For two weeks last month, the bathrooms at Hanauma Bay had no paper towels.
The copper flashing on the roof of the lower restroom was stolen in 2006. It has yet to be replaced.
"Now it’s leaking, it’s falling apart, causing damage," bemoans Sid McWhirter, president of the advocacy group Friends of Hanauma Bay.
The Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve is not the only city Parks and Recreation facility beset by complaints of disrepair and poor maintenance.
But unlike other city parks and beaches, the facility has collected up to $6 million annually in admission, parking and concession fees that are all supposed to go back to operation, maintenance and improvements at the popular East Honolulu attraction.
Frustrated members of Friends of Hanauma Bay said that they’ve tried repeatedly to determine whether a portion of the money from the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve Fund is being siphoned off for other city parks.
Now the City Council will consider asking the city administration to remove itself from the picture entirely.
Resolution 14-192, introduced by Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi, calls on Mayor Kirk Caldwell to consider placing the bay and the fund under a semiautonomous agency. The measure will be heard by the Budget Committee Tuesday.
The resolution is just the latest salvo in a dispute between a series of Honolulu mayors and the Friends group dating back nearly two decades over management at the park and the millions raked in at Hanauma Bay.
The city began charging nonresidents $3 to enter the bay and $1 for resident and nonresident parking in 1995. The entry fee for visitors is now $7.50.
The policy was challenged by a California resident who argued it was unconstitutional because it discriminated against people on the basis of residency.
U.S. District Judge Alan C. Kay ruled in October 2002 that the fee was legal, but that the money collected had to be spent at Hanauma Bay. Kay even ordered the city to return $3.17 million used at other facilities.
"Any surplus funds for a particular year shall remain in the Hanauma Bay Fund to offset any deficits in expenditures for Hanauma Bay in future years," Kay wrote in his ruling.
But 12 years after Kay’s ruling, McWhirter said, indications are that the city is still using funds from Hanauma Bay to pay for other East Honolulu facilities.
"The budgets for Hanauma Bay have included adjacent beaches, and I’m talking from Sandy’s to Maunalua," McWhirter said. He said he’s spoken to park employees at the other beaches who’ve told him they get their equipment from Hanauma Bay.
Jesse Broder Van Dyke, Caldwell administration spokesman, said in an email that language in the ordinance allowing Hanauma Bay funds, when available, to be used for nearby facilities was removed after Kay’s ruling.
"Today, all revenues for the Hanauma Bay fund are recorded in the fund and allocated in accordance with the updated (law)," Broder Van Dyke said.
McWhirter, a lifelong corporate businessman, said records he was allowed to view did not separate Hanauma Bay’s budget from the rest of the Parks and Recreation Department.
"They will not recognize that Hanauma Bay is totally self-sufficient, it needs no money from anybody," McWhirter said. "There’s a surplus every year but they treat it like a starving child right along with all the other parks."
The paper towels are a case in point.
"We had over 36,000 visitors to the park in those two weeks without paper towels," McWhirter said. "What image are we sending?"
The 381 pages that make up the city’s $2 billion operating budget for fiscal year 2015 show the Department of Parks and Recreation with a $65.8 million budget, with $3,515,381 coming from the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve Fund.
The document, however, does not show directly how much is being spent for the park or whether money from the fund is being used elsewhere. Instead, expenditures for the department are divided into five areas.
The Hanauma Bay fund pays into four of those categories:
» Urban Forestry Program, $13,000.
» Maintenance support services, $260,000.
» Recreation services, $2,246,310.
» Grounds maintenance, $996,071.
The fund does not contribute to the fifth category, administration.
Elsewhere in the budget submittal is a one-page detailed statement of revenues and surplus for the preserve fund, showing a projected $4,777,860 from Hanauma Bay admission and parking fees in 2015, and an additional $1,417,600 from various concessions and rentals. The fund was projected to have a carryover balance of $2,328,355 going into the year.
McWhirter said a semiautonomous body would provide better accountability to ensure funds collected at Hanauma Bay are spent there. Any excess revenues collected could be used for educational purposes, such as providing free buses for public school students to visit the bay at least once a year, he said, as well as additional bay-related outreach and research.
Caldwell opposes creating a semiautonomous body to manage Hanauma Bay and its finances, Broder Van Dyke said.
"Such an agency could not be self-sustaining based on the revenues currently generated for its operations, maintenance and capitol improvements," he said.
Such an entity would need to hire its own lifeguards and maintenance crew and create its own "administrative infrastructure," he said.
A 2007 audit conducted by then-city Auditor Les Tanaka took the parks department to task for not updating a 1992 master plan described as "outdated and ineffective." Broder Van Dyke said a new Hanauma Bay master plan is undergoing final review by the city Department of Design and Construction.
The audit also criticized the city for failing to carry through with recommendations made in a 2000 carrying capacity study for the bay. Broder Van Dyke said there has been no new capacity study done since 2000, but that money has been set aside for a new one in the 2015 budget.
As for why copper flashing on the roof of the lower bathroom has not been replaced since it was stolen in 2006, Broder Van Dyke said it "unfortunately was not replaced during past administrations." Replacement flashing is budgeted and scheduled to be installed this year, he said.
