LIHUE — With 489 acres of parks and roughly 89 properties owned by Kauai County and cared for by the Parks and Recreation Department, the staff of about 70 in the park maintenance and beautification division is busy.
The standard, said Parks and Recreation Director Lenny Rapozo, is 10 acres of park land per caretaker. So in Anahola, there’s one person who cares for Anahola Beach Park, Anahola Village Park and Anahola Clubhouse Park.
“We have park caretakers, we do not have bathroom attendants, so ‘park caretakers’ meaning not only do they clean the bathrooms, but they also care for parks,” Rapozo said.
For park bathrooms, the policy is that the caretakers clean them twice a day, once in the morning and once
before the end of their shift. The bathrooms are cleaned Monday through Friday and on the weekends.
Rapozo said the department has supervisors who do spot checks from time to time on Monday through Friday and monitor park caretakers to ensure they’re doing their job.
“Including myself. I’m out there in the community all the time,” Rapozo said.
On the weekends, including holiday weekends, Rapozo said the bathrooms are cleaned twice a day by a roving unit.
Chad Medeiros, a lifeguard at Anahola Beach Park, is concerned about what he calls unsanitary conditions.
“Anahola restrooms are still not being cleaned twice a day. Not even once a day,” Medeiros said in an emailed statement sent Tuesday to TGI, Rapozo, Kauai County councilmembers and several county employees.
The only thing that’s being done at the park restrooms in Anahola is that the toilet paper is being changed, he said.
“And that’s it. Very unsanitary and stink. Not sanitary for county workers who work there all day for eight hours,” Medeiros said.
This isn’t Medeiros’ first complaint regarding the bathrooms at Anahola Beach Park.
On a recent holiday weekend, Medeiros said he watched women and children run in and out of the bathroom in disgust.
He voiced his concerns and sent a video to The Garden Island and others showing overflowing trash cans and fouled restrooms.
Later, Medeiros sent an email to Rapozo and several employees on behalf of the lifeguards, thanking them for resolving the issue.
“From the lifeguards and I’m sure from anyone else who uses Anahola Beach Park. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for being so diligent and quick to solve this problem and I hope we can keep this up and work together in keeping Anahola a safe and clean place for all to enjoy,” he wrote.
In an emailed response to Medeiros on March 13, Rapozo said he made two unannounced bathroom checks in Anahola and found the bathrooms had been cleaned.
“I have personally visited the site on Feb. 23 at 1:15 and March 6 at 1:30 and found the restrooms to have been cleaned. I do have pictures,” Rapozo wrote.
But Medeiros said the bathrooms were only cleaned for three days.
Part of the problem, Medeiros said, is the bathrooms are used by a large group of homeless people and drug addicts.
Sometimes, he said, lifeguards have to drive to a bathroom at one of the other two parks, but those are often unusable, as well.
Vandalism has been reported at several county parks. Most recently, new playground equipment at Poipu and restroom facilities in Kekaha were damaged.
“Maintenance of our public spaces and facilities has become a growing concern as we have seen an increase in the use of our parks as well as an increase in vandalism,” said Sarah Blane, county spokeswoman.
Some of the beach parks, Blane said, are partially state property and fall under state jurisdiction.
“Identifying additional resources for the care and maintenance of our parks is certainly a high priority item for the mayor and the administration as we approach the upcoming budget session,” Blane said.
Usage is also an issue.
In summer months, Rapozo said it’s not uncommon to have 300 overnight campers at Anini Beach Park, and those campers will have visitors during the day.
“So it’s not unusual to have 500 people in that park and you have three bathrooms that services that park,” Rapozo said.
Rapozo said the Parks and Recreation Department is relatively new, but it has been tasked with a huge undertaking. It’s a department that touches a lot of people on the island, he said, and they do their best for them.
“It’s a big thing when families go camping in the summer, because it’s like their Disneyland experience for the year,” Rapozo said.
This article fails to mention how many bathrooms there are, unless there is 1 per property, which I doubt.
This has been such a long standing issue, it’s not rocket science Lenny.
There should be 2 full time bathroom attendants. They can rotate their shifts and area.
Everyone pays enough and use the facilities enough to justify this.
There is no doubt that the county could find 2 employees willing to do this, good pay and good benefits.
Obviously some park maintenance employees were hired because of “connections” and not because they were qualified. It isn’t unusual for these people to simply not show up for work.
Mahalo to Chad Medeiros for bringing this “stinking” issue to the attention of the County and the person in charge of the parks and wanting to be our next Mayor.
Mr. Rapozo…. There should never be a need to have to defend the conditions of the parks and bathrooms. All problems are created and continued by poor management. It’s just that simple and believe me it works the same for a Mayor. We would be far better off to assign park services to a private company to make sure we are getting the best bang for our tax dollars.