Municipal parks can provide surrounding neighborhoods the essential amenities that nurture communities: recreation, relaxation, reconnection. They are often the oasis of open green space that gives respite to the crowding and heat of urban and suburban living.

Maintaining these spaces is central to the duties of county governments, with parks under particular strain across densely populated Oahu. And that mandate must remain in place when property tax revenues are allocated each budgetary year.

However, a new proposal before the Honolulu City Council seeking to amplify the private-sector role could yield improvements at city parks that would serve the public interest — as long as the city does not relinquish its own obligation.

Discussing ways to ensure parks maintenance as a core city function should be part of the goal when the measure, Bill 58, begins its review by the Council at its Wednesday meeting.

The legislation was introduced by Kymberly Pine, the Council representative for West Oahu, where there’s been interest in expanding the city’s existing "Adopt a Park" program, currently limited to tasks such as painting over graffiti and litter cleanup.

Under Bill 58, anyone adopting a park would commit for at least two years to take care of part or all of a park. In addition to the litter and graffiti chores, they’d be able to maintain the landscape and "engage in other approved activities and projects" OK’d by the director of the city Department of Parks and Recreation.

At Makaha Community Park, the nonprofit Active Hawaii Organization has shown interest in this kind of opportunity, taking on capital improvements and hoping to conduct programs and classes for youths and adults. The bill would make it easier to gain approval for such projects, opening the same door not only to nonprofits but to businesses, unions and other entities, Pine said.

The goal, she said, is to leverage the volunteer spirit to provide "the funds needed to improve facilities, not just clean parks."

The benefit of such a program is clear: When a community invests its own sweat equity in the upkeep of parks, it gains a sense of ownership in the asset and the responsibility that goes along with it. Volunteers can add their own vigilance to that of paid staffers to guard against vandalism and littering. Given their contribution of their precious free time to the mission, they’re likely to be even more attentive than an employee on the clock.

Makaha provided a test case, showing how well this could work. The Laborers International Union of North America Local 368 and other groups donated $60,000 in equipment and labor to repair the leaky pavilion roof and bathroom sinks, replace broken light fixtures and install water fountains.

The risk of enabling this show of community spirit, of course, is that the city would come to lean on it too heavily. The fact that the private sector needs to shoulder some of the parks maintenance burden is testament to the failure of government to do its part more consistently.

The parks department should be expected to do a better managerial job, stepping up accountability of work crews to a checklist of maintenance duties.

If that happens, in concert with the help from the community that Bill 58 could allow, then Oahu residents could finally get what they’ve been paying for all along: decently maintained public parks that everyone should be able to enjoy.