Hapa Trail Court Decision

SUBHEAD: Goodfellows, working to destroy Poipu, has been fined, in stone, for desecrating the Hapa Trail.  

By Terrie Hayes on 30 September 2009 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2009/09/hapa-trail-court-decision.html)
Aloha Hapa Trail supporters, In February Goodfellow Brothers plowed through a portion of Hapa Trail while grubbing at "The Village at Poipu" project. They were cited by the County and the State and plead guilty.

Yesterday, in the court of Judge Trudy Senda they were fined 2,200 cubic yards of pohaku which will be used to restore the Hapa Trail walls. Together with the 2,000 linear feet Knudsen Trust must provide, this should be enough pohaku to restore both sides of the trail all the way to St Raphael's Church, as they were in 1975.

We all owe a debt of gratitude to our County Prosecutor, Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho for her diligence and hard work on behalf of Kaua`i's citizens.The pohaku will be stored on the site of Honu Group's prosective shopping center, thanks to Mona Abadir. It is a small but important victory in a long battle. Your support is appreciated and very much needed.


Image above: A pohaku with petroglyph from the Big Island displaying a man. From http://lovingthebigisland.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/the-beautiful-enigmatic-and-cryptic-petroglyphs-of-hawaii-island/  

Comment by Sharon Pomeroy (pomroys001@hawaii.rr.com) - What a wonderful and precedent setting sentence! Next time any of those obnoxious developers damage any historical, cultural site their pockets will certainly feel the pinch.

Couple of things I see as potentially adverse. The least is... I'm thinking if I were the developer I would appeal such an unusual sentence. Most bothersome is the pohaku. Where do you get that much pohaku with out any of it coming from another cultural site?

Who is going to monitor the gathering of the pohaku? What was the actual wording of the fine? Did She say "pohaku" or "Stone"? Most important is what kind of pohaku will they supply? If the judge meant the traditional lava pohaku that is used for traditional dry stacked wall construction ok. If she said 2,200cy of STONE then that's basalt or any type rock and easy enough to get.

They could be farts about it and bring in 50 big boulders that measure out to 2,200 cys. For me Terrie, it's been decades of "judgments/settlements" that have gone awry because of a definition squabble. Because of an appeal reversal. You still gotta watch those baskeds.

All you folks have done a fantastic job on Hapa Trail restoration. It is indeed an excellent decision. Hoorah! Lani Ha'a ha'a!

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

Aloha!

Thanks for using my photograph!

Dr. Donald B. MacGowan

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