2019-06-20 Leeward Exh B (Amend Kona CDP)

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And, indeed, the court ruled the County had violated the Hawai‘i County Code, the County General Plan, the Kona Community Development Plan, and the County’s affirmative duty to protect the public trust. “The Planning Director has submitted a statement to the Leeward Planning Commission that says in part, ‘The County had not previously interpreted the language in the KCDP as being mandatory’; in other words, the County openly admits it did not understand the word ‘shall’ is defined as an order, a promise, a requirement, or an obligation. “The court ruling specifically referred to Section 4.0 of the KCDP, which states ‘Policies \[, that\] prescribe how each objective will be achieved. The policies that use the word “shall” are mandatory directives legally binding on County agencies. Among the most significant legally binding policies are those presented in Section 4.2 Land Use.’ The court found the County did not follow the ‘shall’ mandatory policy directives. “The County Planning Director is proposing to change each occurrence of the word ‘shall’ in the KCDP to ‘may.’ This means if the proposed amendments are approved, the mandatory policy directives of the Kona community development \[sic\] developed after hundreds of meetings and thousands of hours of community volunteer time would become toothless and meaningless. “Rather than follow the County and State law, the County is proposing amendments changing law to undermine the protections our community worked so hard to create and manifest. “The solution to the County’s legal problem is not to change the KCDP, but to begin to follow the plan the Kona community worked so hard to create and have approved over ten years ago. “Please vote ‘no’ on the proposed KCDP amendments. Mahalo nui loa.” Okay. Aloha, my name is Shannon Rudolph. I live in Hōlualoa. I only heard about this meeting last night. It was poorly advertised, and a lot more people would be here, if they knew. Some of the amendments might be good, but there’s no trust with these actions seemingly being formed in a vacuum and a lack of public information. Nearly 30 years ago I remember sitting at a Kona community meeting of residents who wanted to formulate a regional plan for their district. As I recall, Virginia Isbell pretty much said it was a waste of time because residents had already been trying to make a plan for the past ten to 15 years only to do the work and then have the plan get watered down and die sitting on a shelf at the County repeatedly. Fast-forward to the mid-2000’s with residents around the island enthusiastic revival of a community development plans for their areas. Hundreds of people put in thousands of hours to complete these plans only to have them hijacked in a myriad of ways from letting member applications sit on county desk for months and months to replacing members and appointing people to be decision-makers and gutting whole sections. I have heard angry horror stories from residents in every district over the years about what happened to their plans to make them go sideways and making the people throw up their hands in despair. 11 EXHIBIT B