Hope on the horizon for troubled Oahu cemetery

PEARL CITY, Hawaii (KHON2) — There is good news for a local cemetery that has been plagued by vagrants for years.

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A non-profit was recently granted management responsibilities for Sunset Memorial Park in Pearl City.

Trespassing, litter and drug use in Sunset Memorial Park have all been issues for over a decade.

“We could call the police, but they couldn’t have the, they didn’t have the authority to actually evict trespassers. This new law turns over management to this nonprofit group. And so now we can evict trespassers,” Rep. Gregg Takayama said.

The last owner of Sunset Memorial passed away 12-years ago and maintenance of the 6-acre cemetery has been left in question ever since. Over 5,000 people are buried there and fresh flowers show many relatives still frequent their graves.

“I myself had relatives buried here. We relocated the grave because it had fallen into such disrepair. But many other families do still come here to pay their respects,” Rep. Takayama said.

A new law that was signed by Gov. Josh Green in July, 2024 grants a non-profit with management responsibilities over the cemetery and they have big plans for the site.

“We’re going to have video cameras and motion sensors so that our board, our board of directors that we have, occasionally we can look at our cell phones, it, pings and says, ‘Hey somebody just entered the cemetery at night, they’re not supposed to be there. Then I can work with HPD to trespass,” Friends of Sunset Memorial Park president Larry Veray said, “you know, depending on what drug they’re on, they get very violent. We had over 20 headstones knocked off the Japanese part of the cemetery.”

Veray said it will take about $38,000 to install surveillance technology and build a fence to secure the perimeter of the cemetery — he and Rep. Takayama hope that the site will soon look like the Valley of the Temples in a few years.

“Give us a year or two or maybe three, and I think we’ll turn it around,” Rep. Takayama said. “And I think it’s taken the community to work with legislators and to work with government to come up with solutions, and I think we have.”

A community town hall is in the works for mid-September for community input on the future of the cemetery, donations are also being accepted. Click here for more information.