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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-01-11 THALEKII PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT JANUARY 11, 2008 A regularly advertised hearing on the applications of PLANNING DIRECTOR (REZ 812) and PLANNING DIRECTOR (REZ 765) was called to order at 9:11 a.m. the King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel, 75-5660 Palani Road, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, with Chairman Rodney Watanabe presiding. PRESENT: William Graham ABSENT & EXCUSED: C. Kimo Alameda Takashi Domingo Andrew Iwashita Shelly Ogata Rene’ Siracusa Alvin Rho Rodney Watanabe Rell Woodward Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner Christopher Yuen, Planning Director Bruce McClure representing Department of Public Works Jiro Sumada representing Department of Public Works Ron Thiel representing Department of Public Works And approximately 150 people from the public in attendance. INITIATOR: PLANNING DIRECTOR (REZ 812) Amendment to Ordinance No. 96-7 by amending the portion of Condition M.4 relating to the construction of a barricade or breakaway gate to prevent the use of Halekii Street as a vehicular thoroughfare prior to the opening of the entire Mamalahoa Bypass. Ordinance No. 96-7 rdth reclassified lands from Unplanned (U) to Agricultural 1-acre (A-1a) at Honuaino 3 and 4, stndstndstndstnd Hokukano 1 and 2, Halekii, Keekee 1 and 2, Ilikahi, Kanakau 1 and 2, Kalukalu 1, 2 rdst and 3, and Onouli 1, North and South Kona, Hawaii, TMK: 7-9-12:4 & 11; 8-1-4:3, 7, 65 & 68; 8-1-27:16, 20, 21, 27-43; 8-1-28:9, 10, 19-28, 30, 44-47; 8-1-30:1-3, 5-9, 12-53; 8-1-32:1-54; 8-1-33:1-20; 8-1-34:1-25 (formerly 7-9-12: por. 3, 4 & 11 and 8-1-4: por. 3). INITIATOR: PLANNING DIRECTOR (REZ 765) Amendment to Ordinance No. 96-8 by amending the portion of Condition L.4 relating to the construction of a barricade or breakaway gate to prevent the use of Halekii Street as a vehicular thoroughfare prior to the opening of the entire Mamalahoa Bypass. Ordinance No. 96-8 reclassified certain lands from Agricultural 5-acre (A-5a) and Unplanned (U) to Agricultural rdthstndstnd 1-acre (A-1a) at Honuaino 3 and 4, Hokukano 1 and 2, Kanaueue 1 and 2, Halekii, stndstndstndrdst Keekee 1 and 2, Ilikahi, Kanakau 1 and 2, Kalukalu 1, 2 and 3, and Onouli 1, North EXHIBIT A 1 and South Kona, Hawaii, TMK: 7-9-12:4, 6, 9, 29; 8-1-4:3, 56, 59-62, 64, 70; 8-1-26:1-3, 5-9, 11-57; 8-1-27:1-15, 17-26; 33-38, 43; 8-1-28:1-3, 7-18, 28-38, 40-43; 8-1-29:1, 2, 4, 6-46, 53-59, 62, 63; 8-1-30:1-9, 49, 51 (formerly 7-9-6: por. 1, 7-9-12: pors.3 & 4, and 8-1-4: por. 3). WATANABE: The first item on our agenda, and by the way I think these Item Nos. 1 and 2 are so interrelated I believe we would be best to take those two together. Item No. 1 is initiated by the Planning Director in its amendment to Ordinance No. 96-7 by amending the portion of Condition M.4 relating to the construction of a barricade or breakaway gate to prevent the use of Halekii Street as a vehicular thoroughfare prior to the opening of the entire Mamalahoa Bypass. Item No. 2 is also initiated by the Planning Director (REZ 765)Amendment to Ordinance No. 96-8 by amending the portion of Condition L.4 relating to the construction of a barricade or breakaway gate to prevent the use of Halekii Street for similar purposes. With that I’d like to turn it over to Mr. Hayashi. HAYASHI: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I turn the mike over to the Planning Director, I’ll just give a brief orientation as to the location of the area. After the Planning Director makes his presentation then the Department of Public Works will be making a short presentation. Then we’ll call upon a representative from Oceanside 1250, Mr. John DeFries, to make a statement or two. With that, I’ll just refer to the map on the board. This is the overall location map. The Hokulia property is in this general configuration and is situated within the North and South Kona districts. As a matter of orientation, this is the Keauhou area and this particular area is the mauka Mamalahoa Highway. The Mamalahoa Bypass Highway is in this general configuration. And this section has already been constructed by Oceanside 1250 up until Halekii Street. This is Halekii Street running in a mauka-makai direction, orientation. And the extension of the Bypass Road would be in this general configuration which would hook up to the Napoopoo junction or in that general vicinity. Just as a matter of information, this particular property is the Coupe property that all of you have heard about. This is a map that was provided to us by the Department of Public Works and this is the, excuse me, this is the first time we’re doing this so -. This is the Bypass Road that has been constructed. This area would be the makai area. Unfortunately the orientation of the map is different from what we normally do. And this is the mauka area of the Halekii extension that goes up to the Kona Scenic Subdivision; and this is the road that leads toward the existing development of Hokulia. With that I’d like to turn over the mike to the Planning Director to explain the proposed changes to the ordinance. YUEN: We are here to consider the amendment of two conditions of two rezoning ordinances that cover what is now called