Papaikou Trail Commentary

NOTE: Thanks to the anonymous commenter who sent the response below to an earlier post about the debate over Big Island beach access at the Papaikou trail.

From Papa'ikou Resident:

I live in Papa'ikou, and personally know both these owners and some of the protestors.

Yes, the public access point is extremely close to the owner's house. The owners also have an issue with people making beach fires, from which the smoke goes in their house.

Both side have valid points in this issue. It should also be noted that the owners did transform this access into an easy to use trail at their own expense, which is was not before.

I doubt that Steve Shropshire would approve the alternate trail. Charlene Prickett adamantly opposed his development proposal, so not sure that he is motivated to help her. That said, I don't know his mind, although I believe he would like to earn good will from the public so that he can get some new variation of development approved for his land.

I also do not think the eminent domain acquisition will ever get though the process (and I have some reason to think that, but I'm not able to attribute a quote on this).

Ultimately, I hope the landowners and the public will find a way to meet on this. The public in this area are passionate about this access. It should be noted that there IS access from dawn to dusk, but the night access for fishermen is not resolved as far as I know.

The issue in Papa'ikou also involves a dispute over who owns the Mill Road, which is lined with homes deeded by the sugar company to its workers. The mill included the road in its sale to Waugh and Prickett, but the former employees say they were given an undivided interest in the road decades ago.

There really is no parking and no place to create any. There is not even parking for the residents as long as the owners maintain they own the road.

One possible solution is if the owners of Pinky's store agree to allow some parking on their private lot, which they might do, but I don't know if it would only be for local users.

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Any other Big Island residents who want to weigh in? Please keep us posted on developments or news related to this case! Mahalo.

Big Island Access Battle Redux

The latest flare-up over public beach access takes us to... spins wheel... the Big Island again. Rather than rehash a variation of a familiar story we've been retelling for the past few years on every island, here's the link to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald article.

http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2010/05/13/local_news/local02.txt

I found the link by accident while checking the new CivilBeat.com site to see if they had any interesting news to report that wasn't already being covered by the Advertiser or Star-Bulletin. And what do I see? A post about the controversy over beach land and the recent court ruling in favor of the public...

Of course, there's much more involved and the new State legislation to make homeowners responsible for maintaining vegetation on ocean-front properties could have been brought into play too. But I don't know because I'm not a paying subscriber.

What's especially irritating is that Beach Access Hawaii has been at the forefront of the public shoreline access movement and generated a lot of media coverage over the past two years -- yet no one from Civil Beat bothers to contact anyone from BAH or our coalition about this issue? Did they ask why the State Legislature or county councils continue to do nothing? Has CB considered our proposal to create a Hawaii Coastal Commission to address these kind of problems?

Great job of reporting, CB! I had hoped Pierre Omidyar's investment in an alternative news source for Hawaii was going to bring some sorely needed investigative reporting. But so far, it's not much different than the normal newspaper stuff with very polite bloggers telling their paying subscribers, "Good point!"

Beach access is a volatile issue for local people and Hawaiians in particular. I've personally heard from many residents who get very emotional when they talk story about what it means to them. Yet the Civil Beat has turned it into just another dry topic of the week for "discussion." And they wonder why people aren't willing to pay even 99 cents to try it out?

For what it's worth, here's the link to the CivilBeat post... er, excerpt. BTW, we posted links to more in-depth articles on that subject months ago. Suggestion to CB reporters: try Google -- it's your friend.