Residents clear
on city services,
but not funding

Honolulu residents want satellite city halls, trash pickup twice a week, and recreational services such as Summer Fun, senior activities and botanical gardens, but there's no agreement on where the funding should come from, according to a survey prepared for the City Council.

Poll Question Here is one of the questions asked of 1,019 heads of households on Oahu as part of a City Council survey Oct. 13-26: QUESTION 4 Some people feel the city's parks are essential to our quality of life and our tourism and we should have as many as possible. Others say we have too many to maintain properly and we should consider limiting development of new parks. Right now, it costs $23 million a year to maintain the city's 294 parks. Which of these closely matches your opinion? 43 percent: Parks are essential, but we should consider charging those who use them to help pay the maintenance costs. 35 percent: Parks are critical to Honolulu. We should continue funding them at the current level, even if my property taxes go up. 14 percent: I don't think that parks are a core city service, and I think those who use them should pay all the costs of maintaining them. 8 percent: Don't know. Source: Ward Research Inc. for the City Council

"Overall, the one finding that's very clear is that there's no one fix ... that residents are comfortable with when it comes to the various challenges that are facing you when it comes to financing services," Ward Research Inc. President Becky Ward told the Council's Planning Committee yesterday. "It is clear that residents do not see a silver bullet."

Ward's firm conducted the $24,000 survey, which also showed that a majority of those polled think it's time the state Legislature gave the city more "flexibility" in raising money.

"That's obviously going to be critical if you look at some of the other results of this survey," said Planning Chairwoman Barbara Marshall, who spearheaded the survey as part of the Council's Priorities Long-term and Now (PLAN) to help with the budgeting process.

"This is what the people have told us they want, or what they're willing to pay for, or what they're willing to have additional fees for," Marshall said.

The telephone survey questioned 1,019 heads of households Oct. 13-26. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The survey found:

For example, Councilman Gary Okino said he doesn't believe the survey showed a clear mandate against charging a user fee for trash pickup. He said single-family-home owners, who don't pay for trash pickup, would be less likely to want to pay for the service than condominium owners, most of whom pay private haulers for the service.

Okino said the question showed "a lack of understanding of what the real situation was, that I think will lead to a kind of skewed response."