LIHU‘E — An October letter from the state Historic Preservation Division to the county in support of the makai route for the multi-use path factored into Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr.’s decision Monday recommending the multi-use path on Wailua Beach, a county spokeswoman said Tuesday.

“The State Historic Preservation Division reviewed and commented on the recent OHA communication and recommended that the path proceed on the makai route,” the mayor’s executive assistant, Beth Tokioka, said in a Tuesday afternoon e-mail. “That was one thing that factored into the mayor’s decision.”

The letter, sent on Oct. 19 from SHPD Administrator Pua Aiu to Doug Haigh, chief of the county Department of Public Works Building Division, undercut the “unclear” Sept. 8 letter from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs that recommended the path plan be changed from the makai route through Wailua Beach Park to a more mauka alignment.

“The SHPD prefers an alignment that avoids going mauka of Kuhio Highway in the area of Wailua Beach. Numerous archaeological studies have been done in this area and there are known, significant sites mauka of Kuhio Highway, including the Kalaiokamanu birthstone, the piko stone, Holoholoku Heiau, known burial sites and a cultural deposit. The Weuweu-Kawai-iki fishponds at Coco Palms are also on the State Register of Historic Sites,” the letter states.

“With due respect to OHA’s concerns, SHPD believes that a mauka alignment has greater potential to disturb historic sites than the currently proposed alignment makai of Kuhio Highway along Wailua Beach,” it concludes.

OHA Administrator Clyde Namu‘o said Tuesday that it was “regrettable” that OHA’s original position in 2004 — that the path should go on the beach and not the mauka route due to cultural concerns — was different than the one stated in September.

“SHPD can say whatever they choose to, but the position we’re taking is the sands of Wailua are in fact sacred, so we would encourage the county to move the path to a more mauka position,” Namu‘o said. “I don’t see anything unclear about our position.

“We’re not trying to be combative here,” he said. “We strive to keep as much information on sacred sites as we can. It’s an evolution.”

SHPD is a division of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. OHA is the state agency that has as its mission “the perpetuation of the culture, the enhancement of lifestyle and the protection of entitlements of Native Hawaiians.”

The full two-page SHPD letter, as well as OHA’s earlier communications, can be viewed at www.kauaiinfo.org, a Web site built by Kaua‘i County Councilmembers Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara earlier this year “to facilitate ready access to information including topical resources and government documents.”

• Michael Levine, assistant news editor, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or mlevine@kauaipubco.com.