Kaua'i residents protest loss of beach access
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau
LIHU'E, Kaua'i — More than $600,000 of Kaua'i taxpayers' money designated for public access and open space is sitting unspent or has been used by county officials for other purposes, despite a powerful statement of support by voters last year.
Jan Tenbruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser
Residents frustrated by the loss of beach and stream accessways are showing up at Mayor Bryan Baptiste's community meetings and petitioning the Kaua'i County Council to enforce access policies.
The only legal way for most people to get to Papa'a Bay is to climb along a rocky shoreline. Public access has also been cut at nearby 'Aliomanu Beach.
The council last year set aside $375,000 to purchase or improve traditional rights of way that have been lost, but that money has been diverted to unrelated projects, including putting a rubber-like surface on the county stadium track.
In the 2002 general election, Kaua'i voters approved by a 3-to-1 margin a budget amendment setting aside half of 1 percent of property tax revenues for a Natural Resources Preservation Fund for improving access, conserving land and related uses.
The Kaua'i charter amendment is the only one of its kind in the state. Maui voters in 2002 passed a similar measure setting aside 1 percent of property tax revenues for natural, cultural and scenic resource acquisitions, but not specifically public access.
Kaua'i residents' money is now flowing into the new Natural Resources Preservation Fund, but the $237,650 accrued there won't be spent anytime soon, the mayor's staff said, because there's no plan.
Meanwhile, traditional routes that have been used to get to fishing spots, sandy beaches, streams and mountain hunting areas are disappearing.
Artist Gabriela Taylor of Keahapana said she and friends took an old road to a Kapa'a area stream and found a gate across it. While old maps show it clearly to be a government road, more recent maps "look like someone just erased it," she said.
'Aliomanu resident Bill Young said a similar situation appears to have occurred on the old government road to scenic Papa'a Bay, part of which has disappeared from modern maps. The land behind the bay, owned by movie producer Peter Guber's Mandalay Properties, was the site of a South Pacific resort in the movie "Six Days, Seven Nights."
Not far away, an 'Aliomanu beach access was cut off when a developer allowed a buyer to remove from the property deed the portion of the easement that crossed his property. It means residents have the beach side of a shoreline access route, but it stops at private property, so they can't gain access to the beach.
"There are lots of examples like this, several in this area," Young said.
Amanda Kaleiohi, president of the Anahola Hawaiian Homes Association, said access to coastal fishing areas is being lost regularly as wealthy people buy up coastal land, and then deny people the right to use traditional routes to fishing grounds.
"It makes it really hard. Just because someone buys a million-dollar house, does that person have more rights than everybody else? It seems that way.
"If we tried to take an access like that, they'd put us in jail," Kaleiohi said.
The council's 2002 appropriation of $375,000 specifically cited Papa'a Bay as an example of a lost access near public roads, with historical evidence of community use. The money was appropriated to take care of that kind of situation.
Taylor and Young helped form Ka Leo O Kaua'i Island Access Coalition. They and others showed up at one of Mayor Baptiste's community meetings to complain that they were losing longtime public connections to the shorelines and mountains.
Taylor said there are lost accessways in virtually every community, and the group is trying to get each community to list its access priorities.
"It's going to be a big movement. Each community is going to come up with different places where they are losing access," she said.
Young said he is asking the mayor, among other things, to resolve the Papa'a Bay access issue, to work on making real-estate buyers islandwide aware of public access laws and to declare beaches cultural assets.
Baptiste public information officer Cyndi Ozaki said the mayor is unwilling to spend appropriated money until there is a community-built plan for where to spend it. The Natural Resources Preservation Fund cash can't be spent until the council passes an ordinance establishing priorities, one that is based on a countywide community-based process.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
