MIN CHARTER 2019-08-08 (2018-2020)

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -14 August 8, 2019 spend my three minutes talking to you about is the scope of what we are talking about with open space because all of the details we tend to get lost in the real idea of what we are doing. The open space fund was created not by the County Council or the County Administration, it was created by 36 percent of the voters of this island, three times. The people that are up on Mauna Kea right now, their outcry is for their disassociation with the government in preserving places that they believe are special. The open space fund was created by the County to preserve places that are special to the people who live here and the system that we have for doing it is excellent. It just needs some improvements and that is why you are being asked as a County Commission, ah, Charter Commission, to look at how we can make it better. And what I can say to you is how we can make it better is to have better communications and better participation by the County in the maintenance fund process. It is not working now. The Administration is not dedicated to really putting the open space and preservation of our special places as an important part of what they do. I would hope that by shifting the maintenance fund to Finance Department, the emphasis on needing to take care of these places will be enhanced. For example, some of the applications for maintenance fund are so precise that the various business plans that have to be submitted for each one, spell out exactly what needs to be done. There is no reason why the members of the boards of the people that are... the non-profit applying for it, cannot receive any numeration when they are working specifically on a project. There is also no reason why the County cannot look at the applications for uses that are needed for maintenance and telling the non -profits perhaps the County employees can do part of this, maybe not, but at least the idea of what needs to be done on these open space lands are ideas that are created by the communities themselves. North Kohala has had more than its share of open space funding and it is only because our kupuna recognized that with the passing of agriculture in our... the importance of agriculture in our County, that we were going to need to do something to protect our important and special places from development because the pressure will be on. Our kupuna told us that we are the generation that needs to make the effort to identify what is important in our community and take efforts to preserve them. I think our community has done very well at that and we continue to do it. We just hope that you can improve the maintenance fund system by supporting the recommendations advanced to you by the County Council. Thank you very much. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Uh, Susan. Page 3