MIN CHARTER 2019-04-25 (2018-2020)

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -10 April 25, 2019 DEBORAH WARD: Proposal No. CA -18 in support and Proposal No. CA -27 in opposition. MS. WARD: Aloha and good morning. I am Debbie Ward. Today I am representing Sierra Club for the Hawai`i Island group and the members of Sierra Club have special interest in the longevity and improvement of the PONC 2% Land Fund and the maintenance of the lands that we purchase on behalf of the citizens of the County. In addition to offering hikes and service projects to assist in the awareness and the enjoyment of these special places, we help to identify issues and potential solutions to things such as impacts of climate change, shoreline retreat, cultural practice, access makai and mauka without gates and barriers, and many other things. For example the dairy has recently gated the Humu'ula Access Trail and one of our citizens pointed it out to Na Ala Hele Trail System and that is being resolved. But you know if nobody's got their eyes open to things like this, we lose access to the important places that we have got protected for many reasons. We support local communities and the maintenance of acquired lands and we are aware of the difficulties that the non -profits are facing as they try to navigate the PONC Maintenance Fund process. Sometimes their allocation comes 11 months late and they have got a month to do the work that they you know applied to do a year and a half earlier. We want to make the fund usable and more efficient and available in a timely manner with the support and not the impedance of the County and we think that CA -18 amendments would help with this. The original intent of the legislation written by Brenda Ford and Debbie Hecht supported by Sierra Club, was to assist the stewardship of the non -profits to care for the land and we feel that the points made by Doug Sensenig and by Debbie Hecht and by Brenda, all point out why we should be strengthening the CA -18 to include paid labor for... in specific duties that are written into the business plan. There will be oversight. This is not going to be a slush fund for the members of non -profits. I wanted to speak briefly on... oh, I wanted to oppose 27 as well, CA -27 for the reasons stated by others. And I wanted to save the time to talk a little bit about CA -31 even though it wasn't in my Sierra Club testimony because now I am speaking on behalf of myself. In our district we have a termed out member on the PONC Commission and two months ago I applied to be on that Commission. And I believe that I am fully qualified. I spent 25 years in natural resource management at the University on the faculty. I have been hiking on this island for nearly 50 years and have lived in the islands for more than 50 years. I do know the land. I have done a lot of service projects, I have served on five Mayor's Commissions and I show up and I do the work. It is not that there is anything not qualified, so the fact that the Mayor has decided that he prefers to have more applicants is completely understandable. I respect the discretion of the Mayor, but when you have got a vacant Board position that requires that it be filled in order to meet quorum and you have got at least two applicants if not more who have applied and those applicants are qualified, it begs the question why does the Page 12