Plans For West Hawaii Parks
West Hawaii needs more and better parks.
The plans for creating new parks and improving existing parks in West Hawaii will be the subject of the Kona Town Meeting, held on Tuesday, November 17th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at the Makaeo Events Pavilion at the Old Airport Park.
Guest speakers will be Bob Fitzgerald, Director of County Parks and Recreation, who will speak about the Old Kona Airport Park(Makaeo) redesign, a timeline for building the parks and how we will get the funding to build the park facilities. Craig “Bo” Kahui, Executive Director of La’i'opua 2020, will give an update on obtaining the land for the West Hawaii Regional Sports Park in Kealakehe.
Andy Smith, West Hawaii Liaison for Governor Linda Lingle will speak about the Department of Land and Natural Resources Parks Renaissance Program. Fred Cachola, who served on the Federal Advisory Commission that created Kaloko- Honokohau and Kalaupapa National Parks. Mr. Cachola will speak on the Blue (ocean) Trail and the Brown(land) Trail, which is the 175-mile long, Ala Kahakai trail. David Hirt, Legislative Aide for Kelly Greenwell, will speak on Councilmember Greenwell’s plan for West Hawaii’s parks.
Kona Town Meetings are presented by Community Enterprises, a non-partisan, non-profit organization, to provide vital information on community concerns to Kona citizens. Light refreshments will be served. Please call Debbie Hecht 989-3222 for more information.
I have a list of parks from about 5 years ago. At that time there were 854 acres of park on the Hilo side. The Kona side had 150 acres of which the West Hawaii Veterans Cemetery was the biggest park with 61 acres!! Personally I would not take my kids to play in a cemetery. It looks like we are going to get a few more acres on the Kona side with the development of the Old airport, but we still have a long way to go to catch up with the Hilo side.