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R. TOMA: Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for your time. The night of January 13,
<br />when we had that heavy rain, 14, my wife heard a big crash, so the next day I went out, and I saw
<br />this branch five feet from my house, almost got damaged. So, I cut it, threw it back in his
<br />property, and if you look at one of the pictures, you can see all the debris. So, every time, I go
<br />work in my backyard, I gotta look up and make sure that there is no dead branch going to fall on
<br />me. I gotta worry for my safety and safety of my wife when she goes and hangs her clothes.
<br />There's a huge tree between—it's on, closer to the neighbor, and every time I look up, when I go
<br />there, I gotta look up, and make sure that nothing is going to fall in our area.
<br />So, anyway, my name is Roy Toma, and I live on 44 Hale Nani Street, which is bordered to
<br />Mr. Tai's property. I am one of the original property owners. Mr. Tai is not a good neighbor. I
<br />give my thanks to the Department of Public Works for a job, thorough job in identifying the tall
<br />dangerous trees. I need to constantly climb my 8 -foot ladder. I need to clean up the gutters of
<br />leaves, seeds, small branches. I'm only 80 years old. Whenever I do yardwork, like I said, I
<br />worry for my safety and for the safety of my family. Thank you.
<br />RAFFIPIY: Thank you very much. Do we have any questions from the Commission? No
<br />questions?
<br />NISHIDA: Can I make one small little additional note?
<br />RAFFIPIY: Go ahead, ma'am.
<br />NISHIDA: Mr. Tai's property is adjacent, as you've seen on the map to three actually different
<br />subdivisions. The notices of violation that he has received so far don't include all of the
<br />adjoining properties. It only is a handful of them, and so, our position is that he's received two
<br />notices of violations that have affected about ten properties, but his whole entire property is a
<br />noticeI mean is a problem. And so, what he has, what he has done so far is not addressing his
<br />whole entire property, and in fact, the trimming that he's done, he only hired Backyard Monkey
<br />to cut and to trim in place, meaning that we have now eight- to ten -foot piles of debris adjacent
<br />to our boundaries along the whole entire property line, which is, you know, a potential hazard for
<br />projectiles. So, there is, this is not something that is going to remedied anytime soon, so I just
<br />wanted to be on record about that.
<br />RAFFIPIY: Thank you very much.
<br />R. TOMA: Oh, can I say something else, too?
<br />RAFFIPIY: Go ahead.
<br />R. TOMA: We've been very lucky in Hilo, for example, and our homes, too, with those tall
<br />trees through hurricanes, high winds. We haven't had that yet, so although he's done, he is
<br />doing trimming now for the last couple days, and that's it, it's piecemeal. You know, there's
<br />that's all I can say, is piecemeal. Thank you.
<br />EXHIBIT A
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