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Kapolei Regional Park serves as home to many sports and recreation teams, and is heavily used by residents, families and community members. However, the limited parking stalls in the Park are inadequate to support the community and park users have continued to reach out to us regarding the difficulties they encounter when looking for parking.
That is why Councilmember Pine introduced Resolution 15-171, to urge City administration to conduct a feasibility study on the addition of 100 parking stalls within the Park and obtaining the use of alternative parking stalls that are available but not used on weekends at nearby local businesses for users of the park.
Resolution 15-171, CD1 was recently passed at the Parks, Community and Customer Services Committee. Your support and testimonies are much needed at the upcoming July 8, 2015 City Council meeting at Kapolei Hale, where Resolution 15-171 will be up for adoption. Feel free to call (808) 768-5001 or email kmpine@honolulu.gov.
Parks are a gathering place for families, organizations and community groups to meet, recreate and enjoy. As your councilmember, one of Councilmember Pine’s ongoing goals is to keep the parks in our district safe and clean for our community by ensuring our Parks Department has the funding it needs for ongoing maintenance and new capital construction projects, encouraging communities to be good stewards of our parks, and creating a new Adopt-a-Park program to make it easier for communities to create and participate in park adoption projects.
Recently, Councilmember Pine spent a beautiful Saturday afternoon on the Leeward Coast at Makaha Community Park renovating the park bathroom, providing new play equipment and planting ti leaves on the park grounds. This event kicked off the next phase of her ongoing commitment to revitalize Leeward Coast parks and transform the community.
Mayor Kirk Caldwell joined to help plant ti leaves and showed his support for our efforts at the Makaha Community Park Rededication as he delivered a message of civic pride and community duty to be good stewards of our recreation resources.
It’s amazing to see what can be achieved when volunteers come together to revive their community. In partnership with the Department of Parks and Recreation, Laborers International 368, Grace Pacific Maintenance Solutions, the Pacific Links Foundation, PBR and Associates, Hawaii Electrical Workers and the Active Hawaii Foundation, the community combined efforts to clean-up, paint, and refurbish the heavily-used park. Volunteers helped to restore the park’s comfort station with fresh paint and the Microguard protective coating that resists graffiti and staining, and install new lights for safety. Meanwhile, the Parks Department replaced all fixtures, sinks and toilets and community members participated in a park clean-up, painted benches and removed graffiti from the park grounds. The before and after results are profound, and provide a fresh new outlook to the park.
Volunteers from Laborers Local 368 and the community painting the park comfort station.
After completing all the work in the morning, volunteers gathered together to participate in a beautiful and inspiring rededication ceremony led by Reverend Kahu Steven Costa. Dipping a ti leaf into salt water in his koa bowl, Kahu Costa sprinkled salt water to all corners of the park, blessing the grounds and drawing forth positive energy. Meanwhile, students from neighboring Makaha Elementary School also helped to breathe fresh life into this park by symbolically planting ti leaf cuttings near the park’s entrance. The ceremony concluded as Councilmember Pine joined community leaders, volunteers and Makaha’s keiki, untying a maile lei and commemorating a new beginning for this park.
The Makaha Community Park Rededication was touching and demonstrated what can happen when volunteers and the City come together to transform our community.
In addition to this project, Councilmember Pine is working hard to bring bathrooms to Puu O Hulu Community Park in Maili and build new bathrooms at One`ula Beach Park.
With the help of community volunteers, we can transform all of our Leeward parks into safe and clean environments for our keiki. If you would like to know more about how to get involved in a park restoration, please feel free to contact Councilmember Pine’s office via e-mail: kmpine@honolulu.gov, or telephone (808) 768-5001. It is absolutely fulfilling to give back to our community, and transforming our parks is a great way to do so.
Today, Mayor Kirk Caldwell announced a major new park initiative during his third State of the City speech. The initiative, E Paka Kakou, or “parks together” will be a city partnership with community organizations to step up and revitalize parks.
“This parks initiative works hand-in-hand with the Adopt a Park Bill – Bill 58. Together, these will ease the process for groups wishing to adopt and make major capital contributions to our parks. We are looking forward to working with Mayor Caldwell in the upcoming budget process to see our proposals succeed,” said Councilmember Kymberly Marcos Pine.
Councilmember Pine introduced Bill 58 on September 29th, 2014. If passed, the bill will create a more transparent and clearly defined process for park adoptions, donations and capital improvements, making it easier for organizations to improving specific parks in their communities.
Mayor Kirk Caldwell also revealed that $2 million in the fiscal 2016 budget will be dedicated to making improvements at park comfort stations. According to Caldwell, these funds will be used to refurbish 24 restrooms at parks and 16 sets of existing playground apparatus throughout the island.
The Department of Parks and Recreation will be installing Microguard, a protective coating that is graffiti and rot resistant, on 24 comfort stations, throughout the next year beginning with Asing Park, in Ewa Beach.
The City hosted a park dedication ceremony on Monday, December 15, 2014 at 10:30 a.m. at the long awaited new District Park in ‘Ewa at the corner of Keone‘ula Boulevard and Ft. Weaver Road. The park’s official address is 91-201 Kaimele Place.
Over ten years in the making, the park open with improvements including basketball courts, volleyball courts, a baseball field, comfort station, and a parking lot with over one hundred stalls.
The improvements were gifted to the city by developer Haseko totaling over $5 million dollars.
“I am very excited to see the families in our community enjoy this much needed and anticipated new park. Our children are able to have their little league practice and play games immediately in the park because of the generous giving of our community partner. The park will impact our community for years to come,” said Councilmember Pine.
“We are very happy to give this beautiful park to the community to enjoy for years to come. This new park is a great example of a public private partnership benefiting O‘ahu residents. With millions of dollars of improvements by Haseko, the developer of homes in the area, and with the assistance of the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, we are pleased to open this new park that ‘Ewa families will enjoy for years to come. I thank Councilmember Kymberly Pine for bringing this project to the finish line so we are able to open the park now,” said Tom Sagawa.
The opening of the new park comes at a critical time for the ‘Ewa Community. The James Campbell High School athletic field will close for repairs this month. With a shortage of playing fields in the area, athletic programs were scrambling to find a place to hold practice had the park not opened this month.