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Ewa Residents have long recognized Aunty Arline Eaton and Aunty Mary Serrao’s significant contributions to the Ewa community and have requested that they be recognized for their contributions to the community.  My Resolution 15-143 and Resolution 15-166 passed in The Parks, Community & Customer Services Committee today.  Ewa Residents soon hope to see memorial plaques at Pu’uloa Beach Park, honoring Aunty Arline Wainaha Kuuleialoha Brede Eaton, and Ewa-Puuloa District Park, honoring Aunty Mary Kaipo Malama Serrao, for their notable contributions to the Ewa community.   Your support and testimonies are much needed at  the upcoming July 8, 2015 City Council meeting at Kapolei Hale, where these resolutions, with your help, will be adopted by City Council. Your support in honoring Aunty Arline’s and Aunty Mary’s legacies is greatly appreciated.

 

I am happy to announce that Resolution 14-254 and Resolution 15-142 were recently passed, regarding renaming Ewa Beach Park to Pu’uloa Beach Park and Ocean Pointe District Park to Ewa-Pu’uloa District Park.  According to members of the Ewa community, historically, the name “Pu’uloa” is the traditional name for the area within the Ewa Moku where this park resides and is used by many long-time residents to refer to the community.

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.

 

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Volunteers from Laborers Local 368 and the community painting the park comfort station.

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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.

It’s a program that looks to communities to help keep their local parks in good shape. Now a new bill being introduced by a Honolulu city councilmember could help implement this program across the island.

Cedric Gates grew up in Leeward Oahu and takes great pride in his community.

But one area he wants to improve on are community parks.

“Our facilities are really bad out there and it could use a lot of improvements, but again with no funding that is really tough,” said Gates.

It’s no secret that some parks are in need of repair, but a recent bill introduced by Honolulu City council member Kymberly Pine aims to empower the community to take action.

The idea is to allow individuals or groups to Adopt A Park for two years.

In that two years volunteers will remove litter, graffiti as well as remove weeds, but the program takes aim at more than just upkeep.

“Tax payers can only pay for so much and so we really need to come up with a program that gets the public to get more involved,” said Pine.

Pine says that by creating a strong sense of community and taking pride in the parks people use, can take the burden of upkeep off the taxpayers.

While still in it’s early stages Pine hopes the idea will spread across the island.

“We hope that we create a very strong adopt a park program with policies that enable people to make very large contributions to improving facilities, as well as providing free programs in every district,” said Pine.

But for now the goal is to start small and make one change at a time.

“I think that’s the ultimate goal for us right now is to instill that pride into our community residents especially our youth,” said Gates.

Source: KHON News

http://khon2.com/2014/09/29/city-lawmaker-proposes-cheaper-way-to-keep-parks-clean/

It’s a program that looks to communities to help keep their local parks in good shape. Now a new bill being introduced by a Honolulu city councilmember could help implement this program across the island.

Cedric Gates grew up in Leeward Oahu and takes great pride in his community.

But one area he wants to improve on are community parks.

“Our facilities are really bad out there and it could use a lot of improvements, but again with no funding that is really tough,” said Gates.

It’s no secret that some parks are in need of repair, but a recent bill introduced by Honolulu City council member Kymberly Pine aims to empower the community to take action.

The idea is to allow individuals or groups to Adopt A Park for two years.

In that two years volunteers will remove litter, graffiti as well as remove weeds, but the program takes aim at more than just upkeep.

“Tax payers can only pay for so much and so we really need to come up with a program that gets the public to get more involved,” said Pine.

Pine says that by creating a strong sense of community and taking pride in the parks people use, can take the burden of upkeep off the taxpayers.

While still in it’s early stages Pine hopes the idea will spread across the island.

“We hope that we create a very strong adopt a park program with policies that enable people to make very large contributions to improving facilities, as well as providing free programs in every district,” said Pine.

But for now the goal is to start small and make one change at a time.

“I think that’s the ultimate goal for us right now is to instill that pride into our community residents especially our youth,” said Gates.

From KHON NEWS

http://khon2.com/2014/09/29/city-lawmaker-proposes-cheaper-way-to-keep-parks-clean/

Is there a park in your neighborhood that needs a little extra help? Get involved through the City’s Adopt-A-Park program and help us create a world-class park. Hoa Paka, the City’s Adopt-a-Park program is based on the premise that citizens make a difference in ensuring that their community park, keiki’s playground, beach or natural area is clean, safe and well maintained. By adopting a park in our community, you can change the way your park looks and operates, and will carry the will have pride knowing that you care enough about your park or beach to make a personal commitment to improve and protect it.

 

There are 33 parks on the Leeward Coast ready to be adopted and cared for. I invite your community organization, business, or family to consider participating in our initiative to participate in this wonderful program.

 

If your organization would like to get involved and would like more information on the Hoa Paka program, please contact me at 768-5001 or kmpine@honolulu.gov.