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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, September 21, 2002

City plans to scale back community vision projects

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Staff Writer

Major changes lie ahead for O'ahu's popular vision program, with city officials planning to consolidate teams, reduce the number of projects in each community and cut budgets by up to half for the groups that have given their communities everything from skateboard parks to canoe halau.

"In 2004, instead of the 19 teams receiving $2 million (each), they'll receive $1 million," said Patty Teruya, a city vision team facilitator and member of the Wai'anae vision team.

With 305 projects — an estimated $125 million worth — under way and a tighter city budget anticipated, city officials are telling vision teams to finish what they've started before tackling anything new.

City Managing Director Ben Lee said the amount that will be cut has not been decided. But, he said, borrowing money, as the city does for vision team and other capital improvement projects, does affect debt service and "we're looking at a very, very lean operating and capital budget."

Beyond that, there's a sense that the focus of the vision teams needs to change.

"There's too many little projects," said Lee. "If they can focus on two or three big ones, it will be easier to, one, manage and, second, it would be more visionary than potholes and bus shelters."

Lee said city officials are considering combining three or four vision teams and asking them to develop broader projects such as the Pearl Harbor Historic Trail from the USS Arizona Memorial through Pearl City, Waipahu and 'Ewa and to the Wai'anae Coast.

An Oct. 12 meeting has been scheduled for the vision teams and the administration to discuss the changes.

The city initiated the vision team process in 1998, establishing 19 teams and allocating $2 million to each to give people an opportunity to become involved in the planning and selection of capital improvement projects in their communities. About 60 projects — from the repair of Ha'iku Stairs, to placing utility wires underground in Kailua and widening Salt Lake Boulevard — have been accomplished with vision team money.

Vision projects have become a significant part of the capital improvements budget. This year, that budget totals $450 million, most of it paying for sewer improvements, Lee said. But an estimated $14 million will go to building wheelchair ramps, $34 million to neighborhood board projects and $38 million to vision team projects.

Bill Muench, of the Kailua vision team, said the changes are necessary because the city is having trouble keeping up with the projects and needs to finish what has started before accepting new work.

Muench, who said city engineers have too much work to do, warned that projects that don't start on time could lose financing.

While the city allocation for vision team projects is being cut, the neighborhood boards' allocations are not, Muench said. Since the success of the vision teams, neighborhood boards began to receive $1 million a year for projects in their communities, and Muench would like to see the two resources pooled to finance future projects.

Vision teams have their detractors who say, among other things, that the money is wasted, with as much as 18 percent of it going to planning and design, and that people who were not elected to represent the community are making decisions that affect all residents.

City Council budget chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said the council wants better oversight in tracking vision team projects to make it easier to anticipate costs.

"But we never talked about cutting any of the money," Kobayashi said of the $2 million each team is supposed to receive. "We are honoring that, so if there's any cutting back it will be on the part of the administration."

Jeff Tyau, a member of the Ko'olaupoko vision team, said he's willing to try new methods to improve the system because it has worked to the advantage of his community, empowering people and encouraging them to be involved.

"I don't mind trying different things to make it work better," Tyau said. "I'd rather try ... as opposed to saying, 'Oh, it's not working, kill it.' "

Sunny Greer, on the same team as Tyau, said the new proposals are a wake-up call to vision teams that they will have to do more than come up with ideas.

With a largely new City Council being elected — at least six new members for sure, because of term limits — vision teams must keep lobbying for projects since there's no guarantee that a project will be approved by the council, Greer said

"We the citizens must participate in the entire process in order to get the maximum benefit of what the mayor is offering," she said.

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.