|
I ask who saw this draft that was produced timely by PlaceMakers? It was not the stakeholders, not the
<br />Steering Committee, not the community of Ka'u, nor the current consultants. Not only that,
<br />PlaceMakers waited forever for Ron Whitmore to contact them for revision, comments, edits, rewrites,
<br />PlaceMakers literally waited forever, for Ron Whitmore never contacted PlaceMakers for rewrite,
<br />revision, edits. Howard Blackson never received feedback on the preferred draft.
<br />As if these grave DELAYS weren't enough....Ron fires /terminates our contract with PlaceMakers. Fires
<br />PlaceMakers, our consultants and author of our Ka'u CDP, fires them over a draft. A working draft. The
<br />PlaceMaker team worked for 18 months, 2 years on the Ka'u CDP, prepares our first of three drafts,
<br />working draft. All that work.... Ron won't share, won't utilize as a draft, as the framework for our Ka'u
<br />CDP. Instead, his decision leads of course to more lengthy delays, more and more lengthy delays. Delays
<br />in finding candidates, potential new lead consultants, delays in screening, interviewing, and choosing
<br />new lead consultants, and then more lengthy delays to go through the lengthy county procurement
<br />processes in order to pay these new consultants....more lengthy delays after more lengthy delays. A two
<br />year project is now four years and more. We have spent years to get nowhere we need to progress
<br />forward.
<br />Now after we have buried our Ka'u CDP with delay after delay after delay; we have layers of conflict of
<br />interest to deal with.
<br />First conflict: Ron prepared the outline for the Ka'u CDP, not PlaceMakers.
<br />Second conflict: Ron is now writing the new, his new Draft Ka'u CDP. Why is Ron writing this new
<br />preferred draft? Why rewrite what we have. Why not just review, edit, modify and change as needed
<br />the current preferred draft Ka'u CDP. We bought it, we own it, and there is some really good stuff in it.
<br />What doesn't Ron understand about DRAFT? Draft as in working document designed to be reviewed,
<br />edited, revised. PlaceMakers provided us with a working draft why can't we work on it?
<br />Third conflict of interest: Ron's choice of consultants PBR Hawaii to replace PlaceMakers.
<br />They, PBR Hawaii, are Nani Kahuku Aina, LLC's consultant for their proposed new town Kahuku Village,
<br />here in Ka'u. I am not the only person to question this conflict of interest having PBR Hawaii work
<br />simultaneously for our Ka'u CDP and Nani Kahuku Aina, LLC's consultants for their proposed new town
<br />Kahuku Village, here in Ka'u. Below are several occasions this question has arisen and the answers only
<br />add to the confusion and reinforce the multiple levels of conflict of interest.
<br />1. Email dated Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - between Ron Whitmore, to
<br />hawaiiesparza(aol.com, and cc to Roy Takemoto of PBR Hawaii and Howard Blackson of
<br />PlaceMakers. (See Attachment A pg 1):
<br />a. It's important to understand that Roy Takemoto is not the lead planner for Nani Kahuku
<br />Aina. Tom Witten, PBR's principal, is.
<br />doing the EIS. Therefore, Nani Kahuku Aina is not Roy's vision — it's the vision of the Peroff
<br />family and their partners. Katherine Peroff or Aaron Eberhardt would be the appropriate
<br />people to share the project vision with the public, which they've been doing.
<br />It's my understanding that Roy's role is limited to
<br />2
<br />
|