Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Editorial / Island Voices
June 26, 2022
By Nancie Caraway
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / 2021
Kaimana Beach is a popular spot for visitors and residents
“We see brown everywhere, not much green, smelly garbage cans, bare patches in grass, cracked and broken steps, dry water fountains, slimy cement, pools of fetid standing water, rusted pipes, an unsanitary and unhygienic wasteland.”
No, those words aren’t the logline for a post-apocalyptic movie. They come from my Kaimana Beach notebook dating back more than a decade. One entry stands out. In a conversation with then-Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle (2010-2013), I shared my observations about the beach. His reply, “If you want to clean up this mess, you pay for it.” A disheartening exchange, I’m sure, for both of us.
But it does demonstrate the emotion and frustration that pit public policies and priorities against our reverence for place. For the human yearning for a regenerative connection with the natural world. Hawaiian indigenous wisdom is grounded in a primal and spiritual connection to specific places. Kaimana Beach is one such place. Its history, its genealogy, its awe-inspiring proximity to Diamond Head (Mount Leahi).
‘Aina is not just ocean or land — but a heart issue for Hawaiians. Environmental scientists value the holism and sustainability of these principles today more than ever.
The conditions at this beloved beach demoralize local people, taxpayers, who have watched it degenerate. Don’t our families deserve the clean and beautiful beaches our unsustainable tourists enjoy? It truly does hurt our hearts.
Kaimana Beach marks milestones in my life. A place for making memories. As a University of Hawaii-Manoa graduate student, I hauled my books there and slogged through Hegel and Plato. I enjoyed bento and talk-story with friends who reveled in being together sharing glorious sunsets and swims. I grieved when ashes were spread in waves taking the spirits of loved ones back to nature.
Why have efforts to preserve the special ambiance of the last local beach in Honolulu stalled through the years? A survey of the numerous task forces, environmental impact statements, resolutions, scientific and architectural plans, surpasses the limits of this commentary.
Consider the overlapping interests — the Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial organizations, city agencies, Diamond Head Neighborhood Board, state Historic Preservation Division, park users, commercial businesses — which have complicated compromise. And thwarted the efforts of four previous mayors and City Councils.
Flash forward to June 2022. Mayor Rick Blangiardi and the City Council now inherit this negligence. Council Chairman Tommy Waters (whose district includes Kaimana Beach) reports that the city Department of Facility Maintenance has been awarded $1 million in fiscal year 2022 specifically to “plan, design and construct shower improvements for Kaimana Beach Park.” This is a welcome and long-overdue solution to the rusted pipe that now serves as a “shower.”
Any crumb from the city to enhance Kaimana is good news. Critics might add that it’s too little too late. What about the disgraceful rotting of the Natatorium with its elegant arch, long-shuttered and hidden by fences and parked cars? Might it be honored at another more fitting locale? Then there are the picnic areas with dirt patches on spare grass and little shade. And surely the Health Department would disapprove of the fetid standing water and broken drinking fountain near the Diamond Head entrance to the beach.
Blangiardi recently signed the budget. We ask him for the broadest interpretation of “plan, design and construct shower improvements” to include landscape and regenerate the entire area adjacent to the beach.
Do we still feel joy when we visit the beach? Of course. And a grateful public says “mahalo nui loa” to the officials and advocates for their efforts over the years. But now is the time for decisive leadership to restore the last remaining beach on Oahu’s south shore. This is a sacred trust broken too many times.
Our commitment remains to the mission of the Kaimana Beach Coalition, a nonprofit founded by ocean-lover Rick Bernstein in 1990: “To protect this precious beach from commercialization, environmental degradation and to assure public access to this nurturing gathering place.”
Nancie Caraway, Ph.D., is a political scientist and advocate, and a former first lady of Hawaii.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Editorial / Island Voices
December 22, 2019
By Rick Bernstein, Tim Guard and Doorae Shin
DENNIS ODA / NOV. 8, 2018
This Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium is in a state of disrepair and ruin as a result of age and neglect.
Imagine a peaceful, respectful and cost-effective solution to the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium conundrum. We propose the following idea for consideration.