the Hokulia project. When this happened originally in 1996 it was, the developer was known typically by the developer’s name, Oceanside 1250. These are conditions of rezoning ordinances. As the Planning Commission is familiar, your role is to give a recommendation to the County Council on this. The County Council has the final say whether or not to change the terms of these rezoning ordinances. The conditions, the change to these conditions are being formally initiated by the Planning Director. It is a joint effort of the County administration, including the Department of Public Works. And what I will do is talk a little bit about the background of the rezoning ordinances and the conditions that we’re talking about here. And then the Department of Public Works will give a presentation really more on the operational aspects of the roads, if the condition has changed, and how they intend to deal EXHIBIT A 2 with some of the issues that will come up about traffic through neighborhoods and traffic on other roads that may be affected by this. So the basic purpose behind amending the conditions is to try to get some relief to the severe traffic congestion that exists on the Mamalahoa Highway. When the rezoning of what is now called Hokulia was originally proposed in the 1990s the major offsite infrastructure requirement of the developer was to build the Mamalahoa Bypass Highway. So as Norman just showed you, this would be approximately five miles of road from Keauhou to the Napoopoo junction. There would be one intermediate point of contact and travel between the Mamalahoa Highway and the Mamalahoa Bypass, and that would be Halekii Street. During the considerations of the rezoning there were concerns about the opening of the Halekii connection before the entire highway was completed because it was contemplated, of course, that construction would start from Keauhou and be available up until this point. And so conditions were placed in the rezoning ordinances that limited access from Halekii Street. That actually said that access from, the use of Halekii Street as a through connector would not be allowed until the entire Bypass was completed from the Napoopoo junction to Keauhou. And there were two rezoning ordinances that covered the Hokulia property; and that’s why we have two ordinances here, two conditions that would have to be changed. I’m going to talk a little bit about the background of what happened subsequently, because the project has not actually been in front of this Planning Commission. You’ve seen a great deal about it in the newspapers. It certainly had a great deal of coverage. But I think it’d be useful to have a little bit of background. The rezoning took place in 1996. The subdivisions, the property then comes in for subdivision approval. The subdivisions, several increments were approved in 1999 and 2000 of the subdivision. The rezoning ordinances said that the Mamalahoa Bypass could either be built or it could be bonded, and the subdivisions could go ahead. So a bond was issued to ensure the eventual completion of the Mamalahoa Bypass. There was a lawsuit that challenged the legality of the Oceanside 1250 project. There was a Circuit Court decision basically in favor of that lawsuit which resulted in an injunction against the further construction of the Bypass. At the time the injunction was issued the Bypass Highway had been nearly completed from the Keauhou end almost to the Halekii intersection. The Oceanside 1250 also had built intersections improvements at the intersection of Mamalahoa Highway and Halekii that were also required by the rezoning ordinance. So there was a delay of approximately two years while the injunction was in place. In the meantime, there was a necessity to acquire the right-of- way for the Bypass Highway. As you’ll see, Oceanside owned only actually a short section of the land encompassed by the Bypass Highway. They were able to negotiate agreements with all the other private landowners involved to secure the right-of-way. However, one landowner, the Coupe family, which owns the property right about here immediately to the south of the zoned area, Oceanside 1250’s property, and a mile or so to the south of the Halekii Street intersection owns a strip of land. I don’t remember the width. I believe it’s between 1,000 and 2,000 feet. I think we put that in your materials as the width of the Coupe property. Oceanside 1250 was unable to negotiate an acquisition of that and so the County initiated a condemnation. A condemnation or eminent domain is a process where the government can require a private landowner to sell their property for a public purpose. This is power of all governments in the United States. I think as you can see, if the public needs a road built across an area and there’s a private landowner, there has to be some means of requiring a private landowner to sell the right- of-way or else the private landowner has the ability to block the construction of the road. In a normal condemnation suit the only issue is the amount of compensation. This landowner though challenged the public purpose of that. The County prevailed in the public purpose aspect of it EXHIBIT A 3 and did prevail in the Third Circuit Court. But that has now been appealed by the landowner and that could lead to a further delay in being, in