Posted on: Friday, May 9, 2003
Report on damaged sign likely today
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer
HAWAI'I KAI — City officials were expected to learn today whether the damage to Hawai'i Kai's community identification sign is the result of vandalism or faulty construction.
Engineers inspected the damage yesterday and were expected to make a report to the director of the Department of Design and Construction, said Carol Costa, city spokeswoman.
The sign at Hawai'i Kai Drive and Kalaniana'ole Highway is not yet a year old, but it has been plagued with problems from construction delays to faulty positioning. Now, the part of the sign that reads "Hawai'i Kai" is pulling apart in the middle and hairline cracks are appearing all around the words, despite being held in place by 4-inch round pillars anchored into the lava rock foundation.
"It's breaking itself here, in the mid-section," said Murray Luther, the community's champion for the identification sign. "We gave the job to a reputable company and it takes all this time and now it's coming apart."
The sign was a project that Luther worked to get for seven years after a sign the community built was removed for the widening of the highway in the mid-1990s.
The new sign cost $190,000 as part of a three-sign vision team project.
Problems emerged from the beginning.
First, the Hawai'i Kai sign was built using the wrong color rocks, which were replaced with lava rocks. Then the sign was erected facing east, rather than west. And the okina, or pronunciation mark, in the word "Hawai'i Kai" was an apostrophe instead of a diacritical mark.
The sign is topped with a concrete sail and faces commuters as they enter the community.
Ben Lee, city managing director, said yesterday that he believes the damage is from vandals. The sign had graffiti on it once before, but that was cleaned up by the Hawai'i Kai Marina Association, said Bob Clark, a Hawai'i Kai Neighborhood Board member.
"Someone leaned on the sails," Lee said. "It's a shame. Here's a community that wanted a sign to create community pride and someone vandalized it."
