Posted on: Monday, November 1, 2004
Hawai'i Kai sign crumbling
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer
HAWAI'I KAI — A two-year-old sign that the city paid $117,623 for is falling apart and the city hasn't made a move to repair it.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser "I've tried many times to have the sign fixed," Menendez said. "The sign has been criticized so much that I'm having trouble getting enthusiasm to get it fixed at City Hall. Right now there are other projects with higher priorities, like the Natatorium."
The sign has a very checkered past. First the rocks were the wrong color, then the sign was facing in the wrong direction and then the 'okina was an apostrophe and had to be replaced.
Now Murray Luther, the champion for the community identification sign, says he's embarrassed by the way it looks. The crack that can be seen from the highway, the fissures around the words and the crumbling lava rocks make the community look bad, Luther said. When he organized a time capsule to be buried at the base of the sign in 2002, Luther and members of the Hawai'i Kai Neighborhood Board were looking to instill pride in the community.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser Luther, 89, was behind the idea of a community sign ever since 1995, when the original sign — paid for by the community — was taken down to make way for the widening of Kalaniana'ole Highway.
When the mayor initiated his vision team program, Luther thought the community sign would fit with the vision concept, he said. The sign was designed by Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, an architecture, design, planning, and consulting firm, and constructed by C&C Engineering. It was part of the city's vision team process. The damage was found about a year ago and was determined by the city to be caused by people sitting or pushing on the sail part of the sign. The city determined it would cost about $18,000 to repair the sign, but the community balked at the price and urged the city to make the repairs.
"We'll fix the sign, one way or another," Menendez said. "I will have that sign repaired by the end of the administration, if I have to caulk it myself. My heart goes out to Mr. Luther. We will find a way to do it."
Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or 395-8831.
What should have been the pride of the community at the intersection of Hawai'i Kai Drive and Kalaniana'ole Highway is an embarrassment. Manny Menendez, city Office of Economic Development director, who represents the city at neighborhood board meetings, vowed Tuesday night to have the sign repaired by the end of Mayor Jeremy Harris' administration, even if he has to don jeans and a T-shirt and do the work himself.
The two-year-old Hawai'i Kai sign on Kalaniana'ole Highway, for which the city paid $117,623, is in need of repair. While the community's neighborhood board was looking to instill pride among residents with the sign, it has become an embarrassment to some.
"The most important part of all is that we thought it would last 50 years," Luther said. "And it's not even two years old. Someone should be responsible."
The Hawai'i Kai sign on Kalaniana'ole Highway built by C&C Engineering shows a large crack and fissures around the words.
