2019-04-15 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – April 15, 2019 weren’t going to go into any kind of renegotiation for anything, so, but, Gordon Hites (sp?) said, you know, but right across – right over the hill there is a site that we have currently, which is Puu Kaohe – and this is the site that we have right here that we’ve looked at – Parks has looked at it and everything about this thing, in my estimation, there’s no bad with this site. It’s within an hour from Hilo, Kamuela, Kona, um, and within a mile of the park up there. The weather is great. There’s about 6 inches of rain each year. The wind is calm, usually from the east between 8-12 miles an hour. Noise has been an issue for gun range no matter where you go – Pohakuloa had to address noise as well – and they addressed it for two things – not only for people and complaints from noise of which you’ll see here. You know, Waikii Ranch eighteen miles away in Kona – but the birds and the helicopter flights. That was their primary thing with noise. As far as the gun range goes – it turns out that birds will acclimate so even in palila critical habitat shooting isn’t gonna affect any of the birds up there – they’ll get used to it, so to speak. Mauna Kea also has amenities, restrooms, trash cans, lockable at night just facilities there. Perfect area in our opinion. But, we met with DOFAW – GMAC met with DOFAW also and representatives from the Big Island – Dave Smith was up here – Dave Smith loves that Puu Kaohe site – he envisioned the State running it – DLNR – Bob Masuda primarily - said, no, can’t do, not there – noise. So it got shot down from the State doing it and we’ll get back to what happened to us here in a minute. But, in the meantime, 16-Mile Marker is available for shooting – you have to have a hunting license to shoot there – but is available 7 days a week and you don’t have to have hunter orange and all that stuff. Now, on April 8 – a couple of days ago – we met with Mayor Kim – he decided that for cultural reasons, he mentioned, that the County doesn’t want anything to do with Puu Kaohe. Said they’re more interested in developing a relationship with the State and 16-Miles and, ah, which, you know, the only reason, the only problem that we see with 16 Miles is basically the weather and the distance – Kean can attest to that – it’s not adequate for a lot of different types of shooting that’s going on – so we miss a lot of opportunity there so Puu Kaohe or Puuanahulu is still something that should be on the table for GMAC – now Mayor Kim has assured us – he wants a gun range – he absolutely says I will get a gun range and I’ll do a gun range – so the question is where is it gonna be and Puu Kaohe has some issues – if any of you would like to have that binder that we did on Puu Kaohe, I’d be happy to forward it to you – just let me have your email address and I’ll get it to you. 16-Miles has some personal safety considerations – several concerns have been raised – firing line, parking, you know, people driving in front of you when you’re shooting, I mean, little things that can be handled – rubbish is another issue that I think that needs, I mean, if we’re gonna shoot someplace – pick up your opala because if you don’t somebody’s gonna shut it down for us basically is what’s gonna happen. OK. Now Mayor assured us that he wants to have a firing range that they want to build on. Puu Kaohe is not gonna be it unless something changes so we’d like to work on Puu Kaohe – continue working on it – we’re trying to get a meeting set-up both with Harry 27