Vandals busted up the restroom by Kapiʻolani Community College at Diamond Head more than a year ago. The facility sits there day after day, open to the public but still unrepaired.

Outside, two water fountains are unusable because their handles are missing.

In the womenʻs restroom, only one of the two toilets works. The sink has been ripped off the wall.

Next door, the menʻs restroom has only a urinal. The single toilet has been smashed and the sink also ripped off the wall.

Sometimes people sleep in the restroom at night. Because there is no toilet and only a urinal left working on the menʻs side, those sleepers sometimes defecate on the floor.

When I walked by recently, a maintenance worker was standing by the graffitied door of the menʻs restroom. I asked her if the city had fixed anything.

“Stay broke,” she said.

Whatʻs even more inexplicable is the smashed pieces of the broken toilets are still out there dotting the dirt beside the restroom. At the very least, the city should have removed that mess. You have to wonder if government executives are unaware the fragmented pieces of toilet seats serve as a message from the city to the public saying, “We donʻt care.” 

Those who do care can be found among the thousands of tourists and residents — including me — who crowd into the popular Saturday Farmers Market at KCC.

Their only alternative for a restroom is in the community college cafeteria reached by a six-minute uphill walk that includes two flights of stairs. Not an easy option for elderly shoppers or people with disabilities.

A History Of Disrepair

“The city has clearly taken too long to get this facility back up and running, and we appreciate the work you and Civil Beat are doing in holding us accountable when that is the case,” city spokesman Ian Scheuring wrote in response to my inquiry asking why the city seems to have ignored the damage.

Scheuring pointed out that vandals are wrecking toilets and sinks in many facilities and the city has to prioritize which restrooms to fix first. It manages 216 comfort stations at parks across Oʻahu.

“The unfortunate truth is that we’re always going to have a to-do list when it comes to repairing facilities that have been senselessly destroyed — sadly, it takes a lot longer to repair a sink or toilet or drinking fountain than it does to destroy one,” Scheuring said.

He said the city will fix this comfort station as soon as it can, possibly installing more resilient toilets and sinks. And it is looking into better ways to protect the facility such as closing it down at night as it did during the pandemic.

“While we would prefer to leave our facilities open for the vast majority of law-abiding users, we understand that this approach is not always practical, especially when repeated acts of vandalism are involved,” he said.

The drinking fountains cannot be fixed until the Department of Facilities Maintenance finds the shut-off valve for the water to allow it to do the repair work.

Problems at the comfort station at KCC have been recurring over many years. I first wrote a column about the continuing disrepair more than seven years ago.

At that time, the broken urinal in the menʻs restroom was unusable and covered up with plastic wrapping. One of the two toilets in the womenʻs restroom was also out of order. Farmers market customers waited in long lines on Saturdays to use the partially operational facility.

That was when Brian Miyamoto began to suggest shoppers trek up to the restroom on the KCC campus.

Miyamoto is the executive director of the Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau, the nonprofit organization that runs the KCC market and three other farmers markets on Oʻahu.  

When I interviewed Miyamoto back in 2017, he had dispatched the marketʻs then-general manager, Kacey Robello, to try to do something about the broken bathroom fixtures.

“We want to make sure people have a positive experience at the market,” Miyamoto said.

City Wants To Keep It Open

In a recent phone interview, Miyamoto described the condition of the restroom now as “really bad. I was there last month. I thought, ‘I canʻt use this.’”

Market workers continue to direct customers to the bathroom facility up on the college campus and, in addition, Miyamoto is seeking permission for customers and market vendors to use two working toilets in the former U.S. Army chapel by the market’s entrance.

When the comfort station by KCC first opened in 2006, it had so much promise. The administration of former Mayor Jeremy Harris built it as a neighborhood facility for bicyclists and other recreational users. It was designed to have showers, lockers and changing rooms on both the menʻs and womenʻs sides.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann inherited the uncompleted project when he succeeded Harris and ditched the idea of installing the lockers and showers. The benches in the formerly envisioned shower stalls are where homeless people come at night to sleep.

Because it was originally planned as a bikersʻ facility, the restroom is the responsibility of the Department of Transportation Services.

Considering all the money the city spends on cleaning and supplies for the restroom when it is barely useable, it might make better sense to close it down for good. But the city says thatʻs not an option.

“We have not discussed permanently shutting down,” said Scheuring. “We do not believe it is appropriate to punish users who are capable of using the restroom without destroying anything.”

The city urges the public to use the city’s 311 app to report vandalism and other damage to city facilities.  Civil Beat also has an initiative called “Fix It” for readers to generate government action so public facilities donʻt “stay broke.”

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