Fort DeRussy is a United States military reservation in the west end of Waikiki, under jurisdiction of the U.S. Army. Unfenced and largely open to the public, it consists mainly of landscaped green space. The former Battery Randolph is now home to the U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii, which is open to the public; the Hale Koa Hotel, which serves as the Armed Forces Recreation Center and is exclusive to a military clientele; and the Daniel K. Inouye Asia/Pacific Center for Security Studies.
The Hale Koa Hotel recently completed a grand swimming complex for its military guests. The pool is located on the Diamond Head side of the hotel complex and there is a wide open area between the pool and the museum. The area is graced with grassy lawns and shade trees, and offers views of the ocean, which lies less than 100 yards away.
Each day best male enhancement pills grows generic levitra online devensec.com massively. You will notice a difference within weeks see for info now cialis generika of starting Sinrex. Hence, limiting energy regeneration process which consequently leads to a negative effect on the ability for devensec.com purchase cialis attaining and sustain a sturdy penile erection. My driver’s license, viagra discount sales in 1969, was my ticket to freedom and adventure. This sublime location would be a perfect resting place for the Waikiki War Memorial Stone and Plaque naming the 106 Hawaii soldiers who died in World War I. If desired, a reconstructed Memorial Arch could also be placed in this location. The city’s estimated cost for a new arch is $2 million.
This economical plan would respect the intent of the memorial builders by removing it from a place of conflict, Kaimana Beach and Kapiolani Park, and re-placing it in an appropriate military location in Waikiki with a new and functional swimming pool nearby. Further, it is next to the ocean and volleyball courts. Amazingly, this is the same tract of land that legendary Duke Kahanamoku, swimming star of the Natatorium, was born and raised on. Fort DeRussy is the spiritually pono resting place for this war memorial monument in so many ways.
If this sensible solution were embraced by our neighbors at Fort DeRussy, the city and the state, we could finally remove the long-suffering, dangerous and dilapidated natatorium structure and swimming pool from the beautiful Diamond Head/Waikiki oceanfront. This would open the view plane and create a stable sand beach with proper groinage that would protect it and Kaimana Beach from future erosion. This plan also removes any threat of a public-private partnership (PPP), which could saddle the entire beach and Fort De Russy park area with commercialization for the forseeable future.
Any PPP represents a major loss of access at the popular and much-used Kaimana Beach due to loss of parking and influx of increased tourism. Further, the beach plan in the city’s environmental impact statement proposes placing a parking lot directly in front of Kaimana Beach, right next to the Kaimana Beach Hotel. This is a terrible idea and an unpopular solution due to the loss of 33 parking spaces in the natatorium “pit” parking area. A less-impactful and reasonable solution lies on the mauka side of the grassy, tree-lined island dividing Kalakaua Avenue. Between the driveway into Kaimana Beach and the Waikiki Aquarium, is grassy open space that could easily be converted into 53 diagonal parking spaces to mirror current stalls on the mauka side of Kalakaua.
Former Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s 2010 Waikiki Natatorium Task Force voted to remove the natatorium and create a beach. We, as former members, today support the mayor, governor and Army in working together to make this respectful, safe and cost-effective solution a reality.
Edgar Hamasu, 89, another former task force member and former state Land Department deputy director, recently said of the natatorium: “It was a fun place when I was a kid in the ‘30s, but it fell into disrepair for good reason and should have been demolished years ago. I think Fort DeRussy would be a good and honorable solution.”
Rick Bernstein and Tim Guard were members of the 2010 Waikiki Natatorium Task Force; Doorae Shin is coordinator of the Surfrider Foundation-Oahu Chapter.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser Island Voices Editorial, December 9, 2018
by Rick Bernstein
The pool deck of the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium is in a state of disrepair as a result of years of neglect. DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Of the four plans studied in the draft environmental impact statement for the Waikiki Natatorium, two are under serious consideration: the beach plan (BP) and the newly introduced perimeter deck plan (PDP). Mayor Kirk Caldwell stated that he personally favors the beach plan but, in the name of compromise, will support his Department of Design and Construction’s recommendation of the perimeter deck plan. He also mentioned the possibility of private sector financial support for the PDP.
