Question: Kanewai Park on Dole Street has been closed for some time now. What exactly are they doing, and when is it going to be completed? I notice very little work being done on a day-to-day basis.

Answer: Kanewai Community Park is undergoing extensive reconstruction of several facilities because of structural deficiencies, said Chris Takashige, director of the city Department of Design and Construction.

A $3.1 million contract was awarded to Close Construction Co. last summer to repair deteriorated retaining walls, the recreation building, comfort station walls, walkways and stairs.

The estimated completion time is midsummer, but more work is scheduled.

Site Engineering Co. has been awarded a $900,000 "follow-on" contract to reconstruct the basketball and volleyball courts, lighting systems, play apparatus and portions of the softball field, Takashige said. That work, to start soon after the current work is completed, will close those areas for about eight months.

Once the current construction is completed, the Department of Parks and Recreation will reopen areas of the park that can be safely used while the second phase of construction takes place.

For the second year in a row, Kanewai will not be hosting a Summer Fun Program. Last year, Kanewai’s program was moved to Crane Community Park. There will be no Summer Fun Program at either Kanewai or Crane this year, parks officials said.

As for not seeing much work being done at Kanewai, he said there are several reasons why projects sometimes appear to have too few workers on site, from safety precautions (e.g., too close a proximity to equipment) to the contractor’s preference in scheduling the different trade workers.

"For Kanewai in particular there have been numerous times when added structural deficiencies were discovered as work progressed," he said.

As with all city contracts, that means the contractor is not allowed to proceed with the new work until a contract change order is awarded by the city, he said.

That may cause work to stop, "giving daily onlookers the view of a start-and-stop operation," Takashige said. But as frustrating as it appears that work could be done faster and completed earlier, the contractor has the full time period to complete the work agreed to in the contract.

How the work between the start and finish is executed is called the "contractor’s means and methods," he further explained, which the city does not usually dictate or interfere with because doing so could drive up costs and transfer liability away from the contractor to the city.

Hazardous Trees

The state Legislature has included $1 million in the 2014-15 state budget for State Civil Defense to remove potentially hazardous trees and recover money from the responsible property owners, said Rep. Gregg Takayama.

Kokua Line reported Feb. 14 that although the agency has been responsible for responding to complaints about hazardous trees on private property since 2009, it has not received funds to respond to property owners who refuse to take action. (See bit.ly/1ug9dDt.)

"This will help save lives and damage to property," Takayama said, adding that the funding should be enough to operate the program for three years. "Since large trees can cost $20,000 to $22,000 to remove, we think this can remove a dozen of the most hazardous per year."

Mahalo

To a young boy. My wife and I are in our 60s. Several weeks ago we attempted to climb Koko Head Trail. At the bridge, as I looked into the ravine, my water bottle tumbled down. I threw my hat down as a marker but could not find a way to retrieve it. We turned back because we had no water. A week later, when we tried again, I was chitchatting with the young boy and told him what happened. He showed me a way to get down that was doable, but I didn’t want to do it at that time. To the top we went and came back to the bridge two hours later. There on the side of the trail were my hat and water bottle. I felt so guilty I couldn’t say thank you. That kind act shows the aloha spirit is alive among the youth of our state. — John & Pam Talbot

Write to "Kokua Line" at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.

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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Summer Fun Program will again be relocated to Crane Park. Kanewai will not be hosting a Summer Fun Program this year and it will not be hosting it at the park.