Community volunteers came together bright and early Saturday morning at Blaisdell Park in Pearl City to clean and beautify the Pearl Harbor Bike Path and shoreline. A group of about twenty volunteers led by Honolulu City Councilman Breene Harimoto, who represents District 8 (Waipahu – Pearl City – Aiea), split up into two work crews to clean along the bike path from Blaisdell Park, heading east, to Cutter Ford in Aiea, and in the westbound direction to the Hawaiian Electric Company Waiau Power Plant.
"I appreciate everyone coming out to help this morning," said Councilman Breene Harimoto. ”Today we have the Pearl City Community Association, my staff, and various Lions Club members. This is great. Everybody just wants to help. What we're trying to do is do activities regularly here to bring people back to the trail and just to liven it up and have it more well used. The more people that use it, the more experiences they will have, and the cleaner it will be. It hopefully will keep the homeless people away. We're just trying to beautify it. The first step is to get people here.”
Harimoto is focused on making the Pearl Harbor Bike Path that runs along miles of historic Pearl Harbor shoreline, a frequently used thoroughfare that is enjoyed by local residents as well as the millions of visitors to the Arizona Memorial from all over the world. Introducing and implementing the Pearl Harbor Historic Trail vision plan is paramount to the success of any future efforts to bring the plan to fruition.
"The ultimate goal is the Pearl Harbor Historic Trail Vision," Harimoto said. "Once we get people coming to the trail regularly, then we can start activating the trail by getting the master plan implementing which is really trying to get into a historic cultural event so it’s a destination for locals as well as visitors. With the millions of visitors going to the Arizona Memorial, we can tap into just a portion of those. Like a bike share. From the Arizona Memorial, ride the path, stop at businesses along the way, restaurants, and patronize our local businesses. Let them get the experience of the harbor from “the other side” a win, win for everybody."
Saturday’s bike path clean-up served as the start of what hopefully will grow into more activities supported by partnerships and a strong core of dedicated community volunteers.
"We're starting slow with just a monthly activity, and I think from there, as we bring different organizations to partner with us, our monthly clean ups can turn into more frequent events, and different kind of events,” Harimoto said. “We're hoping to work with like the Hawaii Bike League. We're hoping to have a big event here, where we can do like a bike event day. Families will come down, they will teach kids and adults to ride bicycles along the path, and we can also do a big clean up along path, for an example.
Harimoto was happy and pleased with the turnout and enthusiasm of Saturday's Pearl Harbor Bike Path community volunteer clean-up team.
"I really want to thank all the volunteers and hopefully we can do bigger and more frequent events."
Photo by Barry Villamil | [email protected]
Honolulu City Councilman Breene Harimoto works his way back to Blaisdell Park with a full bag of
rubbish that was collected along the Pearl Harbor Bike Path from the park to Cutter Ford in Aiea.
Photo by Barry Villamil | [email protected]
Keri Yatogo (left), who is an intern for Councilman Harimoto, and her boyfriend Brock Nakashima,
pick up rubbish near the Pearl Harbor shoreline, just a few feet off of the bike path near Blaisdell Park.
Both Yatogo and Nakashima are currently attending college in the mainland.
Photo by Barry Villamil | [email protected]
Pearl City Community Association President and Mana Loa-Nimitz Lions Club Officer, Warren Hiromoto
(left), and Pearl City Lions Club Board Member, Dexter Aoki (right), take a break for a photo at Blaisdell
Park in Pearl City after spending three hours Saturday morning painting over graffiti on the bike path near
Lehua Avenue. Mahalo for your never ending service and dedication in improving our community.