Big wave surfer Clyde Aikau, brother of legendary waterman Eddie Aikau, sounded an alarm Tuesday about Waikiki Beach erosion during a community workshop to discuss efforts to restore and protect the famous strand.

Aikau was one of about 30 people attending a community forum called by the Waikiki Beach Special District Improvement Association, created in 2015 by city ordinance. The meeting was the first in a series offering the public an opportunity to comment on proposed Waikiki Beach management strategies.

Organizers also were looking for new ideas, especially about how to spend the funds raised through the association’s annual tax levies.

Commercial property owners from Ala Wai Harbor to Kaimana Beach and mauka to the Ala Wai Canal return about $800,000 to the public-private partnership, which is focused on the long-term resilience and health of Waikiki Beach. They are taxed at 7.21 cents per $1,000 of their assessed property value.

“The beach management plan is not just short-term fixes. It’s also about looking at longer-term issues,” said Dolan Eversole, a scientist with the University of Hawaii Sea Grant Program, who coordinates the Waikiki Beach Special District Improvement Association. “We’ll do our best to address public priorities.”

Public input will help the committee develop a Waikiki Beach Master Plan, called Ho‘omau O Waikiki Kahakai, which translates into “Waikiki Renews Itself,” Eversole said.

Testifiers ran the gamut from those who wanted to see the heavily engineered Waikiki Beach improved immediately to those who view steps to add sand as invasive and destructive. Concerns about degrading water and sand quality as well as rising sea levels also were common.

Aikau said priority must be given to Kuhio Beach, which severely eroded after two groins were removed in 2012 during a sand replenishment project.

“There’s rebar sticking out ready to stab our visitors and hurt our Waikiki beachboys who are working to feed their families,” said Aikau, who said he represents the Waikiki beachboys and the district’s beach services. “Some of our Waikiki Beach concessions have lost 30 percent a day since this started.”

The improvement association has earmarked the state Department of Land and Natural Resources plan to replace the circa 1927 Royal Hawaiian groin with a 180-foot T-head structure as its first partner project, but Eversole said “it’s fair to say that Kuhio Beach is at the very top of our list.”

Eversole said the city Department of Parks and Recreation will begin removing debris Tuesday at Kuhio Beach where the foundation of the old Waikiki Tavern is exposed, and smooth the area and top it with an erosion control blanket, he said.

Sam Lemmo, administrator of the state Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, said the state also has begun a Waikiki Beach improvement feasibility study, which will lead to an environmental impact statement for various projects from the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort to Kaimana Beach, excluding the Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial.

“The (public-private partnership) is a very good thing to underwrite the costs of these very expensive projects,” Lemmo said.