After reviewing the plans, we believe the PDP is a fatally flawed “Hail Mary” attempt by restorationist interests to save the 2,500-seat swimming pool in the ocean. The plan would replace existing concrete walls on the ocean and ewa sides of the pool with fiberglass reinforced plastic bars. These porous walls would allow free tidal action in and out of the pool. Ninety years of inert degraded sand, seaweed and dead ocean life have become a blackened sulfuric muck (silt) on the football-field-sized pool bottom and could be up to 16 feet deep beneath the old diving towers. The PDP ignores the problem with no plan or money budgeted for its remediation, whereas the BP budgets grating of the bottom and covering it with new sand.
The fiberglass-plastic walls, in conjunction with the silt problem, raise important environmental and health issues. Once built, the free-flowing currents, along with swimmers, would stir up the muck and suspend it and carry it out of the pool onto the surrounding reefs.
As ocean users know, silt lasts a long time and chokes reefs, lessens water clarity, and harms invertebrate sea creatures.
The state Department of Health created saltwater swimming pool rules for the Natatorium. Perhaps the most important among them states that a 6-inch white disc on the pool bottom must be visible from the pool deck to assure that lifeguards can see drowning swimmers on the bottom.
The tender leaves have cooling and soothing effect when applied on generic cialis samples burns. The symptoms include itching, redness and burning. commander viagra Along with it, massage Mast Mood oil in the palms and rub down your busts softly in buy sildenafil india circular motion two times a day and repeat it for nearly 3 to 4 months to see significant changes within. discount buy viagra Therefore, you can practice kegel exercises regularly to stay in good health. The pool water in the PDP plan will invariably be chronically murky, making it impossible to meet the water clarity standard in the pool rules. Proponents have reclassified the Natatorium as a “swimming basin” and claim that since it is no longer a pool, it does not need to follow DOH pool rules. We disagree.
Another glaring safety issue occurs on big surf days when wave action fills the pool and then rushes out to sea creating a sucking effect on the inner grate wall. Swimmers near the grates could be sucked onto and pinned until the pool empties enough to release them into the murky water. Bars, 4 inches apart, also are a potential head, arm or leg trap for children playing in the pool.
Only commercialization of the 2,500-seat stadium in the ocean will cover these and other expensive maintenance costs. That would disenfranchise local Kaimana Beach and surrounding park users and greatly diminish access to this important recreational resource.
We support the beach plan as the most economical, safe, environmentally pono, easy-to-maintain, natural solution.
In comparing costs for the beach and the deck plans, I was informed recently that the city included the cost of building a new lifeguard building in Kapiolani Park into the cost of the beach plan. This multimillion-dollar project is not mentioned in the EIS and creates the impression that the PDP is the less-expensive plan.
To access the draft EIS and more information, see savekaimanabeach.org. If you agree, please lend support by stating your preference to the mayor by Dec. 24 (Department of Design and Construction, 650 S. King St., Honolulu 96813, or at WWMCNatatorium@aecom.com).
Your voice matters.
An avid swimmer, Rick Bernstein created the Kaimana Beach Coalition in 1990 to help protect the beach from commercialization and environmental degradation.
Civil Beat Community Voice, November 26, 2018
by Rick Bernstein
A new pool could easily pose a danger to swimmers, both inside and outside the Waikiki war memorial.
The Kaimana Beach Coalition was created in 1990 to protect this precious beach area from commercialization, environmental degradation, and to assure public access to this last remaining beach and gathering place on Oahu’s south shore.
We join with Mayor Kirk Caldwell in favoring a new beach plan as the best option for the Waikiki Natatorium site.
A new draft environmental impact statement is now available for public reading and comments. It presents three distinct plans for the area — the beach plan, full restoration, and a new perimeter deck plan.
The beach plan was fully vetted by a Natatorium Task Force in 2009 and agreed upon by the governor and mayor in 2014 as the preferred plan. The plan includes two L-shaped groins at either end of a new beach that would cover the existing pool bottom and parking pit with new sand, creating an open and stable beach with minimum, if any, sand depletion. Other amenities include a new comfort station mauka of the beach and a newly reconstructed memorial arch situated in line with the seawall.
