County parks division head awaits park planner

With spiraling growth, Kaua‘i County Parks Division head Mel Nishihara eagerly awaits the hiring of a park planner to help him map out the future uses of county parks and stadiums.

He is going to have to wait.

The Kaua‘i County Council recently deferred the acceptance of a job description for that job because the legislators want to see how the planner can mesh with a new charter-approved county Parks and Recreation Department.

While not criticizing the legislators for exercising prudence, Nishihara said the two issues are separate.

With a planner at his side, Nishihara also said he will have a tool that will help him to further improve the management and study future uses of 67 county parks and stadium complexes across the island used by thousands of visitors and residents daily.

But before the county administration can recruit and hire the planner, it has to provide the job description as part of a government budget message stipulation, Nishihara said.

Normally such a request would not fly after the legislative and executive branches of government have approved and funded a position, Nishihara said.

The administration and County Council funded the job at more than $40,000 this year.

The county would like the new planner to have at least three years of experience in park planning, landscape architecture, engineering and land purchases, he said.

“He will be a point man in the community when we do park planning and development,” Nishihara said.

The new planner also will help implement public improvement projects and update a master plan for parks, Nishihara said.

How the new park planner interfaces with the new Parks and Recreation Department is unknown at this point, Nishihara said.

The idea of the planner is not new.

Following the devastation of Hurricane ‘Iniki in 1992, the county hired a park planner with Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to help restore county parks. But the county terminated that position after not pursuing the federal dollars.

A department head, a deputy department head and a third person, possibly an administrative assistant, would head the new department, Nishihara said.

Whether the park planner assumes any of those positions at this time is not known, Nishihara said.

Whatever decision is made, he plans on being around.

“I have no idea whether they are going to keep my job, but I will be there if my job is,” said Nishihara, who has 20 years with the county, the last 17 as head of the parks division.

He has a slew of projects he wants to work on: Renovating Waimea pool; installing outdoor lights at the Vidinha Stadium baseball field; helping design a soccer field in Kapa‘a; helping plan and design a comfort station and improvements at Ha‘ena County Park; and improvements at the ‘Ele‘ele Nani Park.

“Those are some of my priorities, and they are the priority of the mayor,” Nishihara said.

Nishihara also said setting up the new department may not be cheap, as it may need its own crew of electricians and carpenters or its own baseyard operations for the work at hand.

“It is not going to be simple to start up a new department,” Nishihara said. “There is no free ride.”

At the same time, the new department can save money by drawing on the resources of other departments, he said.

The cost of setting up new department will be identified during this year’s upcoming budget hearings, Nishihara said.

Nishihara has working under him 64 employees, who will presumably become part of the new department, once it becomes operational.

A Parks and Recreation division of the county Public Works Department split into two divisions through a reorganization plan Mayor Bryan Baptiste launched some three years ago.

The parks division remained with the PWD, now headed by county engineer Donald Fujimoto, and it maintains parks and helps with the building of capital improvement projects.

The recreation division joined the Office of Community Assistance, led by Bernard Carvalho, and, among other responsibilities, issues camping permits and administers programs for senior citizens.

• Lester Chang, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or lchang@kauaipubco.com.