the construction of the road. So at this point, seeing that the Mamalahoa Bypass has essentially been completed up till Halekii Street, the County has re-evaluated the situation and is proposing an amendment to the Zoning Ordinance that would permit the use of Halekii Street in the interim before the Highway is opened to the Napoopoo junction. That is still the overall long-term plan. The completion of that section is assured by the bond that’s in place. And hopefully the County will prevail on the appeal of the law suit. And that really completes my presentation about the zoning aspect of this. And I’d be happy to take any questions. Anything really to do with how the road would be managed would be dealt with by the Department of Public Works. Just as a lead in to what they are going to talk about, at this point their plans involve opening it for a one-way traffic south bound in the afternoon peak hours. They have some ideas about how that’s going to be managed. It does create management and operational issues that they’ll talk about. The restrictions on that would be imposed separately. It would not be part of the rezoning ordinance any more. Normally when you have restrictions on a government road, like even speed limits or no parking zones, those are in a different chapter of the County Code. WATANABE: Are there any questions from the Commissioners? I have a question, Mr. Yuen. So basically by your last statement, you’re indicating that there will be something documented, memorializing the agreement on the restrictions but it won’t necessarily be within this ordinance? YUEN: That’s correct. WATANABE: Thank you. Can I also ask, I don’t know if I should ask you or the Department of Public Works, but in the material that we received there was a traffic consultant and the traffic consultant did indicate that, you know, opening it both ways would be helpful. From what I’ve just heard, if I heard you correctly, it sounds like you’re just looking at in the afternoon now. Is that, did I hear you correctly? YUEN: That’s correct. And I’ll let Public Works talk about that more. But this is as a matter of trying to deal with concerns that people have, particularly about Halekii Street, about the opening of the road; and they’ll talk about why the choice to go with a one-way opening; and I think they can do a better job explaining that. WATANABE: Thank you. Mr. Domingo? DOMINGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Yuen, could you give me a description of the end scenario when the Bypass Road is completed from Keauhou all the way up to Napoopoo junction? YUEN: The end scenario would be that the Highway would be open, it would be a public highway opened 24 hours a day, as normal public highways. I’m not sure if the speed limits at the various portions of the highway have been absolutely set. At the Napoopoo end, the Bypass would be the through road. In other words, it would be, I believe that the plan is that EXHIBIT A 4 there’d be a stop control at the current Mamalahoa Highway, and there’d be a turn down, there’d be a left turn down into the Bypass. Halekii Street would be open. There was never a requirement in the ordinance that there be any restrictions on Halekii Street after the Napoopoo junction is opened. So that would be also open 24 hour a day. There are, you know, as in any case, in reaction to the conditions that exists, the County can have other kinds of traffic controls. These don’t normally come to the Planning Commission. But at the County Council you’ll see restrictions on on-street parking, speed restrictions, left-hand turn restrictions, all those kinds of things that can happen. But at this point and as far as the zoning ordinance is concerned, even if the zoning ordinance isn’t changed, once the Highway is opened then both highways become open as public highways; once the Mamalahoa Bypass is opened the whole distance from Napoopoo to Keauhou, both public highways, Halekii and the Mamalahoa Bypass, then are open as regular public highways, and County owned, and dedicated to the County. DOMINGO: It is hopeful that when everything is completed, then the traffic from South Kona and thereabouts will come through the Bypass Highway, and those also beyond the Napoopoo junction going north may take Halekii Street Bypass through the Mamalahoa Highway all the way over to Keauhou, is that right? YUEN: That’s correct. DOMINGO: And that essentially would lessen the traffic that exists now at the present time. Now what is the status of Alii Highway? YUEN: The County, well, it’s currently not on the State traffic improvement program list for Federal funding. We are still, we’ve basically, the biggest obstacle to Alii Highway or Alii Parkway was the burial near the Makolea Street intersection in Kahaluu. We recently did clear a plan on how to handle that burial with the Burial Council, essentially by bridging over the burial without moving it. So that aspect is done. As far as the timing of building the Highway, I think it’s better to ask the Department of Public Works on that. DOMINGO: Well, probably you would know this, Mr. Yuen, but wasn’t the funding for Alii Highway committed? Wasn’t the fund committed for that Highway years ago? YUEN: Most large highways are funded with Federal funds that come through the State through what’s called the STIP; and