Obama honored with bench at Hanauma Bay

When President Barack Obama’s mother was pregnant with him, she used to visit Hanauma Bay, a spot she found sublimely serene.

“That’s why I’m so calm,” the president told his staff during a visit to Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve in 2015.

Working quietly since, White House staff members have arranged to add a plaque that reads, “In Honor of Mothers Everywhere From the Staff of Barack Obama,” installed on an existing bench at the park.

A resolution asking the Honolulu City Council to accept a $1,100 gift for the plaque is to be heard Tuesday by the City Council Parks, Community and Customer Services Committee.

Cody Keenan, Obama’s chief speechwriter since 2013, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in an email Friday that he and his wife, Kristen Bartoloni, White House deputy director of research and rapid response, chipped in for the plaque and installation along with Anita Decker Breckenridge, Obama’s deputy chief of staff and longest-serving aide.

Keenan said the plaque was his wife’s idea and “was just meant to be a quiet gift from us to the president,” and had hoped that it would not draw much attention.

“Kristen noticed some benches and suggested we buy one for him in honor of his mother,” Keenan said about the 2015 visit. “Just a thank-you gift for everything — what he’s done for the country, how kind he was to his staff, and as a token of gratitude for accidentally bringing me and Kristen together in the first place.”

Keenan and Bartoloni met at the White House about five years ago. Obama invited them and their wedding party to the White House on the day they married last summer, Keenan said.

Keenan said that he, Bartoloni and Breckenridge, who worked for Obama years before he entered the White House, paid for the plaque out of their own pockets but wanted the inscription to say “the Staff of of Barack Obama.”

He added, “We consider ‘the Staff of Barack Obama’ to mean everyone who works for him, whether they know about the bench or not!”

The bench, which has been installed without the plaque, is green and sits near the center of the beach about 20 feet from the snorkel rental shop, Keenan said.

The president’s entourage visited the bay several weeks ago, and “there were a couple dozen of us on hand … when Kristen and I showed him the bench for the first time,” Keenan said. Obama sat on the bench, and “he brought his family over to show them as well.”

Benches with plaques are donated to the city from time to time under a formal procedure that requires approval from the Council, and the Obama staff gift is being treated no differently, city Parks Director Michele Nekota said.

Resolution 17-01 refers only to the plaque but should have said the gift would pay for the plaque and installation onto the bench, Parks and Recreation spokesman Nathan Serota said. The bench is a used one that’s being refurbished, he said.

Councilman Trevor Ozawa, who represents East Honolulu, said he supports accepting the gift.

After the death of his mother, Ann Dunham, in 1995, Obama and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, scattered her ashes in waters off Lanai Lookout, about a mile away from Hanauma Bay. The family also scattered the ashes of Madelyn Dunham, Obama’s grandmother, at Lanai Lookout in December 2008, a month after he was elected president.

Obama is scheduled to give his final public speech as president in Chicago on Tuesday. National news outlets reported that Obama spent a good portion of his recent Oahu vacation working with Keenan on the speech.