Waimanalo Parents and Coaches Protest Overgrown District Park Grass

Waimanalo Parents and Coaches Protest Overgrown District Park Grass

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“The grass is taller than her,” Tony Graziano told Hawaii News Now regarding the conditions at Waimanalo District Park, where overgrown vegetation is affecting youth sports.

Parents and coaches say children are disappearing into tall grass on uneven ground at the neighborhood park. Graziano, a boxing coach who brings athletes to the park nearly every day, said the overgrowth creates safety hazards for young participants.

“It’s the safety of the children. They can’t see where they’re running. The ground is all uneven here. You know, it’s kind of, it’s dangerous,” Graziano told Hawaii News Now. He pointed to his five-year-old goddaughter practicing nearby on a field where the grass exceeds her height.

Parent Sunnie Martinez described similar challenges keeping track of her three-year-old son at the facility. “My son is 3 years old. He’s not even 3 feet yet. So when he’s running through the grass, we lose him,” Martinez told Hawaii News Now, adding that children vanish when bending down.

Youth sports have felt disruptions from the lack of maintenance. Community member Kaleo Evans told Hawaii News Now that football teams can no longer use the field because conditions prevent painting lines or setting up cones.

Waimanalo district park waimanalo hi

Frustrated by the state of the park, community members took maintenance into their own hands. “Community members actually came out here and cut the grass on this side. The ones that practice football, soccer, and all that, they did that because they wanted a safe spot for their kids,” Graziano told Hawaii News Now.

The maintenance issues were raised at the Waimanalo Neighborhood Board meeting this month. Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation Director Laura Thielen told Hawaii News Now that mowing crews face immense geographic strain across District 4, which spans from Makapuu to Dillingham on the North Shore.

“The challenge we have in District 4, it runs from Makapuu all the way out to Dillingham on the North Shore. And so the mowing crews have such a long distance to travel. Instead of mowing weekly, at best, they’re mowing once every two weeks,” Thielen told Hawaii News Now.

A parks department spokesperson cited staff retirements in the district alongside a large mowing machine currently down for repairs, according to Hawaii News Now. To bridge the gap, Thielen suggested partnering with community groups through the city’s adopt-a-park program.

“If there is a group in Waimanalo that would like to do and adopt a park and maybe help us out with the alternate weeks and do mowing, even if it’s just of the one field or something like that, we would be really, really grateful and would love to enter into some type of agreement with any group that could assist with that,” Thielen told Hawaii News Now.

Park users rejected the proposal, arguing that upkeep remains an obligation of local government. “That’s just outrageous. The city and county gets funded for this, not us. I mean, but if I had a lot right on lawnmower, I’d come over here and do it myself,” Graziano told Hawaii News Now.

“These parents are working 8, 10 hours a day. The last thing they should be doing when they want to enjoy time with their kids and their after school curriculars is to be maintaining something that should be done by our taxpaying dollars,” Martinez told Hawaii News Now.

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