No local political candidate has ever promised: “Vote for me, and I’ll mandate replacing plastic straws with paper ones made from old Pixy Stix.”
Sign-waving supporters do not not hold placards declaring: “Four more years … of traffic-jamming Pali Highway repairs.”
Or this pledge: “The University of Hawaii can have all the autonomy it wishes as long as it answers to the state Senate.”
Instead, pre-election political promises adhere to the same wish list: the economy, affordable housing, crime, homelessness …
But it is after the leaders have been seated when other issues are addressed, such as recycling laws to protect the environment, constructing new prisons, investigating the water supply beyond Red Hill, casinos (not OK here, but OK in Hawaii-themed-and-cuisined hotels in downtown Vegas), and, well, what to do with drive-through utensils and straws. And a week after the elections, it is time to act on what to do — really — with the Halawa site where a condemned Aloha Stadium continues to erode.
Soon-to-be-exiting Gov. David Ige had a plan for the site, then another one, with more specific details still to be announced.
His successor has never fully disclosed Ige’s plan even though he was the governor’s understudy for four years. But Dr. Josh Green has said it is his preference that an affordable-housing element be attached to a stadium project, and that an Aloha Stadium replacement needs to be built relatively quickly.
And there are the matters of who’s in charge and how neighborhoods will be impacted.
It would appear there should be a standard cause-effect-response sequence. When a stadium is no longer useful, it gets torn down, and replaced with another stadium. But nothing is really that simple.
In Kailua, there were no objections when Holiday Mart became Daiei, and then Don Quijote Hawaii, as long as parking was free and ample, and Mango Man could roam freely. But then Target was mentioned as a possible new tenant and protesters roared.
Aloha Stadium’s neighbors also want a say in
— and maybe changes to — what happens on the facility’s state-owned property. For nearly 50 years, residents knew the deal. On nights of University of Hawaii football games and stadium concerts, birthday parties were not scheduled at Ice Palace Hawaii, and Crosspointe residents skipped running errands. What will be the concerns or benefits to the community if the stadium construction is accompanied by business and housing projects?
There will be meetings and hearings and arguments and territorial battles that will keep delaying the project.
So, let’s put this to a statewide vote. Not sure how to commission one, but there should be a ballot asking whether a new stadium will be a stand-alone project or involve affordable housing and/or businesses. The stipulation is this only involves what to do with the Halawa property. The ballot would not include the option of building a 35,000-seat stadium on UH’s Manoa campus. It would not have the option of diverting funds to other endeavors. And it can’t be a “Family Feud”-like polling where “we surveyed 100 people and …” No, it has to be a true widespread vote, not a sampling that prorates to a larger view.
A stadium is a gathering spot. It is important for a state that needs entertainment options. And it is an important recruiting and competitive tool for the state’s only university football team. But that’s just the thoughts of a lowly scribe whose dog does not even pay attention to him.
It would be interesting to know, once and for all: What does Hawaii think about what should be done at the Halawa site?
