Sid McWhirter

Sid McWhirter is Hanauma Bay’s version of the reluctant warrior. As president of the nonprofit Friends of Hanauma Bay, he has become somewhat of a thorn in the side of some city officials for his persistence in seeking answers about why operations at the world-famous Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve Park have, in some respects, been deficient.

"If the city would have repaired everything at the bay and taken care of it … we would never have gone on this journey; I wouldn’t have, because we wouldn’t have had a need," said McWhirter, a 70-year-old former business owner whose background has helped him analyze financial records related to the beach park.

McWhirter said that instead of cooperating with the Friends, city officials have stonewalled the group, prompting him and Friends presidents before him to become suspicious about what’s really going on with its operations, which involves about 40 city employees and several private concessionaires.

A quick history of the park: It was once owned by the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate (now called Kamehameha Schools), which deeded it over to the state in 1928. In 1967 it was set aside as a marine protected area, and in following decades, it became so popular (about 800,000 visitors in fiscal 2013) that in the 1990s the city started to enact measures to limit its use.

Most important, from McWhirter’s point of view, is that in 1995, the city started charging tourists (but not residents) a fee to go to the park. That was challenged in court but upheld, with the proviso that all the fees must go toward taking care of the park. McWhirter contends all the proceeds — about $6 million a year — are not going to the park, and says he is prepared to go to court over the issue if city officials don’t address the problems as the Friends see them.

He also is concerned about the status of the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve Fund, which he said totals about $4.45 million but is mixed in with the city’s general fund and, he said, is not being credited for the interest that it’s earning.

McWhirter, president of the Friends since February, moved to Honolulu from Seattle after his wife, Dori, died in 2011. McWhirter said they had been to Hawaii before, and loved it.

"I was born and raised in southern California, just five minutes from the beach, and I just love the ocean," he said. "I also love the culture of Hawaii."

McWhirter is a graduate of Narvonne High School in Harbor City, Calif., and of California State University at San Jose, from which he earned an engineering degree. Before starting his own companies — in contract manufacturing and computer network wiring — he had worked for companies such as Boeing, Fairchild Semiconductor and Speidel. A volunteer once a week at the Bay, he also works part-time three days a week at Home Depot. He has seven adult children and lives in Kalani Iki.

"We were a reconstituted family," he said. "I had my four and she (Dori) had her three, so we became the Brady Brunch."

Question: The money situation aside for the moment, what is your estimation of how well the city has been taking care of Hanauma Bay?

Answer: Oh, it’s been a disaster.

Q: What’s wrong with it?

A: Well, they’re not repairing. There was a roof on a restroom on the beach in 2006; thieves stole the copper flashing. They came in one night and stole it and ripped up the roof. It’s never been repaired. And this is eight years later. 

Also the faux rock that was part of the construction, to blend into the atmosphere, is in desperate need of repair in many areas. … The handrails fell apart, and it wasn’t until a concerned citizen went to the Star-Advertiser that we got anything fixed. Then … the lights went out; they were a combination of solar and wind; it all went out. They kept holding Thursday night sessions (at the Bay’s Visitors Center). We brought up that it was dangerous, so they canceled the sessions while they screwed around trying to figure out how to fix the lights.

Q: Who is supposed to take care of the restrooms?

A: The grounds maintenance.

Q: And how is it that there could be no toilet paper in one of the most heavily used public bathrooms in Hawaii?

A: Isn’t that wonderful? All they have to do is run down to Costco. Somebody said somebody ran out of budget money and they didn’t have any money to buy any, though now that evidently has been fixed.

Q: What’s the essential problem? Aren’t the entry fees going into a dedicated fund? 

A: They’re going into and out of the dedicated fund. The problem is everybody wants a piece of the action. This is what I uncovered as I was going through the books and kept asking questions. This is why basically they’ve shut me off.

Q: What is the authority of the Friends of Hanauma Bay in all of this?

A: The Friends of Hanauma Bay was formed in 1990, or thereabouts. And we, with the city and Parks and Recreation, put together the plan that resulted in Hanauma Bay as it exists today. We worked as a team and everything got done. After the court ruling (that ruled all fees collected at the bay must go toward Bay operations) I think a lot of it was jealousy, because of the amount of money that we had that they couldn’t touch. And within that they said, OK, we’ll show you, and they did nothing. It’s their typical way to go build a park and forget about maintenance.

Q: How did you get involved with the Friends of Hanauma Bay?

A: Well, when I first got here, I started volunteering at the Waikiki Aquarium. I was there for about a year. Then there was a posting for an opening part-time at the gift shop at Hanauma Bay, so I applied and got that job and worked a couple of days a week there. With that I started seeing the problems. 

Then I went into the volunteer program a couple of months later. At that point Dick Baker — he was the president of the Friends at that time — was giving a talk about the Friends. And I said, sure, I’ll join. What can I do to help out? Well he contacted me, and beginning last summer, we started talking about everything that was wrong at the Bay. 

