The only thing reflected by the reflecting pools around our state Capitol is the futlessness of our local government that keeps us from becoming a better Hawaii.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser recently reported that leaks from the pools during recent rain drenched the Capitol’s chamber level, where toil the senators and representatives responsible for funding such basic maintenance.
As reporter Andrew Gomes described it, the basement near the Senate chamber sounded like a rainforest — with tarps as canopy rather than trees — as industrial vacuums sucked water.
Most basically, it means state leaders couldn’t even fix a hole that’s dumping foul water on their own heads, as our beautiful Capitol seems forever surrounded by construction barriers.
More troubling, the long futility in resolving this involves some of the same actors leading a bigger project with potential for much bigger problems: the Aloha Stadium redevelopment.
The Department of Accounting and General Services has sought money since 2005 to fix the pools, which in addition to leaking have reeked from out- of-control algae and fish.
In 2005 the estimated repair cost was $5 million. By 2015 it was $10 million. When the Legislature finally appropriated money to get the waterproofing job done, it was $30 million this year after $9.8 million two years ago.
DAGS hopes to complete waterproofing on the Senate-side pool this month and on the House-side pool next year.
Then lawmakers must deal with the thorny issue they’ve repeatedly kicked down the road: how to prevent future leaking.
DAGS has variously floated filling the pools with glass or rocks instead of water, creating a mosaiclike filling like the old swimming pool at the Hawai‘i State Art Museum or turning them into platforms resembling pools for performances or seating.
It’s thorny because the 54-year-old Capitol is on the Hawaii and National Registers of Historic Places, giving the State Historic Preservation Division a say in architectural changes.
A decade ago the division panned removing the water, which it considered intrinsic to the Capitol’s symbolic design as islands surrounded by the sea.
The key problem is chronic aversion to basic maintenance among state leaders, who prefer spending the money on glitzy new projects that wow voters and please campaign donors.
The same dynamic as the pools is playing out at the Hawai‘i Convention Center, where years of maintenance neglect by lawmakers allowed its leaking roof to become a critical structural problem. Legislators finally provided $64 million this year to fix the roof, but Gov. Josh Green diverted the money to help pay for the Maui wildfire fallout.
Many legislators responsible for deferring Capitol pool repairs are the same ones who failed to provide money for Aloha Stadium maintenance, causing it to now sit closed for four years while they dither over grandiose redevelopment plans.
Chris Kinimaka, public works administrator at DAGS, deeply involved in the leaking pools fiasco, is a leading figure in the convoluted plan to turn the stadium redevelopment into an entertainment district that will be a boon for developers while producing a stadium with much inferior capacity than the old facility.
What could go wrong?
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