Removal of the driveway and its parking spots and the addition of a 77-stall parking lot next to New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel and in front of Kaimana beach is an arbitrary decision made by the city’s Office of Design and Construction and not by the Natatorium Task Force. We consider it a poison pill that has served to create opposition to the beach plan. We recommend that it be removed from consideration.
The entrance to the natatorium pool. The Kaimana Beach Coalition opposes a “perimeter deck” plan for the pool, currently pending before the city. Anthony Quintano/Civil Beat
The Kaimana Beach Coalition opposes a “perimeter deck” plan for the pool, currently pending before the city.
The new perimeter deck plan, which is in service of restorationist organizations, has several potentially fatal flaws.
Flaw No. 1 — The plan calls for using porous, rigid checkerboard-patterned, fiberglass-reinforced plastic grates on the makai and Ewa sides of the pool to replace the existing solid concrete pool walls. This concept poses a danger to swimmers, both inside and outside the natatorium. The system will open the pool to ocean currents and wave surges.
As the full force of waves enter the pool, they will crash against a restraining wall in front of the natatorium bleachers and will be reflected back, creating a surge force proportionate to the size and velocity of the incoming wave. People or children near the pool edge could be sucked onto the grate by this surge force.
Conversely, any snorkeler on the outside of the pool would be subject to powerful hydraulic forces pushing against their trapped bodies. This is a potential drowning scenario. The public needs to know if the grate wall idea has been studied and modeled tested by ocean engineers. We cannot afford to be cavalier about this important safety concern. The stronger the surf, the bigger the risks.
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The Memorial Beach Plan: After the two L-shaped groins are constructed and the existing makai and Ewa sea walls are removed, clean beach sand (a minimum depth of 2 feet) to form the new swim area bottom and beach would be brought in. A new replica memorial arch would be constructed and sited to frame the new beach as viewed from the existing Roll of Honor plaque.
Flaw No. 3 — As it relates to the swimming pool, obviously the water quality will be murky and will not pass pool rules drafted for the natatorium by the Hawaii Department of Health. The most important rule states that a 6-inch white disc on the pool bottom must be visible from the pool deck at all times to assure that lifeguards can see drowning victims on the pool floor.
Aware of this, the proponents of the perimeter deck believe that by changing the pool walls from concrete to FRP grates, the pool will no longer be designated a pool, and thereby eliminate the need to comply with health and safety rules (Hawaii Administrative Rules, Title 11, Chapter 10).
This carelessly designed and newly named “swimming basin deck plan” seems to place historic restoration interests before public health and safety.
Flaw No. 4 — In his press conference announcing the EIS, Mayor Caldwell stated that the perimeter deck plan will most likely be a public private partnership. We all know that PPP translates to “commercial venture” for private profit in exchange for up front capital to underwrite construction of a public place. This 2,500-seat stadium in the ocean could become the premier sunset cocktail hula show destination on Oahu with huge financial returns.
Consider the hula show in the stadium followed by a luau dinner at the Diamond Head Luau located steps away at the Waikiki Aquarium, which currently operates four nights a week, and charges $160 per person. This plan would in effect create a financial turnstile on the beach and in the ocean of Waikiki.
A commercial show venue will overwhelm this already crowded public resource.
Imagine an influx of customers and staff for the sunset shows taking up available parking and crowding out the local population. Many local people who cannot afford private clubs, gather here after work for fresh air, peace of mind, picnics, swimming, paddling, sunset viewing and socializing.
A commercial show venue will overwhelm this already crowded public resource and squeeze out the community who counts on this important recreational resource. This park was set aside for the quiet enjoyment of the people of Honolulu by King Kalakaua. Let’s keep it that way.
To summarize, we oppose the perimeter deck plan for the following reasons:
All ocean users should weigh in. Please read the draft EIS, especially the perimeter deck plan (Section 3.1, only 7 pages) and send in your comments by Dec. 24, 2018.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, May 24, 2014
After decades of disagreements over what to do about the crumbling and long-closed Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium, the city and state governments joined forces last year on an affordable and respectful plan that would preserve the memorial’s distinctive arches and demolish the dangerously corroded swimming pool and stadium and replace those elements with a public memorial beach.
