Church's offer: Trade cleanup for park space
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
A church group wants to provide volunteers to clean a portion of Sand Island State Park for the next two years, and in exchange, is asking the state for exclusive use of a canoe hale it plans to build at the park.
State Land Board meeting on New Hope Christian Fellowship O'ahu's proposal for Sand Island State Park 9 a.m. tomorrow, Kalanimoku Building, 1151 Punchbowl St., ground floor conference room
New Hope Christian Fellowship O'ahu is offering to provide volunteers to repair and maintain the neglected baseball fields at the park and build two canoe storage buildings at no cost to the state, one for use by the public and the other for use by the church. The agreement would be part of the state's Curator Program, in which nonprofit and cultural groups take on a stewardship role for specific locations in the state park system.
Meeting tomorrow
The proposal, which will be discussed at the state Board of Land and Natural Resources meeting tomorrow, has raised concerns among environmental and civil rights groups, who say the request is inappropriate.
New Hope Executive Pastor Elwin Ahu declined to comment on the request, and directed questions to Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona, who has worked with the church in an advisory capacity on the request.
Aiona's staff told The Advertiser that Aiona advised the group on the project, but had no involvement officially and had no comment on the effort.
Dan Quinn, state parks administrator, said the 140-acre Sand Island park could really use the help. He said the park staff has been cut from 12 to five people and the volunteers would make much-needed improvements to the baseball fields.
"The ball fields are in unusable condition at this time," Quinn said. "We've had league play there in the past and they were doing the maintenance. That was several years back and the fields have not been used since."
Jeff Mikulina, director of Sierra Club Hawai'i Chapter, said he supports volunteer cleanup efforts, but is concerned about the request to have exclusive use of a canoe hale.
"We do have concerns about creating an exclusive use in a state park," Mikulina said.
Local attorney Roger Fonseca, a member of American Civil Liberties Union of Hawai'i, said the arrangement also could be illegal.
"There is normally nothing wrong with a church using government property open to the public in the same way that non-religious organizations may use it," he said. "But to allow a church to erect and maintain a building in a public park, for the exclusive use of the members of that church, would be forbidden by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the church cannot 'buy' its way out of that violation by erecting another building for nonchurch members or promising to share in the upkeep of the park."
Peter Young, chairman of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, said the state attorney general's office is looking into legal questions about the New Hope curator agreement for the Land Board.
Young said a decision to accept the agreement or not will be up to the Land Board. He said church leaders have told him if the canoe houses are not approved, they would still move forward with their volunteer project.
Volunteers are an important part of maintaining the 25,000 acres of state land spread out over 52 parks.
The most recent figures, from 2001, show 3,872 people provided 65,313 hours of volunteer labor.
Many of the volunteers work through the state's Curator Program, which began in 1987 to encourage community involvement in the care and management of historic and cultural sites.
Reach James Gonser at 535-2431 or jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com
