Maybe we just don’t deserve to live in Hawaii.

Last week’s announcement that the Hawaii Community Development Authority is mulling over leasing almost one-third of Kakaako Waterfront Park to a private corporation confirms the worst fears of public-private development.

The plan, as explained by Anthony Ching, HCDA executive director, is to lease out the Ewa portion of the park to a Japanese light show.

What do we want: trees or LEDs?

In the daytime, the public would not be allowed in the leased part of the park. It means at night, you would have to give the firm, Illuminage Group Inc., between $6 and $18 to use portions of the park.

When it opened in 1992, Kakaako Waterfront Park was called "Honolulu’s Central Park." It was described by politicians as Honolulu’s gift to its people — and the area, a reclaimed landfill, won most of the environment awards that year.

"We are going to have a wonderful waterfront that will rival anything any city has in this world. But more importantly, it will bring out people to their own ocean," said then-Gov. John Waihee.

This was one time that government performance lived up to its hype. The park performed just as planned. It was a relaxing interlude between the heat and congestion of Honolulu and the vibrant, rolling Pacific Ocean. It is a place for families, for local parties, gatherings and passive enjoyment of living in Hawaii.

Couples stroll by holding hands, kids roll down the hills or slide down on cardboard, and families gather around the hibachis for simple picnics.

Ching said he thinks portions of the park are "unused" and not yet a destina- tion point.

That is the point. As much as there is a need for places to go for quiet and calm, there will always be those who look at meadows and say, "What is the point? There’s no excitement here."

The HCDA has already given approval to that crowd and granted permission for a year-round fairground just outside of the park’s boundaries where the public can pay to tear around on go-karts and zip lines or ride on an indoor wave machine.

The HCDA’s thinking for the park is to lease it out for 25 years, with an option for another 10 years. It is such an astoundingly bad idea that it almost seems to be a straw man, set up to be knocked down, all the while distracting activists and legislators from the HCDA’s many problems with its hyper-development in Kakaako.

If people first have to organize to save Kakaako Waterfront Park from the short- sighted rapaciousness of the HCDA, how much effort will be left over to demand better, more human-scaled planning for the forest of sky- scrapers it is intent on encouraging on the other side of Ala Moana Boulevard?

The development authority is a creation of the Legislature, but it is a creature formed by the governor. The board members pick the executive director and the governor selects a majority of the other members, including five who are members of the governor’s Cabinet.

Today there are two vacancies on the board: a cultural designee and someone from a list coming from the Honolulu City Council.

The hope is that new nominees will have the common sense needed to speak up for good parks and good planning.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.