[ OUR OPINION ]
KO OLINA Resort's request that the city accept limitations it has placed on public access easements through hotel property to the shoreline should be rejected. The City Council should insist that the resort company keep its promise to provide unlimited access, which was made in seeking approvals for the venture 15 years ago. Council should hold
resort to its word
THE ISSUE Ko Olina wants approval of its limitations to public access of the shoreline.
Councilmen Duke Bainum and Steve Holmes are correct in their assessment that allowing the resort to confine entry to certain hours of the day and for specific uses of the shoreline would set a legal precedent. The restrictions would put the Council in the position of endorsing boundaries that would conflict with state law, which says that Hawaii's shoreline belongs to the public.
The issue of public access recurs often as land along the island's ocean areas is developed. Property owners, large and small, frequently object to the public's presence because of security, nuisance and liability concerns.
Shoreline access can be affected in a number of ways, as evident in recent incidents. In Portlock, a property owner put a lock and a gate across a path to prevent the public from getting to a beach near his home. The city has moved to acquire the path to ensure access. In Kahala, expensive parking effectively limits the public's ability to get to the beach near a hotel, but the city rejected a request that the hotel provide free or reduced-cost parking.
Ko Olina limits general access to daylight hours while people who want to fish are allowed 24 hours a day. Although Ko Olina claims that "the community" has agreed to those limits, no official public hearings were conducted. To set aside wide public policy based on the vague approval of a few is unwise.
When the resort was approved for construction, the necessary permits were issued contingent on consigning the easements for unlimited access. Now Ko Olina wants to tie turning over the easements, which it has delayed doing for six years, to the city's acceptance of its restrictions. Allowing the resort owners to renegotiate the terms of its permits after the fact opens the door for others who would want to do the same.
Bainum and Holmes are bucking the Council majority in refusing Ko Olina's attempts to circumvent the public-access requirement. The lame ducks and returning members of the Council should recognize that what they do during the final weeks of their terms could affect shoreline access conditions long into the future.
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ROMAN Catholic bishops have revised their policy on sexual abuse by the clergy to conform with Vatican wishes. The revision is aimed at protecting priests' due process rights. However, it also creates a deadline for the filing of complaints that could keep hidden many past incidents of sexual molestation committed by priests who remain in contact with children in parishes. Victims who remember having been sexually abused as children may not be heard by the church, while their long-ago abusers remain a threat. 10-year deadline would
muzzle abuse victims
THE ISSUE Catholic bishops revised a policy adopted in June before submitting it to the Vatican.
The revision would impose a statute of limitations on complaints by alleged victims of sexual abuse. No such deadline was adopted in a policy approved five months ago by an American bishops conference in Dallas. The revision would require alleged victims to report their accusations within 10 years after the incident, or 10 years after they turn 18 years old, in order for the church to act. Exceptions would be granted only by the Vatican.
The problem is that many victims of sexual abuse repress memories of abuse they experienced as children. Two men who allege in a lawsuit that a former Navy chaplain sexually abused them while they were altar boys at St. John the Baptist Church in the mid-1980s say recent publicity jarred their memories of the incidents. The Rev. Joseph Bukoski was removed as pastor of Maria Lanakila Church on Maui in August because of two incidents of sexual misconduct that are alleged to have occurred more than 20 years ago.
Bishops in Dallas approved a policy that would allow them to remove sexual molesters from the priesthood following assessment by a review panel comprised mainly of lay people. A board assigned by Honolulu Bishop Francis DiLorenzo to review cases includes three priests, two psychologists, three lawyers and a family therapist. Three of the six lay people are Catholics. Under the revised policy, the board must include at least five lay Catholics.
The revised policy, expected to be ratified by bishops next week in Washington, also shifts power from those boards -- allowing them only to "advise" bishops instead of "assess" cases -- to secret tribunals made up entirely of priests trained in canon law. Accusers would be represented by a priest serving as prosecutor before such a tribunal but probably would not be allowed to attend. In an apparent attempt to dilute criticism of these changes, the church appointed a longtime FBI official to head a new office charged with assuring adherence to the policy.
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