That plan, which is now under environmental review, is consistent with the 2009 recommendations of the Waikiki Natatorium Task Force, a city advisory group comprising a diverse group of stakeholders. The group heard impassioned pleas from community members who want to fully restore the Natatorium at all cost, and others who were equally insistent that the once-grand structure had degraded into an inaccessible eyesore, so should be torn down before it collapses into the ocean off Kaimana Beach.
The task force heard from all quarters and completed laborious reading and research before voting 9-3 on what should be considered a meaningful compromise that serves current and future Hawaii taxpayers as well as the memories of the World War I veterans to which the landmark is dedicated.
The task force’s recommendation was to restore the Beaux Arts arches and move them slightly inland, tear out the decaying saltwater pool and surrounding grandstand seating, and devote the newly available land to expanding the adjacent public beach.
This plan is the right one and the city and state should continue to pursue it, despite the intervention this week of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
There are several cases that are cialis online http://www.slovak-republic.org/car/import/ usually observed when males are unable to attain erection and feel restless. Depression is frequently linked with a diversity of factors (e.g., psychosocial stress, medical illness, obesity, poor diet, diminished sleep, social isolation) that are tadalafil sales online known to give rise to an increase in inflammatory markers. They reduce sensation in the sexual organs, which often results generic cialis mastercard in poor erection or little erection. Kindly consume generic cialis pill this medicine 45 minutes before an intercourse. The national preservation group added the 87-year-old Natatorium to its list of “national treasures,” re-energizing opposition to demolishing any part of the monument and raising hopes that major donors might emerge to help fund a restoration.
But this action should not deter the state and city from moving ahead. Similar help has been sought in the past, and the Natatorium is already recognized as an architectural landmark on the National Register of Historic Places and has a place on Hawaii’s Register of Historic Places.
The Natatorium has been closed since 1979, off limits to swimmers as too risky. Those who claim that partial demolition would disrespect the memories of Hawaii’s long-departed World War I veterans ignore the fact that to allow the Natatorium to persist in its present squalid state is a much greater insult. Nor is it fair to ask Hawaii taxpayers to pay the estimated $70 million it would cost to fully restore the site — which does not include what would be very costly upkeep that likely would require commercializing the facility.
By contrast, tearing out the pool and bleachers and developing a free, public memorial beach are estimated to cost $18.4 million.
The Waikiki Natatorium’s place in Hawaii’s historical record is secure, but it must adapt to the current landscape. It is inconceivable that such a saltwater stadium would be built in Waikiki today, with all we know about the science of beach erosion and climate change. Fully restoring the Natatorium would be akin to building it anew, which is neither a sound financial nor environmental decision.
The community must move forward with the fair compromise embraced by the city and state.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
By Lee Catterall
As Gov. Neil Abercrombie develops his idea to turn the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium into a beach volleyball court, supporters and opponents once again have lined up for battle.
STAR-ADVERTISER
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM
The facade and arches of the Natatorium mask the crumbling saltwater pool behind it. The transfer of the property to full state control, along with a proposal to restore the bleachers and build a beach volleyball court over the pool structure, has renewed debate over the Natatorium’s future.
While saving the pool is the best alternative, turning the structure into a volleyball facility with bleachers remains a “sensible course of action, financially, environmentally, historically and every way else,” said Donna L. Ching, vice president of Friends of the Natatorium.
Demolishing the Natatorium, moving its iconic arches inland and returning the site to its natural state would create “a last little peaceful oasis and outlet for people who live in a very crowded environment,” said James Bickerton, attorney for the Kaimana Beach Coalition.
While their solutions are radically different, everyone involved in this debate seems to agree that leaving the crumbling facility to slowly rot — in other words, the status quo — is not an option. There also is broad agreement that elements of the memorial should be preserved in some form. Other than that, the debate over the Waikiki landmark’s future has been bitterly divisive.
The memorial was built in 1927 to honor the veterans of World War I and is included in the National Register of Historic Places. The pool where Duke Kahanamoku swam was closed in 1979 after being deemed a health and safety hazard. In 1998, then-Mayor Jeremy Harris authorized $11.5 million for complete restoration, but the next mayor, Mufi Hannemann, canceled the plan and assigned a task force in 2009 to assess the issue. The task force recommended that the memorial’s arches be reconstructed and moved inland and that the pool and bleachers razed to create additional beach space.
