PAPA‘A — Beach access proponents won their battle yesterday when Mayor Bryan Baptiste revealed the results of a title research, announcing that a beach access exists along private property to Papa‘a Bay. But before the public attempts to use a
PAPA‘A — Beach access proponents won their battle yesterday when Mayor Bryan Baptiste revealed the results of a title research, announcing that a beach access exists along private property to Papa‘a Bay.
But before the public attempts to use a road along movie producer Peter Guber’s Tara Ranch, the mayor cautioned that the exact location of the beach access route must be established and the public should not assume the access is through existing driveways or roads on the property.
Yesterday, when a TGI reporter went to take pictures of the disputed road, three members of the Tara maintenance staff approached him. He stayed outside of the disputed area, and there was no incident. The three maintenance workers said that they had not yet heard of the mayor’s announcement.
“We want to meet with the landowner to discuss the location of the public access,” Baptiste said. “The county is committed to taking the steps necessary to maintain public access to Papa‘a Beach for the people of Kaua‘i.”
Paul Alston, who has represented Paul Guber, the Los Angeles-based film executive owner of Mandalay Ranch at Papa‘a, was not immediately available to comment on the study.
Baptiste said the study done by Big Island attorney Michael Matsukawa, a specialist in access, shows a public access has always existed over a part of Guber’s property known as the Widemann Reservation.
“Through the Widemann estate, there is some type of public road, and we say that it has existed,” Baptiste said in an interview with The Garden Island. “And no information has shown that has changed over the years. Nothing to say that the road has been done away with.”
Baptiste said the challenge is identifying the alignment, and that he hopes to be able to do that with the help of Guber or any new owner of the 172-acre Papa‘a Bay estate, named the Tara Ranch.
The property had reportedly been put on the market for between $30 and $40 million.
“We hope to sit down with the landowner to see if there is something we can work on,” Baptiste said in trying to identify and reestablish the public access to the beach.
Whether identification of the route can be accomplished will depend on the “reception of the landowner,” whether it be Guber or a new landowner, Baptiste said.
“We hope to do it through friendly conversation for the benefit of the people of Kaua‘i,” Baptiste said. “We hope it will be an amiable discussion.”
No defined path runs makai from a gate that blocks access to the Papa‘a Bay shoreline, Baptiste said. People have walked over grassy areas to get to the beach.
“The exact location isn’t as important in my mind. It is getting the public access for the people,” Baptiste said.
At one time, representatives for Guber had proposed a public pathway on the southern boundary of Guber’s estate.
But that option was not pursued because the proposed route was considered too steep for senior citizens and young families to use safely.
Many of the people who have fought to regain access along the road to Papa‘a Bay were surprised and overjoyed by the mayor’s release.
Bill Young, who is being sued by Guber’s Mandalay Properties for slander of title, inciting trespass, injurious falsehood, and tortious interference over his publishing a report that access existed along the government road, said he was “overwhelmed” by the news.
“I salute the efforts of all of those who worked so hard on the mayor’s Ka Leo o Kaua‘i Anahola group to do the research that proved to many of us months ago that the road leading to Papa‘a Beach was a public access,” Young said in an e-mail.
“I am hopeful this will mean the lawsuit against me will be dropped along with the charges against those accused of trespassing on public property,” Young said.
David Denson, who was one of four people arrested for trespass last December 28 at a Papa‘a Beach access “celebration,” said he expressed “shock and disbelief” when told of the results of the county’s research.
“I don’t know whether to kiss them or hate them,” said Denson.
He added that he is still awaiting trial in District Court on simple trespass charges, even though in the mayor’s press release on Papa‘a Bay, prepared by the county attorney’s office, it said the case was dismissed.
Misdemeanor criminal trespass charges against three defendants, Denson, Ka‘iulani Edens-Huff, and Evelyn DeBuhr, were dismissed by District Court Judge Gerald Matsunaga in April. The prosecutor’s office refiled charges of simple trespass, a violation later in May. The fourth defendant, Liko Martin, plead guilty to the misdemeanor in February.
The deputy prosecuting attorney handling the case, Rosa Flores, as well as the first deputy prosecuting attorney, Craig De Costa, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Edens-Huff said yesterday she believed that the presence of 20 police officers to block access to the beach in December was a travesty.
“I would certainly hope that if I ever felt threatened in my neighborhood, I could erect a ten-foot fence with barbed wire and get a swat team as they did for Mandalay Bay,” Edens-Huff said in a phone interview yesterday.
Edens-Huff, Denson and Young all expressed their appreciation to the kupuna, elder or ancestor, who have worked to reopen a road they had used for years before Guber bought Mandalay Bay.
One of the kupuna they acknowledged, Nani Rodgers, said she is still waiting to see the paperwork before she trusts the release.
“I want to see the palapala,” she said. “But I’m very thrilled to hear something we already know.”
Judy Dalton, member of the Kaua‘i Group of the Sierra Club Access Committee. could not contain her enthusiasm when told of the announcement via phone yesterday. She yelped for joy when told the news.
“Sierra Club’s Access Committee has devoted several hundred hours of volunteer time and invested hundreds of dollars into thoroughly investigating public access to Papa‘a Beach,” she said in an e-mail later. “All research indicates that there is a government road leading through the old Wideman reservation.” and through Tara Ranch.”
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and lchang@pulitzer.net.
Staff writer Tom Finnegan can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 226)