Then, last June, I believe it was, City Councilmember Ann Kobayashi put a resolution together asking the administration to give the Friends access to the data it had requested so it could do future planning. At that point we started gathering the financials, and Dick said, well, we have to find an accountant. And I said, well, wait, I’ve run my own businesses. I know about P&Ls and balance sheets and everything. Let me take a shot at it. … So I got in there and started really digging through the numbers, and there were a number of things that didn’t look right. 

Q: These are numbers from whom?

A: Budget and Fiscal Services, going back, I think, as far as 2004. And I started asking questions … and what I kept finding was a mess. An example was Ocean Services. During the 2005-2009 period, Hanauma Bay bought them new trucks. … (Ocean Services) didn’t outlay anything; we paid for the whole thing. And I said, wait a minute, this doesn’t look right.

Q: Because those funds are not supposed to be used for anything but Hanauma Bay?

A: Yes. There was a federal court ruling in 2002 that was brought by two California residents. The name of the case is Daly vs. Harris, and what they (city officials) were trying to do is block the payment for access to Hanauma Bay, and if they would have been successful, they would have stopped the development of the Visitors Center and all of the construction that was planned at Hanauma Bay. But what happened is the court threw everything out. 

Then they (the plaintiffs) came back, because the original ordinance specified how the money was to be used from what they were collecting. No. 1 was maintenance and operation. No. 2 was educational. No. 3 was a reef study to determine the health of the reef with the number of people who are going to the beach. And No. 4 was, all leftover monies could be used to support the adjacent beaches. 

What the judge ruled — and two years later it was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco — was that the money that the city was taking out of the Bay for the support (of adjacent beaches, such as Sandy Beach) became an unauthorized tax … and thus had to be repaid. … The court ordered them (the city) to repay the Hanauma Bay fund $3.166 million, which they started doing in 2004 and did through 2009. At that point, things should have changed in the way they did business because we were sole-supported by the fees; we didn’t need any money. But instead, the city essentially changed nothing. They continued (using) the budget for Hanauma Bay for the adjacent parks, which it still did to this year. …

Q: What are the operating expenses versus what they take in?

A: In fiscal 2013, the annual income was about $6 million. After expenses, the surplus was about $86,000.

Q: And you think some of the money is being diverted?

A: Oh, I have absolutely no question in my mind. … Recently I got some firm numbers … and the magical number I came up with that the fund is paying for the outside beaches is over $300,000 in just labor. … I’ve asked for what they call a forensic audit, a fiscal audit. They’re balking at that.

Q: Where do you go from here? 

A: Well, the City Council had a resolution for semi-autonomy (for the Bay). That was tabled, about a month ago, but they (Council members) also requested (city Parks and Recreation Director) Michelle Nekota to supply them information. … She was supposed to go back in the next week or two to answer, 1: When is everything going to get fixed at the Bay? No. 2: There was an internal audit about operationally how everything was running at the Bay that was done in 2007, and essentially … nothing was done regarding that audit. So she’s supposed to answer the City Council regarding that audit. …

Q: What would you like to see happen? 

A: There are five park districts on Oahu; make a sixth one and dump Hanauma Bay only into it, so that it runs its own thing. It’s got its own money. It doesn’t need tax money.

Q: Would that require separate staff?

A: No. You use the staff we got. What we asked for, though, was a managing board, to include the Friends, the director of Parks and Rec, the director of Ocean Safety, someone from the City Council and somebody from the education program, which is currently under the University of Hawaii.

Q: What in your mind is so great about Hanauma Bay? What value does it have for Hawaii?

A: To me the value of Hanauma Bay is that it is a unique resource for the entire community, not just the tourists. You have a protected reef and people can go out in a very safe environment and learn about the marine environment. And separate that from all the problems, they are (on a positive note) actually limiting the number of people who can have access to the beach.

Q: How are they doing that?

A: That is being done through the video (which visitors are required to watch before venturing down to the beach). The theater only holds 125 people, and they run the video four times an hour, so the most that can go to the beach is 500 an hour. The management that set this up was extremely far-sighted. They were the only one at the time in the world that was even doing anything like this. And it allowed the reef to come back from where it was totally decimated before. Because prior to this they had counted over 10,000 people a day going to the reef, to Hanauma Bay.

Q: Is closing the park one day a week (on Tuesdays) helping? 

A: I know that’s helping, but the point of the one-day-a-week closure is just to properly clean up the place and just maintain it.

Q: How often do you go there yourself? Almost every day?

A: I’m there once a week right now. I volunteer every Wednesday afternoon to assist with the education at the information center, showing the video.

Q: Do you think Hanauma Bay is a good model for protecting other natural resource attractions?

A: I think it is, an excellent model. But the uniqueness of the Bay is all tied up in the court ruling — the fact that the judge ruled that the monies can’t go anyplace else. And because of that ruling, that’s why I’m in this fight now with the city.

Q: If you could access some of that $4.45 million in the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve Fund, what could you do with that?

A: Well, one of the people at the Bay … brought up the point that all the private schools have money to send their students to the Bay. The public schools don’t. We could fund the bus service to bring every student to the Bay every year. Teach them about what’s going on. That’s one thing. … We could do a lot more outreach and use the money … to offer more learning experiences for the visitors.