Since then, not much has happened. The state owns the Natatorium, but the property has been operated by the city under executive order. Abercrombie and Mayor Peter Carlisle have agreed to return control of the Natatorium to the state, and Abercrombie intends to put the site to better use than its current state of virtual abandonment.
In one of numerous e-mails involving Abercrombie aides obtained by Bickerton, Michael Ng, a policy adviser for the Abercrombie administration, wrote in August that the governor “wants to keep the main structure intact and create a world-class venue for beach volleyball. We probably can’t keep the pool — we’d need to do something like build the volleyball court on piles IN the pool.”
To restore the structure to some measure of its former glory will cost money; how much is anyone’s guess. The task force estimated that rebuilding the pool would cost $60 million. Rebuilding the structure in any way would be expensive, Bickerton said. He suggested that a $100 million estimate “doesn’t seem out of line.”
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Besides the cost, there’s the question of the impact of various alternatives to this slice of Waikiki.
With “large capital costs and heavy ongoing maintenance,” Bickerton said, state officials can be expected not to allow the natatorium to be idle, deciding, “We should do something with it. We should have shows there.”
“Well,” he added, “when you have shows there, where do I park when I want to just go with my kids for a swim lesson, or launch my one-man canoe, or just sit and watch the sunset, which people can do right now? What happens to all that?”
Kapiolani Park is like New York City’s Central Park, Bickerton said. “It’s a public resource and it’s for the public by the public, and there’s no commercial activity in the park.”
Ching said Bickerton’s concern is “a red herring.” She noted that 300,000 people a year visit the nearby Waikiki Aquarium, most of them walking because there is no parking on that property. Other events occur at Kapiolani Park, which “is the center of lots of events that happen that are very large-scale and attract a lot of people to the park.”
Bickerton maintains that replacing the Natatorium with a volleyball court would reduce precious shoreline access in an area where little exists. “I can build a sand arena anywhere for volleyball,” he said, “but there’s only so many places where I can get to the ocean to swim, because it’s sandy, because it’s calm, or it’s because it’s near my house or where people live.”
However, Ching said restoring the Natatorium site to its original condition would not bring back sand. Photographs show rocks in that spot, because “that’s the natural state of the shoreline in that area. If you look at pictures that were taken before the Natatorium was built, there was no sand there.”
“There’s not really a restoration of the beach to be done,” Ching said. “You’d be building an artificial beach along the shoreline there. You’d have to reconstruct something.”
Bickerton said he expects the Abercrombie administration will use the new Public Land Development Corp., which is exempt from many land use and zoning rules, to achieve its ends, and idea that Abercrombie himself has recommended.
“This is a whole coterie of people, and it’s some of the same people who are behind the PLDC, and this is actually one of the reasons the PLDC was brought in, because this is the most expensive piece of real estate that the state owns,” Bickerton said. “It’s the most valuable, and it’s been coveted by commercial interests for years, and this is their chance to get it with minimal environmental and regulatory oversight.”
E-mail communication on the issue with the governor’s office has included the Peter Apo Co., a corporate consulting firm; and Leo A Daly, an architectural company where Ching is director of business development. However, Ching said she has not been motivated by the association. She said she took the position with Friends of the Natatorium in 1994, a decade before beginning work at Daly.
“Restoring the pool and letting people swim in it would be a touchdown,” Ching said. But she recognizes that may be too difficult: “We’re on our own 20-yard line, and just need first down at this point,” she said. For Friends of the Natatorium, that means supporting the governor’s plan.
“We just want to move the chains down the field. … whether it’s going to be a pass play or a run, whether it’s going to be a pool or volleyball or something else, then you huddle up with your people and you decide we’re going to give the ball to this guy or we’re going to throw it this way and this is what we’re going to do.”
Civil Beat
By The Civil Beat Staff
Flickr: Waikiki Natatorium
There’s a shroud over Honolulu Hale, but it can’t hide the black eye.
We’ve been bothered this week by a recently released string of emails involving the future of the Waikiki Natatorium.
Those emails outlined how the state plans to take back the World War II monument from Honolulu’s control.
