Volunteers hope to counter vandals’ damage at park

Question: How can I get help to stop vandalizing at the small overlook of Mau‘umae Nature Park at the top of Koko Drive? Someone has ripped and chopped the branches off of two native a‘ali‘i trees. I often go there to water the trees and on Sunday, Aug. 21, I saw branches just lying on the ground.

Answer: We contacted Leonard Tam, a member of the Kaimuki Neighborhood Board who was instrumental in establishing the area as a dryland preserve for Native Hawaiian plants nearly two decades ago. (See archives.starbulletin.com/2000/06/12/news/story8.html.)

Although the 33-acre park in upper Kaimuki is part of the city Department of Parks and Recreation, it has always had to rely on community volunteer work and donations.

No one from the city is assigned to the park, Tam said, and regular maintenance only involves the one-acre lower park, which is a cleared open space. The best way — for now — is to contact him via the neighborhood board with concerns about the rest of the park.

Tam contacted District 1 park officials and told them about the vandalized trees, and also asked them to remove trash dumped over the side of the lookout.

“We don’t know who’s vandalizing” the trees, he said, noting that he personally planted four a‘ali‘i trees at the lookout, but only two have survived. Vandals have been a longstanding problem.

“There was a large tree providing shade and they just cut ’em down,” Tam said. There also was a native kou tree nearby that vandals killed. Now, there is only one kou tree left in the park and it is “barely surviving,” he said.

The other big problem is people dumping their junk over the side of the lookout, sometimes by the truckload, he said.

But there are caring souls out there, as well.

Tam said he knows there are people who live nearby, like you, who regularly water the a‘ali‘i trees. Because of their efforts, even with the vandalism, he believes the trees will survive.

Although Tam stopped working at the park weekly years ago, “once in a while, I go look at my plants to see if they’re still alive.” But at his age, “We cannot do what we used to do before.”

Unfortunately, he is “probably the only one (on the neighborhood board) with the history” about the park and says he doesn’t know how long he’ll be on the board.

AUWE

To whoever took the cement mixer from the Pearl City property of an elderly couple, ages 78 and 79, the week of Aug. 26. It was going to be used for a small project. The couple is on a fixed income and did not own the mixer. We hope the guilty party does the right thing.

— No Name