Monday night’s meeting on the future of Thomas Square is expected to draw so many people that Honolulu Museum of Art Director Stephan Jost is worried there won’t be enough room in the 280-seat Doris Duke Theatre to accommodate everyone.
“There’s huge community interest, from the (de)Occupy Honolulu people to sovereignty interests to the garden club,” Jost said.
Thomas Square, which celebrates its 170th anniversary this summer as one of Honolulu’s most historical recreational sites, has become an emotionally charged discussion point since the (de)Occupy Honolulu movement, the local version of Occupy Wall Street, made the park its headquarters in 2011.
The City Council and Mayor Kirk Caldwell have renewed efforts to remove the group from Thomas Square after previous Council members and former Mayor Peter Carlisle failed.
Most recently Caldwell announced a plan to revitalize the park in time for its 170th anniversary. He included $1 million for Thomas Square improvements in his budget. That’s in addition to his recent efforts to improve the park by trimming trees, pressure-washing sidewalks and installing planter boxes along Beretania and King streets, which, in the process, prevented (de)Occupy Honolulu supporters from putting up their tents.
Caldwell spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke and Deputy Managing Director Georgette Deemer said there are no set plans for the money and that the mayor first wants to hear what people in the community, especially those who live nearby, have to say.
Broder Van Dyke said the mayor envisions the park to be part of the Arts District, which includes Chinatown, the Honolulu Museum of Art and the historic Linekona building, which houses the museum’s art school.
A handful of (de)Occupy Honolulu supporters keep a presence at Thomas Square during the day.
After the park closes nightly at 10, they move from Thomas Square. Having been ousted from the mauka and makai sidewalks of the park and the sidewalk in front of the Blaisdell Concert Hall, the (de)Occupiers this week set up along the Ewa side of the concert hall along Ward Avenue.
City Council members have voted unanimously for sidewalk laws that try to clear the path of (de)Occupy campers and other homeless people.
The latest, allowing the city to remove objects considered “sidewalk nuisances” without warning, is expected to go into effect sometime next month. A hearing on proposed rules is scheduled for June 5, Broder Van Dyke said.
Cathy Nearman, who works in an office at the nearby One Archer Lane Building, said she has, for years, participated in dog competitions at Thomas Square. “It does puzzle me that certain others don’t need a permit to use this park” while dog kennel clubs do for their events, she said.
The (de)Occupy group and other homeless have “made a mess of the park,” she said, pointing to pieces of trash near (de)Occupy’s gathering spot. The women’s restroom is used as a bathing area by those who stick garden hoses into faucet heads, she said.
Mike McLaughlin was sitting on a bench at the park during a break from his job in the MRI department at the Straub Medical Center across Ward Avenue. McLaughlin said he is “not for nor against them,” but doesn’t like the way the government and many in the public have treated the (de)Occupy and homeless at Thomas Square and elsewhere.
“They are human beings like you and I,” McLaughlin said. Most people can see through the city’s improvement plans “pretending to be bettering the park,” he said. “It’s not really solving the problem.”
Christopher “Nova” Smith, a (de)Occupy representative, said restoring the park to its cultural and historical splendor is supported by the movement and that (de)Occupy’s presence is a separate issue.
Smith said it has been city crews that have damaged trees, grass and sidewalks. And while (de)Occupy does not dispute that there is more than the 3 feet of clearance required by the American Disabilities Act for pedestrians to pass between the planters and the grass on the mauka sidewalk, Smith said, there is not enough clearance between the planters themselves and between the plants and the curb.
Monday’s meeting, which Caldwell is scheduled to attend, begins at 5:30 p.m.
