MIN CHARTER 2019-03-25 (2018-2020) - Public Hearing

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 25, 2019 already doing, and I know Toni Withington and her groups up here are already doing that. This could also create jobs in rural economically depressed areas of the island and alleviate volunteer burnout. This will help younger people who need income to work on the island and allow the non -profits to rely less on old retired folks like me and fostering the next generation of good land stewards. So, that is what we are... let's see, so in addition, oh in addition, I can't even read my own writing, sorry. In addition, I have been talking to people and I know you are talking and discussing about having the elections in November. This coming November, and I... nobody can figure out why that is a good idea. I mean the extra expense and why it is justified, I mean as far as I know, it is $200,000 to $300,000 to have another election. So, I think that if we wait until 2020 to have the election on the Charter Amendments they will be well vetted, all the questions will be answered by everyone around the island. Again, thank you for driving all the way up here, I hope you enjoyed the drive. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you very much. I would ask Toni Withington to come to the table. Mr. Winter. JOHN WINTER: Proposal No. CA -9 and CA -18, commenting. MR. WINTER: Hello, my name is John Winter. I am a past Chair of the North Kohala Community Development Action Committee and I am representing Sustainable Kohala and I would just like to thank you all, A, for coming up here, and B, for serving on the Board and doing that work you are doing. I suspect like our action committee, you are paid about the same amount, so I am particularly grateful for that. It is a lot of work to do and there is you know, satisfaction is about the only recompense you are going to get for that so... I am also very glad that Ms. Hecht went first because she has limited what I have to say down to maybe like what she said, but this 2% Fund has really been important and because of the work of Toni and our community access group, it has really helped the nature of... sustaining the nature of North Kohala and many other places on the island and I really appreciate your resistance to any attempts to erode this and degrade this fund. It has been really, really important for the very nature of this island. I agree with Ms. Hecht about the single staff person, all the money from that fund that can go into land acquisition would be better, and having too many staff would take away from that. Incidentally, if it does come up to $100,000, I think there's five people in the audience who would volunteer for that position. I also agree that transferring over the control on CA -18, to the Department of Finance in handling the volunteers is better and being able to pay volunteers is really important. That is not taken out of the 2% fund that is from non-profit funds up here that just allow us to use those funds to keep people from burning out. I am Chair of our Coqui Frog Coalition right now and trying to get people to battle coqui frogs at night etc is just... you need to pay people okay, they come with good nature, but they will burnout without it. Thank you. That's all. Page 5