A low-cost security program aimed at deterring vandalism at city parks is being expanded and made permanent, Mayor Kirk Caldwell said Friday.

American Guard Services was given a $26,000, three-month contract in April to lock up and secure 25 city parks between East Honolulu and Aiea. The project largely involves the company locking and securing parking lots and restrooms/comfort stations at those facilities when parks are closed at night.

Park employees unlock the gates and restrooms when they open the parks in the morning.

The project has proved successful enough that the city is making the arrangement permanent and expanding it to include key parks in West, Central and Windward Oahu as well as the North Shore, Caldwell said at a press conference at Ala Puumalu Community Park in Salt Lake.

“When folks come into our parks and they trash our restrooms and they break sprinkler heads and they burn picnic tables and hurt our public facilities, it makes it even more difficult just to do the basic maintenance and repair that is required every day,” he said.

Since the program began in April, vandalism at the 25 parks “has been tamped down dramatically … minor-kine stuff, nothing major,” Caldwell said.

The list of parks to be covered has not been determined, nor has the cost and length of the contract. But the expansion is expected to kick in during the fall, city officials said.

Parks Director Michele Nekota said between 30 and 40 parks would be added with an emphasis on those facilities that need it the most. The cost has yet to be negotiated, but it is expected to be in the same range as the pilot program project, she said.

Caldwell said he’s hopeful the program can one day expand to all of the nearly 300 city parks on Oahu. “Our goal is to gate every restroom on the island,” he said.

About one-third of restrooms are now locked nightly, Nekota said.

Vehicles still in the parking lots when the gates are locked will be left overnight. That hasn’t been a problem so far because the security has been able to alert the people still in the parks to vacate, Nekota said.

In-house maintenance crews spent over $224,000 to repair damage from vandalism at city parks in 2017, Caldwell said. That was up from $200,000 in 2016 and $189,000 in 2015, he said.

The figures don’t include larger repair projects that require capital improvements appropriations to fix, city officials said.

“It’s a trend in our community, and maybe in our country, of disrespect to public property — we need to reverse that,” Caldwell said, noting that his administration’s “Kakou for the Parks” initiative has installed new or refurbished existing playgrounds, renovated comfort stations and resurfaced play courts in more than 200 of the city’s 298 parks.

“If we show more love for our parks, perhaps the community will show more love for the parks,” he said.

Moanalua Valley resident Travis Reyes parks his truck under some shade at Ala Puumalu after work about three days a week. “My house is always hot so I always come here (to) cruise.”

Reyes said locking the gates and restrooms at parks nightly makes sense. The airline mechanic noted that Ala Puumalu is well kept and devoid of the beer bottles and other rubbish he sees some mornings at Sand Island State Recreational Area.

“They don’t even bag up their rubbish,” Reyes said. “Bag it up, put it by the tree so the people can come and throw it away. But they just throw it all over the place.”

The success at Ala Puumalu is largely community-driven, he said. When some young people used their cars to burn rubber in the parking lot, parents of soccer league kids chased them away, he said.

Other city efforts to beef up park security include video cameras outside restrooms at Sandy Beach, Kahala, Ala Moana and Kaiaka Bay on the North Shore, as well as park patrols at Ala Moana, Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve and Kapiolani Park.