In 2020, Honolulu Star- Advertiser reporter Andrew Gomes wryly noted in a news article that the Windward side’s “Stairway to Heaven” steep mountain trail was as popular as it was controversial.
His report on a City Council hearing noted that there were “as many people as there are stairs — close to 3,800 testifiers compared with 3,922 steps during the public meeting, and the overwhelming sentiment was to maintain the more than 50-year-old metal stairway.”
The controversy is something of a festival of good intentions as Council members and the city administration just can’t stop feeling the pain of both nature lovers and complaining neighbors.
If a dilemma is defined as “a difficult choice made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones,” keeping or closing the Haiku Stairs trail up to the now-abandoned military facility provides municipal political players with a classic problem.
Former Mayor Kirk Caldwell came up with a plan for the Board of Water Supply, which at the time was in charge of the steep path complete with metal steps and guardrails, to preserve and maintain the facility.
More than 3,600 testified in support of keeping the stairs. The other side of the story, however, is that the hikers are also trespassing and going into dangerous, off-limits government areas, and through Kaneohe backyards and private property to reach the trail.
That plan didn’t hold — and last week Rick Blangiardi, the current mayor, doubled down on his decision to remove the metal access to the top of the Koolau peak.
“First and foremost this was a decision that when we came into office that we knew was hanging out there,” Blangiardi said at a Wednesday news conference, adding, “This decision was long overdue to be made.”
The problem isn’t that it was long coming; the sticky point is that firm decisions made today have a way of becoming unresolved controversies as the other side sounded off in opposition. Many hikers know they are trespassing and have learned to avoid posted guards and even the sometimes posted police.
Hoping for a final, final decision was City Council Vice Chair Esther Kia‘aina. She represents the Council district included in the Haiku Stairs controversy and agrees, according to reports, that the time to remove the Haiku Stairs was at hand.
“As the mayor said, this was a very difficult, difficult decision. It is not a day of celebration. But I have to tell you it is a day that I welcome because it is a closure of an issue that has been kicked down the road for decades, and as far as I’m concerned we have collectively made a decision for the good of the community,” Kia‘aina said.
Still, a decision today sometimes becomes tomorrow’s revision.
Haiku Stairs, a pathway to heaven or a devil of a dilemma, is on a tall mountain with a popular trail reaching 2,000 feet into the clouds and an illegal hike. It is also one without real penalties for trespassing — all hikers have to do to hike is lace up their boots, no matter what the mayor says.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.
