Mayor and City Council at odds over Thomas Square

The Honolulu City Council is poised to reject funding for a plan to upgrade and renovate Thomas Square that has drawn mixed reviews from community members.

Meanwhile, Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s administration is holding a public meeting on the Thomas Square conceptual master plan at Blaisdell Center Exhibition Hall Hawaii Suites from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. today.

The Council Budget Committee voted May 10 to cut $1.95 million from next year’s capital improvements budget after several committee members assailed the administration for making plans for the park without first consulting the public. The Council is scheduled to hold the final vote on the 2016-17 fiscal year budget Wednesday.

Administration officials told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Monday they want to finish a series of improvements at the park by July 31, 2018, the 175th anniversary of Restoration Day, when British Adm. Richard Thomas lowered the Union Jack and hoisted the Hawaiian national flag in 1843, restoring the monarchy to King Kamehameha III.

Plans call for putting up a statue of Kamehameha III on the South King Street side of the park and, nearby, a flagpole that will fly the state flag.

Misty Kelai, the city’s executive director of culture and the arts, said Honolulu residents and visitors need to be educated about the rich history of the area.

“How would it be if we could bring the square back to its former honor and glory?”

Other plans call for upgrading the irrigation system; putting in new grass and more trees; widening and improving sidewalks on the edges of the park and walkways inside it; fixing the fountain and restroom facility; removing mock orange bushes that border the park; and building a new performance stage or bandstand and concession stand.

Kelai said the Royal Hawaiian Band played weekly at the square for three to four decades near the turn of the 20th century. The plan would entail moving the band back to the bandstand when the improvements are done, she said.

Chris Dacus, planner in charge of special projects for the Department of Parks and Recreation, estimated the entire project, as it now stands, would cost about $8.3 million. PBR Hawaii was paid $820,000 to develop the master plan.

Without the $1.95 million in next year’s budget, the administration would be hard-pressed to make the improvements it wants before the 175th anniversary, Dacus said.

Earlier this month Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi and Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga criticized the administration for not working with the community before seeking money for the preliminary plans. Fukunaga said it showed “a lack of respect” not to make presentations to the neighborhood boards and other stakeholders before seeking funding for construction.

Dacus said the city has been making the rounds of four neighborhood boards and meeting with hundreds of other stakeholders in smaller groups.

But Sam Mitchell, a member of the Makiki/Lower Punchbowl/Tantalus Neighborhood Board, said that after listening to the administration’s presentation two weeks ago, he and all but one of his colleagues voted to recommend the project be rejected.

Too many questions remain unanswered, he said, many of them tied to the square’s planned shutdown from Aug. 15 to about February.

The park is used, in some form or another, by about 35 homeless people, said Mitchell, who belongs to a group known as Food Not Bombs, which feeds and offers books to those without shelter each Sunday evening. The park is also used often by community groups for events such as plant sales and pet shows, and those groups are concerned about where they’ll go during the six-month shutdown, Mitchell said.

Dacus said the plans are conceptual and that community input would determine the ultimate master plan.

More than a dozen people, including the Outdoor Circle of Honolulu, have submitted written testimony supporting the conceptual master plan.

For more on the conceptual plan, go to facebook.com/thomassquare1850/?fref=ts.