The maintenance of the $5-million Lihu‘e Gateway project to beautify roads leading to the Lihu‘e Airport will continue to fall on the shoulders of hundreds of volunteers and sponsoring businesses until July 2005. During a meeting at the Lihu‘e Kauai
The maintenance of the $5-million Lihu‘e Gateway project to beautify roads leading to the Lihu‘e Airport will continue to fall on the shoulders of hundreds of volunteers and sponsoring businesses until July 2005.
During a meeting at the Lihu‘e Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall Wednesday evening, Steve Kyono, who heads the state Department of Transportation Highways Division on Kaua‘i, told 40 volunteers that shift may not occur until July 2005.
A volunteer attending the meeting said Kyono asked volunteers to continue to maintain their plots until next July.
He said Kyono hoped to secure funding from the state Legislature by that time to take over the maintenance of the beautification project along Kapule Highway and Ahukini Road, a total of six miles.
DOT spokesman Scott Ishikawa said department leaders are “going to sit down and look at how to handle this project in-house for the time being.”
“Funding is all around pretty tight at this point. So we are going to make due with some in-house maintenance until we chase some more funding,” Ishikawa said from his office in Honolulu.
For fiscal year 2005-2006, DOT leaders will be lobbying for $200,000 to do the maintenance work, Ishikawa said.
The volunteers were informally told two years ago by county officials that their duties would end this summer, at which time state DOT officials would increase their maintenance responsibilities.
Kapule Highway and Ahukini Road are both state roadways.
The county-supported project has become a source of civic pride for business folks, residents and volunteers, and has served as a marketing tool to welcome and bid farewell to visitors.
Related to DOT’s pending plans to take over the care of the project, a volunteer said Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste, who attended the meeting, asked DOT officials to provide documentation ensuring the department would assume control of the project by July 2005.
Kyono agreed to that condition, a volunteer told The Garden Island.
By July 2005, volunteers will have taken care of the project for three years, and by that time, volunteers should have the right to end their involvement with the project if they choose to do so, some county officials said.
To lighten the load of the volunteers, Kyono announced his division would ask the state DOT’s Highways Division to take care of three rock walls and accompanying vegetation at the intersection of Kapule Highway and the Ahukini Road.
Ishikawa said the DOT Airports Division has hired an additional maintenance person who will be assigned to work on that project.
Kyono also said state work crews will use different equipment to mow grassy areas, to bring a more manicured look to the project’s mix of shrubs, flowers and trees.
Some volunteers welcomed the news from the DOT, and recommitted themselves to the project for another year.
County officials thanked volunteers who were willing to continue the work.
Among those who have said they would continue the work are Bill Brede of Anahola; James Oyadomari of Lihu‘e; Joe Kua; Rudy Sina, a Waimea High School Pacific Asian affairs advisor; the Alquiza family from Hanapepe; Kauai Filipino Community Council and Kauai Nursery & Landscaping.
Other volunteers attending the meeting said they couldn’t give a clear answer as to whether they would continue with the project. They said they needed to confer with others from their organizations before making a decision.
The project was developed with $4 million in federal funds and $1 million in matching county funds in the form of volunteer work.
When she was mayor, Maryanne Kusaka secured the funding, pledging “sweat-equity” in the form of volunteerism as part of the county’s matching share for the federal funds. The project has won national attention.
Had the small army of volunteers not maintained the project for the past two years, the county might have had to pay back some of the federal funds used for the project.
Some critics have said the large project, which involves care of 143 plots, has not and cannot be properly maintained by volunteers, and that professional landscaping services are needed.
But Eddie Sarita, manager of the Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall and coordinator of the beautification project, said that while not all the volunteers and groups have come forward to help, most have, and their efforts have kept the project alive.
Kauai Nursery & Landscaping in Puhi, the largest landscaping company on the island, won the contract to develop the project, and maintained it from 2000 to 2002 before the project was turned over to the county.
Lester Chang, staff writer, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or lchang@pulitzer.net.
