: Where admission to the zoo is currently free, under the new rules it would cost $4 for kama‘aina adults and $1 for keiki.
Nonresidents would have higher ticket prices, $12 for adults and $5 for minors.
Messina, who will not be Parks and Rec director as of Monday when the new administration is sworn it, said the next director could waive fees for school groups and the like on a discretionary basis.
At the Equestrian Center, the new rules would increase the deposit required to rent a stall from $100 to $500, although the actual rental fees for the stalls would remain the same as currently: $5 per day, rising to $500 annually.
Neither proposal was popular among attendees at Friday’s meeting.
“The higher deposit would make sense if the stalls were being fixed,” said Amy Williams, echoing several equestrians’ complaints that the center’s stalls are poorly maintained, with renters often choosing to pay out-of-pocked to repair stalls themselves rather than wait for county repairs that never come.
Other changes to the Equestrian Center rules also were called into question. Susan Regeimbal called out a proposal for rentable stalls to be assigned on an annual lottery basis.
“Owning a horse is a huge investment,” Regeimbal said. “These are the only stables on this side of the island. If you lose the lottery and your stall goes to someone else … where are you supposed to go?”
Williams suggested current renters should be allowed to keep renting at least one stall without getting putting up for lottery.
The zoo admissions fees were no less controversial. Pat Engelhard, president of the Friends of the Pana‘ewa Zoo, said her organization opposes charging entrance fees to the zoo on principle, not least because the cost of keeping employees to collect those fees will likely be at least $100,000 per year.
The Friends of the Pana‘ewa Zoo, Engelhard said, collects a respectable amount of donations, all of which go directly back into the zoo. These new admissions fees, however, would go to “the huge money pit called the General Fund,” she said.
While some General Fund money will no doubt go to the zoo, Engelhard said that the zoo will likely become less of a priority for the county during rough times, “which will start again soon.”
Engelhard and other testifiers pointed out that East Hawaii attendees of the zoo are also statistically less affluent and would therefore be the most negatively impacted by additional fees for recreation.
Cory Harden suggested that the county should, at the very least, allow people in for free if they can prove they are low-income residents, such as with an EBT card.
There were other problems with the zoo rules, as well. Carey Yost, a lifetime member of the Pana‘ewa Zoological Society, noted the new guidelines for permitted behavior at the zoo allows for “wheeled medical and/or personal assistive devices … with the prior approval of the administrator.”
“Is the administrator going to be available at all times?” asked Yost.
Yost added that the zoo recently underwent a $10 million renovation to bring it into compliance with national accessibility guidelines, and questioned what that was for if wheeled mobility aids are still only permitted at the discretion of a zoo administrator.
Several testifiers also scoffed at a prohibition on zoo patrons “running, jogging (or) skipping,” which many attendees deemed an impossible rule given the amount of keiki regularly attending the zoo.
The meeting was held only to solicit public feedback, which Messina said he will review in order to determine the next course of action.
But attendees also criticized the meeting itself. Harden suggested that the meeting might have been better attended if it hadn’t been scheduled for the Friday evening after Thanksgiving, and others felt they had not been properly notified about the meeting.
Shannon Matson urged the county to hold another meeting, telling Messina, “Don’t let this be your legacy.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