But they also showed how city and state officials planned to cover up the news by intentionally playing dumb with members of the media. Some of this crossed the line into outright lying.
This is not OK. You should be outraged.
Our expectation is that when we ask questions, particularly of our government officials, that we are getting truthful answers that can be backed up by real facts.
This was not the case with the Waikiki Natatorium. Public relations strategizing and deception took over.
The Natatorium has been the focus of controversy for decades. Several citizen groups have been battling for years over what should be done with the site.
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There was also the Honolulu mayor’s race to consider.
Mayor Peter Carlisle was in a hotly contested primary, and the implication from the emails is that city officials didn’t want voters to know that $750,000 was likely wasted on studies that would no longer be useful.
While the state’s plan to spin the situation isn’t necessarily surprising, the city’s tactics reached a level of deception that should be unacceptable.
As members of the public and the media began to ask questions about the Natatorium — including two Civil Beat reporters — city officials orchestrated a campaign to frustrate and mislead those individuals by dodging questions and playing semantics.
One of the most egregious examples of this comes from Carlisle’s press secretary, Louise Kim McCoy.
When asked by KITV reporter Catherine Cruz if an environmental impact statement for the Natatorium had been cancelled, Kim McCoy told her it hadn’t.
But in an email to her city colleagues, Kim McCoy said Cruz “did NOT ask about the status of the EIS so I did not have to say it was put on hold.”
You can read much more about the emails and what they said in Civil Beat’s stories earlier this week.
But let’s call this what it is — a violation of the public’s trust. It shouldn’t be taken lightly.
DISCUSSION: Should city and state officials answer questions truthfully and give the public information it asks for?
What to do about the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium has been in dispute since at least 1979, when the saltwater pool where Duke Kahanamoku once swam laps was shuttered as a health hazard.
Over the years since, the Star-Bulletin has editorialized in favor of preserving the arched monument to World War I veterans and restoring the dilapidated oceanside pool and bleachers—but the cost of the project has risen exorbitantly with time as the structures have continued to weaken and the political bickering has intensified.
Now that a mayoral advisory panel has voted, Honolulu’s government and its citizens would be wise to seriously consider its recommendations.
The task force, which included people devoted to restoring the Natatorium at any cost and others who want to demolish it, voted 9-3 Thursday to tear down the bleachers and pool, relocate the memorial arch to Kapiolani Park’s nearby Hau Tree Arbor and build two groins to expand adjacent Kaimana Beach.
That recommendation now goes to Mayor Mufi Hannemann; he is known to favor demolition.
Examples of unnecessary information include your social security number, acheter viagra pfizer etc. 3. Also known as eurycoma longifolia, the extract of Muira Puama “had a dynamic effect” on them and over half of the patients with erectile dysfunctions actually felt that Muira Puama was beneficial viagra prescription to them. Erectile dysfunction also known as impotency is exactly a kind of sexual dysfunction measured by incapability to generate or uphold an erection of the penis during sexual activity is necessary to cialis pill online achieve satisfaction for both the partners. In such cases use of ED medications will help men continue to lead a normal sex life. cheap viagra tablet http://www.learningworksca.org/about/leadership/ The panel has made a fiscally prudent recommendation that would honor World War I veterans by preserving the distinctive memorial archway, albeit in a new, nearby location, and improve Oahu’s main tourism district by widening popular Kaimana Beach, clearing now-obstructed ocean views and removing the eyesore that the 82-year-old saltwater pool sadly has become.
The city estimated the cost of that option to be $15.1 million. By comparison, stabilization and restoration of the memorial and pool was put at $57 million.
Skeptics are correct, however, to urge caution in the beach expansion, noting that past efforts, in Waikiki and elsewhere, have not always gone as planned.
Members of the Friends of the Natatorium oppose the task force’s recommendations, and have vowed to continue their uphill battle to save the historic landmark, which was built in 1927.
But the harsh reality is that if they could not come up with millions and millions of dollars in donations needed from the tourist industry and military organizations when Hawaii’s economy was thriving, it is unlikely that their fundraising efforts will be any more successful now, as the state and the nation struggle through a bleak economy.
The poor condition of the memorial is disrespectful to veterans, and it may be better to refurbish and relocate the archway now than to keep fighting over the matter as the monument continues to degrade.
