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<br /> PC-5 Page 3 December 19, 2000 <br /> Resources. There may be some misconceptions about the BLNR because tt is so <br /> different from most other state and county boazds and commissions. The BLNR has <br /> direct managerial and executive responsibility over the Department of Land and <br /> Natural Resources. To make a compazison, although the County Planning <br /> Commission, like the BLNR, has important permit-granting functions, it does not <br /> have executive responsibilities over the Planning Department.' <br /> • stated according to the State Constitution, art. XI, sec.2 the BLNR is the "executive <br /> boazd" responsible for the administration of the natural resources of the state, <br /> including state land H R S Section 26-15, defines the BLNR as the "executive <br /> boazd" which heads the Department of Land and Natural Resources, whuch must <br /> "manage and administer" the public lands of the state and all water and coastal lands <br /> of the state H.R.S Section 171-3 has almost identical provisions. <br /> • states the "BLNR cannot be equated with a board that meets a few Ames a yeaz and <br /> approves decisions made by management Anyone who observes BLNR meetings <br /> would recognize that the boazd made independent decisions after considerable <br /> analysis. <br /> • undertook special assignments, at the request of the vanous chairpersons, in which <br /> he negotiated a land exchange in Kona involving property worth more than $50 <br /> million; attended dozens of community meetings, besides the regular board <br /> meetings, met with lessees concerning their individual problems; signed contracts <br /> (along w,th the chairperson), ranging from hundreds to millions of dollazs; reviewed <br /> and approved hundreds of real property appraisals; received and reviewed most of <br /> the correspondence of the Hawaii District Land Office; met with legislators <br /> concerning the DLNR's budget, and drafted proposed legislation on the <br /> Conservation district <br /> Citing all of these assigninents, Mr Yuen feels he was "involved in high-level <br /> administrative work for eight yeazs He also notes that the DLNR has twenty times as <br /> many employees as the County Planning Department, and although he was not there on <br /> a full-time basis, if actual hours are calculated, it would be the equivalent of three full- <br /> time years <br /> Mr. Yuen also explained that if the term "administrative" means the day to day supervision of <br /> employees, then he has supervised employees in his law business for 13 yeazs, on his farm for 6 <br /> years, and as a National Pazk Service interpretive naturalist. <br /> Mr Yuen explained too that he submitted the letter because he is a very thorough person in what <br /> he does, and likes to do things cazefully, and "sometimes it's best to do flings in writing that <br /> they're not misunderstood. If the question came up, I could sit here and give the same kind of <br /> answer but it would be more of an off the cuff basis,...and would take up ] 0 or 15 minutes of <br /> your time " <br /> In response to a question from Committee Member Gary Safarik, he explained that he submitted <br /> a memo to his Planning Department staff saying he has removed himself from any decision- <br /> making in the cellulaz tower issue which he was involved in <br /> PC-5 <br /> <br />