With sparring continuing over what qualifies as a fitting makeover for Ala Moana Regional Park, the City Council’s Parks, Community Services and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee voted this week to support a resolution calling on the Caldwell administration to either extend or scrap and restart the environmental assessment process — an expensive and time-consuming task.

The fate of the 85-year-old park’s master plan — in the works for more than four years now — remains foggy, but what’s crystal clear is that the 119-acre site has many longtime fans who are leery of change that could alter the character of the “People’s Park.”

Last summer, in response to complaints that a proposal to widen the walkway on the makai side would alter established curbside parking, the city dropped the feature. This summer, a private-public partnership pitch for a playground that surfaced late in the process is rightly prompting calls for more public input.

Written testimony submitted by state Sen. Sharon Moriwaki, whose District 12 includes the Ala Moana area, suggested that before starting from scratch or conducting a third draft environmental impact statement (EIS), the city could pursue another option — available through the state Office of Environmental Quality Control — of re-publishing the second EIS (unchanged), which would trigger the start of a new 45-day comment period, and subsequent review of comments. That’s certainly a better option than starting over.