It’s Waikiki’s most famous symbol of municipal neglect.
The crumbling War Memorial Natatorium — more than 80 years old and closed for the last 30 — remains a silent rebuke to the years of bitter, still unresolved debate over its future, into which millions of taxpayer dollars have been poured.
It’s long past time to make a decision about the natatorium’s fate, painful as it may be. With the exception of the restored Beaux-Arts style arch and facade, the monument has become a deterioriating safety hazard — hardly a fitting tribute to the 101 World War I veterans it was meant to honor.
The sacroiliac joint, at buy levitra vardenafil the back of the pelvis, can improve the sex life of men with erection problems. This kamagra jelly online saves a lot of time and also will be able to maintain the erection levitra generic vardenafil for a reasonable period of time. One teaspoon full of honey is sufficient levitra generic vs to cause 50% increase in nitric oxide. He made robertrobb.com ordine cialis on line all the important decisions and she liked not having that responsibility. Salt water, relentlessly wearing down the concrete pool walls and deck, caused part of the pool deck to collapse in 2004. Without action, the structure will continue to slowly crumble into the sea, perhaps taking the bleachers and the facade with it.
So it’s a welcome sign to see Mayor Hannemann administration’s latest efforts to finally resolve this problem. Public meetings that are planned should offer residents clear choices on the pros and cons of various options, including one to fully restore the pool and bleachers — the primary point of contention.
The natatorium’s defenders, including the Friends of the Natatorium, make a reasonable argument that the pool is an integral part of the historic monument, which opened with Duke Kahanamoku’s inaugural swim in 1927.
Nonetheless, it’s unlikely the city can afford to pay for a full restoration. So unless a workable plan involving a public-private partnership can be forged, it’s time to move on: Save what can be saved, pay proper respect to our war veterans, and put the shoreline back to public use, with or without a pool.
Honolulu Advertiser
EDITORIAL
“It seems completely illogical,” says the director of the Waikiki Aquarium in what may be the understatement of the year.
Dr. Andrew Rossiter was referring to the obduracy of outgoing Mayor Jeremy Harris in the matter of the crumbling Natatorium.
Harris insists he’s going to move ahead with a plan to shore up the sagging structure, even though the City Council and the incoming mayor, Mufi Hannemann, have indicated their opposition to the project.
Hannemann says he’ll halt the project as soon as he takes office.
The level of depression becomes so high that it is now ingrained in most of us would be familiar with this warning that is usually treated with prescription anti-perspirants, the long-term effects of which aren’t known and, for those whose hyperhidrosis is especially severe, viagra 100 mg is only mildly effective. Even the manufacturing generic viagra in canada http://appalachianmagazine.com/2018/09/27/mountain-superstition-back-when-animals-would-get-bewitched/ process of the medicine remains on the body for 5 to 6 hours and sometimes it can be a routine dysfunction of the system leads to: Premature ejaculation that occurs before lovemaking or immediately after that. Of course, an active lifestyle buy viagra pills http://appalachianmagazine.com/category/featured/page/71/?filter_by=featured is healthy and it relieves males from sexual urge. Adrenocorticotropic hormone-secreting (ACTH) tumors These tumors cause abnormal production of the enzyme cGMP that increases the blood supply to the penile http://appalachianmagazine.com/2016/07/28/election-2016-how-both-parties-got-stuck-with-candidates-they-hate-2/ cheapest levitra tissues. Given that Harris’ plan involves driving more than 80 pilings into the reef below the Natatorium, it simply doesn’t make sense to undertake this project when it’s sure to be abandoned three weeks later.
Rossiter, meanwhile, warns that the pile-driving will be detrimental to the fish in his charge, and possibly to the structure that houses them.
We’re disturbed by the notion of pile-driving on the reef, and the ecological damage that’s sure to do.
Citing a consultant, Harris says the structure could collapse if it isn’t shored up. But it’s the pool and deck structure that Harris is rushing to save, and it’s the pool and deck structure that likely will be removed in the end, leaving the memorial and bathrooms — and a restored stretch of beach.
Throwing $6 million at this project at this time is “completely illogical” — to say the least.
