MIN CHARTER 2019-03-29 (2018-2020) - Public Hearing

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission — Public Hearing March 29, 2019 get it purchase it and then we got to go through this process to get a Community Stewardship Grant and our grant for 2017 comes in in December, 2018 and that was our money we were supposed to spend for 2018. We need somebody in a position to manage this. To help us as community groups. Currently we are just going through the Department of Finance asking Hamana who we know to help us with these applications. This stuff is no joke. To apply for lands to be considered by PONC and what it says in here is the public has to come forward with surveys and environmental assessments and archaeological surveys. We as the community, people who are working full-time jobs, have to put our lives on hold to be able to put together a robust application so that it will be considered hopefully on the first round. Probably maybe by the second if you are lucky. And then it takes another two years to put together the proposal for a stewardship grant. So we are talking about four years of land sitting that we are still working to try and maintain on our own. We really need somebody there that we can count on as a point person to help us, so I am just coming to you from the position of the community steward who is out there on the land trying to take care of it as best as we can. We need help cause we have no one currently to go to and ask all of our questions of and this is a big process. If we had somebody to help us through figuring all of this out, tax map keys, archaeological surveys, that would be great, so I totally am in support of CA -9. Lastly for CA -18, no, CA -27, in regards to having the County prefer an easement over acquiring an entire parcel, I think this is completely redundant and unnecessary. I totally oppose this. The language is already written in there. Purchase or otherwise acquire lands and easements. It is a done deal. We don't need all this extra rigmarole, like I said, it is already too much and it is already becoming a burdensome beast without having somebody there, so I think it is completely unnecessary and like I said, it is up to us, the public to decide if we want to put forth a proposal that includes the entire easement or an easement or the entire property. If we had a director there they could help us and say "hey, `Aina, your group should consider an easement because of X,Y, and Z" and we can say "well, we want to do this", rather than putting forth the whole proposal and it getting shot down. So I definitely think that we don't need this. I think what we really need is a person in that position to help us and it is redundant. So for all of these reasons I thank you for giving me this time to testify today and thank you guys for making your time available. Mahalo. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. If I could ask John Vose please to come to the table, and Renee. RENEE DUFAULT: Proposal No. CA -9 in support and Proposal No. CA -8 and CA -27 in opposition. MS. DUFAULT: Okay. Thank you. My name is Dr. Renee Dufault and I have lived in Kali for 11 years. I have been a community member either teaching full- time at the schools or serving on community... school community councils and right now I am teaching full-time at Kali High. I teach special education. I am a Page 8