Residents to mayor: Defuse Hanalei
by Charlotte Woolard – The Garden Island
HANALEI — North Shore residents called for the mayor to take a stand on the re-emergence of tour boats at the Hanalei River Boatyard — before the Monday launch of the first vessel.
That event could ramp up tensions in a community that still remembers the boating war of the 1980s and 1990s, said Carl Imparato, president of the Hanalei-Ha‘ena Community Association.
“The frustration level is rising,” he said. “It’s tearing the scabs off wounds that haven’t healed.”
He drafted a letter yesterday urging the mayor to shut down the boatyard or to let the community know of permits that allow the facility to be used as a base for tour operations.
A spokeswoman for the mayor declined to comment on the letter, saying that Mayor Bryan Baptiste will meet with members of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, the county Planning Department and other county officials today.
“We’re researching the whole situation,” Mary Daubert said. “We need to have a clear picture.”
Lady Ann Cruises, doing business as Na Pali Explorer, delivered its first vessel, the 38-foot Ocean Adventure, to the boatyard last week. Mary Kagawa Garcia, co-owner, said the company scheduled the first tour Monday.
Residents protested daily outside the boatyard this week, and county and state officials held a flurry of closed meetings.
In 2003 a federal judge ruled the state’s zero-boat policy for tour operators in Hanalei Bay unconstitutional. The decision removed the only regulation the state had set to govern commercial traffic in the area, Peter Young, chair of the DLNR, said.
But Imparato said Hanalei does not need state regulations to control the number of tour boats in the bay.
His letter outlined various permits and letters obtained from the county Planning Department and related to land-based operations like launching from the boatyard.
“We have the documents that indicate that this should not be an issue,” Imparato said. “The county is the one that has to step up and show the permits or show the badges.”
