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

Home

Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 25, 2019 CHR. ADAMS: Thank you very much. If I could ask Maya Parish to please come to the table. Ms. Withington. TONI WITHINGTON: Proposal No. CA -9 and CA -18 commenting, Proposal No. CA -8 in opposition, and Proposal No. CA -17 in support. MS. WITHINGTON: Yes. Thank you for coming out here, all this way on a nice day like this. Especially, I think a lot of our people are out mowing lawns now because we have had two weeks of rain. My name is Toni Withington and I represent several Kohala groups for two of the things that I would like to talk about and myself for two. I represent five groups of people, of community groups that have been working in open space and coastal preservation for about 40 years now. I have spoken to you before so I am not, I am going to try not to repeat anything. The groups are, Kohala Lihikai, Ka Makani 0 Kohala `Ohana, Malama Kohala Kahakai, Maika`i Kamakani 0 Kohala, and Malama Wahi pana 0 Kohala,. We very much support CA -9 with the idea that it is better to have one person staff. One person working full-time can do this job. I have been working with PONC staff for... ever since they started, 2007, 2000 something... and having one person full-time would really get this job done and be able to have things proceed in an orderly fashion. We have found times when we couldn't get responses from PONC people because they were off doing other things and it is just... these types of acquisitions need almost constant going and the big complaint that a lot of the owners have said is that it just takes so long to get from the point of starting negotiations to the end, to the clearing of it, and that is because we haven't had somebody in the County working full-time on this, so that... our groups really do support that part of it. Just a single staff person. On CA -18, which is the amendments that Commissioner Rice has put forward, we very much support those too. The groups that I represent currently steward four pieces of land, four projects, two of them through the maintenance fund and it is very difficult, like John says, to get people to come out year after year after year if there is no incentive to keep the work going and having, being able to bring professional people in to do things. And, the way that it was structured originally was too rapid, it is you know, everybody, even Brenda Ford who wrote it says that it didn't work out right. It needs to be in the Finance Department, the people who know how to do grants, and it needs to be more flexible than it is right now. So, I think those are the two things that I would like to support for your consideration. Now stepping into the individual, I would like to speak to CA -8 which is the Council terms. I am very much in favor of the two-year terms and the reason I am in favor of the two-year terms is this, we live at the end of the road. We are, as you know, just coming out here, it is hard to get people to come out here. We are all excited that we have a chance to talk to you. It is very hard to get people out here and what we know from experience is the most time that we get people out here is before an election. Truly. That is when we get to see our people in... on a Page 6