Group scrambles for funds
to preserve ailing cemetery
Niche and plot owners are scrambling to devise a plan of reorganization to keep Honolulu Memorial Park from being liquidated .
The cemetery owners' attorney informed the group by letter that he will file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy unless they come up with a plan.
Jerrold Guben, attorney for the Richards brothers who own the cemetery, must file a status report with federal Bankruptcy Court on Thursday.
Honolulu Memorial Park filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2001, throwing its deteriorating 119-foot pagoda into question.
Volunteer attorney Chris Porter said the Friends of Honolulu Memorial Park is considering a two-pronged proposal to shore up funding for maintaining the cemetery.
Setting up a nonprofit organization would allow fund-raising to be conducted to pump more money into the cemetery's perpetual care fund and maintain the park as well as allow the group to seek governmental and private funding to restore the pagoda.
Porter said the group's "focal point is maintenance and care of the park/cemetery."
Once that is achieved, the group can then focus on a long-term plan for fund-raising to restore the pagoda.
Architectural historian Lorraine Palumbo said federal funding through a state Highways Division program to preserve the pagoda looks promising because the structure is part of the landscape of Pali Highway, a scenic route.
"We're very hopeful; we think it's going to go through," said Palumbo, president of the Friends.
A specialist in concrete restoration has estimated the renovation would cost between $1.4 million and $1.7 million, while a demolition estimate was $400,000.
Palumbo said that while the pagoda's interior is in perfect condition, the concrete exterior is crumbling, the leaking roof needs repair and the building needs repainting.
Bankruptcy Judge Robert Faris allowed the Richards family to withdraw its reorganization plan in February, which included a proposal to demolish the pagoda.
A Hawaii cemetery operator has not moved forward with an offer to buy the cemetery, Guben said. The prospective buyer had proposed tearing down the pagoda and building a new columbarium, and would sell niches, to finance the cemetery's perpetual care fund to maintain it.
"The publicity has not helped," he said.
The cemetery's perpetual care fund, which niche and plot purchasers had paid into, had fallen to $1 million and can't be touched for maintenance until it reaches an estimated $2 million.
Guben said Honolulu Memorial Park cannot confirm a plan of reorganization since the bankruptcy code requires it to pay all unpaid administrative expenses in full and in cash when it is approved by the court.
"It simply doesn't have the amount of money necessary to pay all the unpaid administrative expenses," he said.
Anyone interested in supporting the Friends' efforts should contact Ann Ono at 235-1534 or Palumbo at 285-1184.