Since 2015, the city administration has been proposing a new master plan to restore, revitalize, enhance and improve Ala Moana Beach Park and Magic Island recreational areas and facilities. The project’s 875-page Second Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) is now out, with a March 25 deadline for public review and comments.

The current SDEIS is superficial in its summary, presentation and analysis of the critical features and factors that make Ala Moana Beach Park the world-class “People’s Park” that it has always been. The SDEIS is a super-sized document that is super difficult to read and not easy to understand.

In an era that pays super-dollars to produce elegance in usability and customer satisfaction, this overstuffed and oversized SDEIS document underwhelms and under-delivers on the value statement of “government by the people, for the people” (see the report at 808ne.ws/2NR6ikh and its appendix at 808ne.ws/2HdN6LY).

The city administration must do more than bare-minimum due diligence of what is required by EIS laws and protections.

The SDEIS needs to represent more authentically and accurately the project’s purposes and impacts on the environment, ecosystems, local uses of Ala Moana Beach Park, protection of the beach park’s natural ocean assets, and the safety and health of park users.

What the people of The People’s Park so clearly and so desperately desire is simply more functional quality within the limits of fiscal responsibility — not a “world class park” shrouded in a vision of “progressive change,” as the city administration so often flaps about.

Since 2015, the city administration has summarily dismissed our collective and most earnest demands with, “you’re against change of any kind.”

That drew the attention and concern of our City Council, which then adopted Resolution 18-50 to emphasize that the city administration needs to listen to the people. Despite the outcry, the promenade in the December 2017 Environmental Impact Statement Preparation Notice was still contained in the July 2018 Draft Environmental Impact Statement, only re-dubbed as the proposed “Makai Shared-Use Path.” What is up with that?

Ultimately, Ordinance 18-46 (Dec. 21, 2018) was enacted by the City Council to now prohibit “‘widening of the existing walkway’ aka ‘shared-use path’” or reducing of existing grassy areas on the makai-side of Ala Moana Park Drive. The city administration had five weeks and a super-sized project team to remove the prohibited items from the master plan ahead of the SDEIS’s release on Feb. 8, 2019 — but the project action items prohibited by Ordinance 18-46 have not been removed.

The city administration must comply with city law. It must comply with our law, as well as delivering on “government by the people for the people.”

Mahalo to our City Council friends, and especially to all of those who believe that a grassroots voice, raised with “Aloha The Peoples Park,” can effect change, though seemingly impossible. Mahalo kākou — thanks to all of us.

Join us at Ala Moana Beach Parkʻs McCoy Pavilion on Monday, 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., for a town hall meeting to voice concerns to the city administration.