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<br /> Murashige Laura <br /> <br /> From: Eric Mecklenburg [emecklenburg@gmail.comj <br /> <br /> Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 10:33 AM <br /> <br /> To: counciltestimony@co.hawaii.hi.us <br /> Cc: Jeanne Ryan; Loren; Randal; Linda Cholas; Linda Cholas; Sherri Fujita; Mary Gaddis; <br /> Rebecca Kenney; Suzanne Kita; kits@hawaii.edu; 'Osh' Larish; Randal McEndree; Eric <br /> Mecklenburg; Mela; mgaddis@hawaii.edu; Ellen Okuma; Patrick Reilly; Karen Riley; Kate <br /> Sims; scline@hawaii.edu; stevencc@hawaii.edu; leebowden@hawaii.rr.com; <br /> smarten@earthlink.net; chaseandhanes@yahoo.com; akama; Mandy Silva <br /> Subject: Please Limit Big Island big-box Stores <br /> Dear Council Members, <br /> Please limit Big Island Big-Box Stores. <br /> I saw what these stores do to a community in the town where 2 last taught Storm Lake, <br /> Iowa. The town of Storm Lake has a University, a Tyson Chicken plant, a K-Mart where <br /> people get their groceries, and the boarded up remnants of a dying commercial center where <br /> people used to shop at small businesses. Micheal Pollen in The Omnivore's Dilemma spends <br /> a good long chapter discussing how Iowa is a food desert, how, in spite of their being <br /> surrounded by wonderful farmland, the farms do not grow what the people need to eat any <br /> more because it was not commercially viable, and as a result, there is no diversity. The <br /> availability of food there was worse than on the island I lived on in Micronesia, where <br /> sometimes you couldn't find an onion for a couple of months. These big-box stores limit <br /> opportunity for local farmers. <br /> They limit opportunity for local involvement in the commerce surrounding a broad spectrum <br /> of those things from which a town's character comes from. Homogeneity, in all its forms, <br /> is a bad idea, and that is what these stores do, they homogenize. Local culture and <br /> character are strong here, it is true, and that is why we choose to live here. Vote to <br /> protect it. Vote to limit Big Island big-box Stores. <br /> Eric Mecklenburg <br /> Hilo <br /> (608) 974-7434 <br /> h: <br /> L~ <br /> n <br /> ~a <br /> b.~ <br /> I <br /> f_.] <br /> - ro <br /> Gomm. No. Z • Z <br /> Ref. To: tree <br /> Ref. L7ate„ Ef3 0 7 2007 <br /> i <br /> <br />