Three years after the city removed a filthy water fountain from Chinatown’s Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Park and promised other improvements, a nearby business owner hopes to call out city officials Saturday by painting a community mural over a massive and useless 11-by-10-foot pump house that remains in the park.

Sandy Pohl, owner of Louis Pohl Gallery, located “not even 100 steps” from Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Park on Bethel Street, hopes to draw 35 volunteers to the park Saturday to pick up trash and paint over graffiti from 9 to 11 a.m.

But, Pohl said, “mostly we need people to paint that pump house. … It’s a big monster and it just looks ugly. So we decided to paint it to nudge the city to act on the things they promised us, which is putting up the fence around the park and taking out the pump house.”

In December 2015 Mayor Kirk Caldwell announced a 15-year agreement between the city and the Hawaii Theatre Center for daily upkeep of the park and said that $250,000 had been set aside for construction of a wrought iron fence.

Homeless people had defecated and urinated in the fountain and even bathed and washed their clothes in it. The fountain, which was next to an exit from the Hawaii Theatre Center, also hid drug dealing and prostitution while blocking the view of the park’s namesake, an 1882 graduate of ‘Iolani School who is often referred to as the father of modern China.

The fountain “became a waste receptacle,” said Kevin Lye, secretary of the Downtown-Chinatown Neighborhood Board. “It was good to move that out of the way.”

But homeless people still congregate in the park, and Lye is still waiting for the fence that’s intended to help enforce park closure hours from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. and keep homeless people and illegal activity out.

“Overall, it presents a better area for people in the community who want to visit,” Lye said. “But folks still congregate there along the benches.”

Last month the Downtown-Chinatown Neighborhood Board voted unanimously to support Pohl’s project Saturday, which she calls the “Goodbye to Ugly Chinatown Community Clean-up,” Lye said.

Saturday’s cleanup is being organized by three organizations: the Creative Arts Experience (Pohl is president), the Honolulu Culture and Arts District, and the Hawaii Theatre, Pohl said.

Every morning around the park, Pohl said, theater workers power wash the area and pick up “rubbish, needles, rubbers, all that kind of stuff. The problem with the park is there are homeless that defecate and urinate in the park. They sell drugs and use drugs.”

Asked whether the park and a statue in Sun Yat-sen’s likeness honor the father of modern China, Pohl said, “No, no. Every morning they have to power-wash him because the homeless pee on it. It’s really not great.”

Artist Imaikalani Kalahele, 71, who grew up near Fort Street, plans to make painting the mural on the pump house easy for novices.

Kalahele was vague about his ultimate vision but said he plans to number sections of the mural to correspond to various colors of donated paint to create an image of the Koolau mountains with human figures.

He does not know exactly what colors will be used until the last of donated latex house paint arrives from “a friend who has a bunch of stuff he has to get rid of.”

For volunteer muralists, Kalahele said, “You just paint by numbers.”

He hopes his mural helps to make the park “less spooky, man. They got rid of the pool (fountain), and that’s about it.”

The city’s Department of Parks and Recreation is working with the Department of Facilities and Maintenance to remove the pump house, but it’s complicated, said city spokesman Andrew Pereira.

“There’s some electrical work that needs to be removed first before Parks and Rec can remove the pump house,” Pereira said. “Facilities and Maintenance is working to remove the electrical since Parks and Rec doesn’t have any electricians. We’d like to have it removed sooner, but it’s definitely on our to-do list and we’ll definitely get to it.”

While clear in her intentions, Pohl said she wants to be careful about poking city officials too hard with the mural.

“Kinda sorta, without being in their face, we’re saying, ‘You’re not doing your job,’” she said.

Pereira said Caldwell’s administration welcomes the mural.

“The administration appreciates it until that pump house can be removed,” he said.