LIHU‘E — In the shadow of the University of Hawai‘i baseball clinic taking place at Vidinha Stadium, the normal traffic of driving-instruction students, truck-driving instruction, and walkers, was replaced by the constant flow of county refuse trucks. The din of
LIHU‘E — In the shadow of the University of Hawai‘i baseball clinic taking place at Vidinha Stadium, the normal traffic of driving-instruction students, truck-driving instruction, and walkers, was replaced by the constant flow of county refuse trucks.
The din of heavy front loaders was punctuated by the whir of chain saws, as crews from the county’s Department of Public Works Hanapepe baseyard worked alongside the Vidinha Stadium caretakers.
Piles of green branches waited their turn to be loaded onto the refuse trucks by the frontloaders as officials with the county’s DPW Division of Parks and Recreation initiated their facelift of the highly-utilized facility earlier this week.
According to Mary Daubert of the county’s public information office, the pruning is just the first phase that will culminate with the rubberizing of the track. Daubert, who said she checked with parks director Mel Nishihara, said the first phase involves pruning back the trees in both the parking lot and the perimeter of the stadium. Stadium caretakers noted that, beside the heavy accumulation of dried leaves, they’ve also encountered such exotic items as discarded frying pans, and lots of litter from snack-food packages that have wafted their way among the undergrowth.
“You gotta watch out for the yellow jackets, too,” one caretaker said while avoiding insects that started buzzing around after their nest was jostled in the process of trying to clear stumps that have grown through the chain-link fence.
Daubert said that, according to Nishihara, the chain-link fencing will be repaired “for now.” The pruning phase is scheduled to end by mid-August, “just in time for the Kauai County Farm Bureau Fair.”
Once the fair has run its course, Daubert said the next phase will involve repaving the parking lot, some observers speculating that it’s probably the first time since the stadium opened that it will be repaved.
Daubert said this phase is expected to be completed in time for the opening of the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation football season.
“The fans will have a new surface to park on,” she added.
Once the football season has run its course, the rubberizing of the track will begin, she said.
