Now, say Valentine and Lisa Valdez of Ma'ili, the property at 87-228 Ho'okele St. is an accident waiting to happen. From the looks of what's left of the pavilion, they aren't exaggerating.

Large, jagged holes, 15 feet wide and as tall as the structure itself, gape where walls once stood. Exposed nails and bent reinforcing rods protrude into the interior. Broken glass, charred ceiling-beam fragments, and chunks of concrete cover the floor.

Light pours through openings in the sagging roof that suffered extensive fire damage months ago. Outside, tall grass and weeds are cluttered with broken beer bottles, rusting car parts, old tires and more rubble.

And, according to the Valdezes and others in the neighborhood, this unsavory setting has become a dangerous haven for drug users and unsupervised children.

"My brother got a mean gash in his leg playing over there in bushes," said Brendette Ramos, who lives near the pavilion. "I've seen little babies in diapers in there with their bare feet, and no adults around."

Ramos said in recent months neighborhood kids have begun beating the cinder-block walls apart with hammers. She said her boyfriend and her parents have yelled at them to stop. The kids will run off, she said, but usually they soon return.

Fed up, a grass-roots group of residents had decided to reclaim the park and clean it up on their own — starting today. It seemed fitting enough. After all, the pavilion was built in 1973 by volunteers from the Hookele Community Association, which owned and operated the park. The building was paid for with $17,000 raised at four community fairs.

Valentine Valdez, 40, who played in the park as a kid, said the pavilion was never finished and, as far as he remembers, it was never used for anything.

Wai'anae Coast Neighborhood Board member Patty Teruya had arranged to have a local construction company come in today and demolish the pavilion for free. She also had gotten a private landfill operator to agree to take the resulting debris at no charge.

The Valdezes, who own a yard-service business, voluntarily cut down much of the tall grass around the building ahead of time. But before Lisa Valdez could print up fliers last week asking other volunteers to bring their rakes, bags and muscle power today, the whole clean up effort was called off.

If it's demolished, it can't be easily rebuilt because new permits would be required, he said. But the existing structure could be refurbished without new permits.

Hirahara, who paid the back taxes on the 34,000-square-foot park, insists he doesn't own the property. Neither apparently does the Hookele Community Association, which folded in the mid-1980s. According to Teruya, the city neither owns the land nor has any interest in acquiring it.

Teruya said she went along with Hirahara's request because he said he might take ownership at a later date. At the same time, Teruya is miffed by Hirahara's attitude. If he doesn't own the property, then he shouldn't be giving orders about it, she said. If he does, he should take responsibility for making it safe.

But Hirahara says the ownership of the land is in legal limbo. He found out about the situation only a year ago, when the city tax division informed him the property was going to be sold at a foreclosure auction because the taxes hadn't been paid in years.

Because the community association no longer existed, the land had reverted to the original owners — Hirahara's deceased parents — he says he was told. Hirahara didn't mind paying the $800 in back taxes to prevent foreclosure, but he wanted no part of being liable for the property.

"It's an ownership issue," Hirahara said. "And we don't know who owns it. To demolish the building, you have to get a permit. And you can't get a permit if you don't own the property."

He says neighborhood residents can clean the park with his blessing.

"I say clean it up, but don't tear it down," said Hirahara, who wouldn't object to residents' putting a construction fence around the building to keep kids and drug users out.

Teruya says you can't beautify the park and leave its main eyesore, the pavilion, standing like a monument to dilapidation. Before much beautifying can be done, however, property ownership may have to be established.

"And somebody somewhere does owns it," said Hawai'i probate lawyer David Larsen, author of the book "Death and Taxes."

"Because you cannot have a piece of property that is just out there that nobody owns."

Larsen speculates that the Ho'okele Park is owned either by the defunct association, if it was never formally dissolved, or, more probably, by the estate of the original owners.

Until the courts eventually decide the issue, though, Larsen summed the situation up this way:

"It's a mess."