2019-06-06 Hearing Transcript - Autozone Parts REZ 06-052

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years ago to develop the 50th State, Hawaii. As you guys all know, for a retailer to come here, it requires a substantial commitment and [inaudible] in order to support the stores and be relevant to the community. We had a 12 strategy roll out. Hilo was up in the top five. We currently have 11 stores open, so if you approve this project and we get through the rezoning at city council, and we are able to construct this, this would be our 12th store. Subsequent to that, we decided that we would like to increase our roll out, and so, there will be future stores you'll see beyond our 12 if Hilo comes to be. But, when a family like Brian and Clarice, I mean, they took a big commitment with AutoZone. My first couple pass-throughs Hilo, there were other properties we could have selected which were way easier to develop, but I've learned in my time and position that it's not always the easy sites, but it's the right sites, and you really hope you find the right people. So, I just really want to thank, thank the family, because it's—they don't know what they're getting when the sign up and tie up their property for this long, but I just want to let everyone know that we have committed to this project and appreciate the comments and then learning about the property over the time. And, so my role here is just to answer any store development questions. Q, as we all know him by, is aone thing about AutoZone is we work from the inside up. There's not a whole lot of people that are brought in from the outside into the organization and positions of management or higher, and Q is an example of this, and just an example of our EVPs in different departments back in Memphis. Q was a store employee. He is from Rialto. He managed a very high-volume store through a promotion, and he was selected to come to Kona, because at the time, this was a, one of our first outer -islands that we opened a store on, and it's a little bit different when you don't have the support staff every day in presence. So, Q was selected to be the store manager in Kona. He's proved his worth, and he was recently promoted to district manager, so now he's responsible for all the 12 or 11 stores currently with all the, all the issues that come with running a retail business. So, Q will be able to answer any specific issues to running a store, communities, how it impacts the communities, etc. So, again, thank you for your time. QUINTERO: So, just real quick, good morning. So, like he said, four years ago, I came here to Kona by myself, no family, no nothing, and four years later, I actually married a girl from Hilo. So, she's from here, and actually we have a 1-1/2 year old, and I keep on hearing DWP, DWP and that's actually her uncle so I'm going to call him, you know? Hey, what's, what's going over here, you know? But, like I said, it's a great opportunity. You know, like it's an impact to the community. A lot of, the only people that were brought out from [inaudible] would be like myself, just to kind of train the people that we hired here, but from that point forward, everybody that we have in our stores is all from, from the islands, you know. So, whether it's a store manager, whether it's a whatever position there are, they're all from here. We don't bring anybody else out from the mainland, `cause I know to a lot of people, that's their concern, you know, like oh, where do you guys hire people from. You know, where do you guys bring them from, and it's all taking away from the local community. So, luckily—or not luckily, I mean with hard work and the type of company that AutoZone is, you know, the community has been very receptive to all the kind of programs and deals that we offer for customers, you know. And, being such a big corporation and all, I know a lot of them sometimes have like questions. They, EXHIBIT A 15