COM 0634.004 2006-2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Let me go further, I am co-owner of business in Kailua Kona, and I serve as a volunteer on three business organizations. I have the experience to relate to you that businesses in Kailua Kona are suffering daily with the traffic crisis. The visitors from the Kohala coast are not willing to travel to Kailua Kona for shopping and dinning. Their numbers have been decreasing for over four years. I have personally heard that traffic from the airport to Kailua Village takes over an hour during the week-days. You could hire the most knowledgeable traffic specialist in the world and he or she will not be able to solve this huge problem. It will take years of excellent planning of roads, changing patterns of driving behavior and creating affordable housing. There is such a severe job shortage here that retired people in their 70's are being brought back to the part-time work force. The new recent development across from HPM will be a mega-shopping area and hopefully it will have an in and out access roads, and will it cause more traffic congestion,?, of course it will. There are very serious problems that the Planning Commission must address, please bring back the vote to the County Council for the Ban on Superstores. We are only an island of 175,000. and most "Superstores" would select a city of at least 450,000. Please do the math and support local businesses and keep the aloha. I am enclosing a "Big Box Economic Impact Studies" report which is 11 pages. It will confirm that we must address all of the concerns that are raised in this study. Please read and decide the impacts to our island. We can become a beautiful tourist destination without "Superstores". Thank you for your time. The island of Kauai successfully banned "Superstores" Aloha ' 1~ dnv Ma 'e Agui cc: County ouncil cc: Mayor Harry Kim Encl. Big Box Economic Impact Studies