Options remain for Coco Palms rebirth

$22,231,000.

That is the amount of loaned money on which Coco Palms Hui — up to now the would-be redeveloper of the Coco Palms resort — has defaulted and is the sum of money that looms over any foreclosure sale. That amount was identified on Tuesday by the lender.

Would someone who wants to buy the property now, or in foreclosure, have to pay that much? That can’t be known at this point since Coco Palms’ viability as a future resort — and the value of the land — can’t be known, but is very likely not nearly that much.

$719,375.

That’s the amount in the newly submitted budget of Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami to be held in reserve for acquisition of open space land in the new fiscal year. It’s worth pointing out that that appropriation is actually less than this year’s $834,342.

$631,809.

That’s the amount in Kawakami’s new budget for the special trust fund for parks and playgrounds. Put another way, that’s all the money that could possibly be spent on new park properties this year.

If you consider these three amounts, it’s not hard to see one clear reality: Kauai County doesn’t have the money to take over Coco Palms, even through eminent domain — condemnation of the property — under which the county would still have to pay the current owners an at least a halfway reasonable price for the 23 acres the Coco Palms Hui owns.

It is this math that convinces me that Kauai County is not in a position by itself to acquire Coco Palms for any purpose, much less for use as a park, a Hawaiian cultural center, affordable or kupuna housing or any of the eminently reasonable purposes to which the land might be put.

Gary Hooser has the right idea — articulated in his excellent column in this space on Wednesday — by focusing on the county’s failure to lead effectively in the fight to avoid Coco Palms’ lingering demise along Kuhio Highway.

Where Hooser and I part company is on whether it is reasonable to expect the county to step in and acquire the land and the develop and operate a new Coco Palms park. Kawakami has already pointed out that a key problem for a public entity to acquire new park land is that such transactions never come with operating support for development, maintenance and programming for ongoing public use. That all comes later and will inevitably cost much more than initial land acquisition.

As the furor over the half-percent increase in the General Excise Tax proves so convincingly, Kauai County taxpayers are unlikely to go along with new taxation for a Coco Palms takeover and the county’s available money is laughably insufficient.

Hooser is most correct in calling on Kawakami and the county to form a Coco Palms task force of qualified local people. And while this task force does not necessarily have to be a part of county government, it does need to have a broad range of members with proven leadership skills and credentials in fiscal creativity.

One person’s name stands out as that having the personal credibility and charisma to be a driving force behind such a task force. He’s former mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. He is still considering his options for his next move after his departure from elected office in December.

Carvalho has credibility and his love of the county and concern for its future need no documentation. I spoke with him on Friday and it seems fair to say he is open to considering such a role.

There are two possible bases for a Coco Palms takeover. A most likely outcome would require the two to move ahead in lockstep, though how that happens is unknowable at this point.

The first is the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, whose Wailua River State Park stops just across Kuamoo Road from Coco Palms. In fact, the Coco Palms grounds include more than 14 acres of leased state land, so the state taking over the existing property owned by Coco Palms Hui is not outside the bounds of reasonable logic.

The state is also in the parks business and the proximity of Coco Palms and Wailua River State Park is an undeniable attraction.

But the state probably doesn’t have the money to buy out Coco Palms, either, much less put in place the kind of culturally focused Native Hawaiian institution that, as Hooser argues persuasively, belongs there.

That leads, inevitably, to the private, nonprofit sector. But let’s be real — there probably is no nonprofit walking around with $22 million in its pocket to buy Coco Palms.

But two nonprofits could play key roles — or join forces to play a single role. Those are the Hawaii Islands Land Trust and the Hawaii Community Foundation. HILT’s business is purchasing lands that need to be preserved, which it does by identifying such properties and then going out into the donor marketplace to twist enough arms that the right amount of money gets raised and spent.

Thinking that billionaires Mark Zuckerberg or Pierre Omidyar might step in and write a check is probably not real.

Similarly, expecting the many multimillionaires who own second homes here to step up is also illusory.

But HILT and its network of donors could emerge here as the solution. The Hawaii Community Foundation played a hero’s role after last years floods, setting up a relief fund within a couple of days and acting as a flexible fiscal agent for money raised from its own donors.

Community foundations (I worked for one of the largest of them for nearly five years) exist to connect affluent people with money to spend on causes they support with the nonprofit organizations that need it. Community foundations evaluate the worthiness of projects and present worthwhile projects to meet their donors’ interests. They also provide services to donors who set up charitable funds or private foundations housed within the community foundation — in 2016, HCF’s tax filing listed $488 million in assets from the various funds and foundations they manage.

If Kawakami leads the formation of a voluntary private sector organizing group and, if Carvalho will lead it, and if HILT and the community foundation work in collaboration with the private organizing group and the community, it will be then that we might see progress in the struggle to make something new, worthy and valuable of Coco Palms.

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Allan Parachini is a former public relations executive who makes furniture, lives in Kilauea and writes periodically for The Garden Island.