those funds were committed in I believe the 2002- 2003 period and then lost because we were not able to start the road because of this burial issue in 2004. The project was ready to start in 2004 when this burial issue surfaced and then the funds were lost because the County was not able to do the project in the timeframe when the STIP funds were available. In the newest STIP, the funds are not in there for the Alii Parkway. DOMINGO: You know, my question that I ask is leaning to the fact that, you know, there will certainly be increased traffic on the Mamalahoa Bypass Road and that they’ll come up to Keauhou. And at the present time there is no outlet, you know, additional outlet for traffic in Alii Drive or down Keauhou. And the only one that I can think of right now is Kam III Road, Kamehameha III Road. And knowing now that the Alii Bypass is a far-fetched idea and that it will not take place, you know, during the interim, this Commission has been entertaining applications for SMA permits which in turn if approved would further generate more traffic along Alii Drive and Kamehameha III Road. And my concern now is that because we’re EXHIBIT A 5 directing traffic from South Kona through the Mamalahoa Bypass to Keauhou, you know, what problems are we foreseeing? You know, it’s somewhat exacerbates the whole situation now and just transferring one problem in one area to another area with the same problem existing. You know -. YUEN: The long-range plan is that there would be a complete parallel road system including the Mamalahoa Bypass and the Alii Parkway. As far as the usefulness of the Mamalahoa Bypass, there are a considerable number of people for whom Keauhou or points along Alii Drive are their destination in the morning, both, you know, people who work at the hotels, people who work at condos and hotels along Alii Drive. So those are people, for example, if they are coming from South Kona or Ocean View would be taken off of the road system but eventually would have ended up in the Keauhou and Alii Drive area anyway. There are reasons to be concerned about traffic in the Keauhou and Alii Drive area that would be generated by having this Bypass opened; and that’s something that Public Works will be talking about in their presentation in more detail. I’d like to point out though that as far as the rezoning ordinance, the issues at the Keauhou end are really a matter only of timing. Had we not changed the rezoning ordinance if the Hokulia project had gone ahead without the delays and difficulties and say the Bypass Highway had been completed, then the Napoopoo junction would be opened, and someday we hope will be opened, and then cars will come down and end up in Keauhou with the necessity of going somewhere. The Alii Parkway was replanned. Originally the Alii Parkway was supposed to start at the Kailua-Kona end. But in roughly the early 2000 period when it was recognized that the Mamalahoa Bypass was going to terminate in Keauhou, it’d be a good to have some way of continuing the traffic from the end of that Bypass, that highway was replanned so that the first phase would be Keauhou to Lako Street, rather than starting at the Kailua-Kona end. So this is not something that has gone unrecognized or unplanned. WATANABE: Mr. Woodward? WOODWARD: Yeah, I just had a question, and this may be more appropriate for Mr. McClure or one of his representatives from Public Works. But my understanding is that they are actually proceeding with construction of the second phase of this even though there’s an appeal. Is that correct? YUEN: Not currently. But they can talk to you about that. WOODWARD: Okay. WATANABE: Mr. Graham? GRAHAM: Mr. Yuen, what’s your best guess if this continuing litigation with the appeal goes forward and the County prevails in the end? And what kind of a date would we be looking at for when actually we could have this full Napoopoo junction operable with the Bypass? EXHIBIT A 6 YUEN: We have a letter that we got, I believe it’s in your file, a couple of days ago from Oceanside 1250 giving an estimate of three years to actually build the road from commencement of construction at the current intersection. GRAHAM: And that would only take place after the litigation is finished. So do you have a guess for how long the litigation would take? YUEN: Well, I wouldn’t necessarily draw that conclusion, but there are issues that would come up where, and again this is something expressed by Oceanside 1250 in the letter, that they want some assurance from the County as to what would happen if they spent a lot of money building a road that did not, it was not eventually able to be completed because of the problem of the litigation. That’s something that we certainly don’t expect to happen. But I think that has been well expressed by their letter. GRAHAM: All right, thank you. WATANABE: Any further questions? Mr. Hayashi? HAYASHI: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before we call upon the Department of Public Works, we did prepare a short video, a drive on Mamalahoa Bypass Road and up Halekii Street. It’s an amateur-made video so please bear with us. Okay, basically what we’ve been doing is starting off, just before we go down to the Keauhou Bay Road. So right now we’re on Alii Highway, and I’ll try to speed it up a bit. It may be difficult for