COM 0964.190 2004-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Page 2 of 3 If you're really concerned about the fishery, this harbor will not impact the Pacific Ocean in any measurable fashion. The foreign commercial fleets are 99% responsible for the collapse of all world wide stocks predicted by the year 2048. The authors of this study are 14 of the worlds leading Marine scientists, published in Journal Science... The jobs created by an expanded harbor and subsequent expanded fleet are REAL jobs paying $30- 40.00 per hour for boat smiths, mechanics and other technical support ...NOT polishing brass and cleaning boats as someone rebutted to my earlier testimony. I hear those opposed quoting scientific studies or information without names or footnotes. All I would ask for are the names of the studies or reference material so I can review their findings. ? The recurring theme we hear for those opposed to expanding the marina is that we need to STOP everything until more infrastructure has been built, again I would like to see a project plan or study from those opposed describing what is required and a timeline that deals with the natural growth of the community and more importantly how expanded infrastructure is funded. o Right now the Marina project is 6 years away from creating any traffic or demands on Kona's infrastructure, this is more than enough time to make the necessary improvements our area desperately needs. Our dilemma of how we deal with growth is not new. As a matter of fact we have the luxury of seeing how hundreds of other communities have dealt with out very situation. This situation is only new to the Kona Community, but it's all been done before, we need to take advantage of this existing information and learn what succeeded and what did not. I am not FOR or OPPOSED to this project, I am FOR what is best for the Kona community and its future. Developing this project PROPERLY will definitely help West Hawaii, but we need to deal in hard engineering not opinions to make the correct decisions throughout the life of the project. The most important infrastructure expansion that must occur is to the staffing of the Planning & Engineering Departments for the Big Island. Without the required engineering resources in place we cannot properly evaluate things and make the right decisions. Opposing new projects out of hand and believing in zero growth has led us to our current situation: ? Failing hospitals, that cannot service the community ? The worst school system in the nation ? An extreme shortage of staff and facilities for Police, fire and emergency services ? Traffic congestion with no master plan to manage the Islands current requirement let alone future islands traffic flow ? Virtually no middle income jobs or economy for those entering the job market I appreciate everyone having an opinion they wish to express on this matter, but the only way to make good decisions for this project and others must be based on proven science and proper engineering. We need a professional engineering staff working for the community that has the capacity to analyze, design and engineer projects of this nature. From passed experience in designing and engineering infrastructure rollouts for major companies across several countries with a variety of geographical and cultural challenges I understand there is only one chance to do things right. I have personally worked in unison with the Jacoby Group and seen their performance first hand. This has made me a strong advocate for them as a developer for this project because they have the resources, experience, knowledge, ethics and ability to provide what this 11/27/2006