some of you out there to see. There’s too much light in here.But right now we just passed I believe the Kaleiopapa Road that leads to Keauhou Bay. And we’re now soon to approach the gate that’s there before the Bypass Road. The light you see is from the sunlight. It was taken early morning. So we’re now approaching the gate, and I’ll speed it up, if I can. As you can see, it’s an amateur produced -. Okay, we’re now on the beginning of the Bypass Road. The Bypass Road, the size of the roadway is approximately 24 feet; and there are 8-foot wide shoulders on both sides of the road. And this section of the road up until Halekii Street is approximately 3.3 miles. So I’ll speed it up a bit. It might affect the color on the video. For those of you who haven’t been on this roadway, if you look on the makai side there’s a beautiful view of the ocean And I don’t know why that’s doing that; I guess it’s because I’m fast forwarding the video. Just to let a car, actually that’s not the speed limit, I’m exceeding the speed limit by pressing the fast-forward. As I indicated, that light, white streak is from the sunlight. We should be shortly approaching the intersection with Halekii Street. Okay, now we’re close to the Halekii Street intersection. They are making the necessary improvements to this particular intersection. And we’ll be turning up left or mauka, and right now we’re close to the intersection with Halekii Street. We’d be making a left-turn here. If you go makai, that would be to the Hokulia project area. This is the intersection now with Halekii Street and the Mamalahoa Bypass. This particular road was constructed by Hokulia. This particular section, the pavement width is approximately 24 feet. There are grass shoulders as you’ll see as we go up this particular roadway, and that would be up until the mauka gate, just before we hit the Kona Scenic Subdivision. This particular section is approximately 1.7 miles all the way to the mauka Mamalahoa Highway. EXHIBIT A 7 Okay, now we’re approaching the mauka gate of this particular roadway. Okay, now we’re proceeding to the Kona Scenic Subdivision. The Kona Scenic Park is located on the right of the picture. This particular section of Halekii Street is 36-foot wide.It does have curbs and sidewalk. We’re right now in the residential area of the subdivision. There are approximately 40 lots that front this section, residential lots that front this section of Halekii Street. We’re soon to approach the commercial area of this particular subdivision.Okay, we’re now approaching the intersection with the mauka Mamalahoa Highway. And I’ll be turning right. As you’ll note, this particular intersection has a street light, or traffic light. There are turning lanes at this particular intersection. So this is going in a south direction. And I’ll be turning around and I’ll just go down to the intersection; and that’ll be the end of the presentation. I went into the suicide lane and almost got hit. I just wanted to show you the intersection from this side of the Halekii intersection. Now we’re going toward the north and approaching the Halekii intersection. So basically this concludes the drive through. And I’ll turn it over to the representatives from the Department of Public Works at this time. WATANABE: Thank you, Mr. Hayashi. Mr. McClure, I’ve been informed by staff that they would like to take five minutes. I believe we have a much larger crowd than anticipated so we’re planning on taking down these partitions. So maybe we can take five now and proceed a little later. RECESSED The Chair called a recess at 9:45 a.m. RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 9:55 a.m. WATANABE: Will the Planning Commission meeting come back to order, please. Could someone get the lights? Oh, excuse me, Mr. McClure, are you going to be having a PowerPoint also? MCCLURE: Yes, we’re high-tech. WATANABE: Okay, before I call on you though, I’d like to ask the crowd to please if you have any cell phones or pagers to either put them on vibrate or turn them off. And there are a heck of a lot of people here so obviously there are some public interest. But I have 18 people signed up to testify and everyone here is welcome to testify. But, however, if you plan to provide testimony, you need to sign up with the staff, yeah, so that we can recognize you. And with that, I guess I’ll turn it over to you, Mr. McClure. MCCLURE: Good morning. I’m Bruce McClure, the Director of the Department of Public Works. With me today is our Deputy Director Jiro Sumada to my right and the head of our traffic division Ron Thiel to my left. We have a PowerPoint, a brief PowerPoint, that we will show you. Before I start that, let me just, to me it’s, we have an agreement under the two existing ordinances, okay. Three things have changed since that agreement was made. And the three things that have changed is the traffic has increased significantly north, south. All of the road was not able to be built, a portion of it was. So there’s a potential resource to be used. And if approved by the Commission, or your recommendation and ultimately the Council, the Council will ultimately decide what conditions there are, we would have a resource. And if that EXHIBIT A 8 resource was available, this is how we would use it; and that’s what our presentation is. Thank you. Jiro? So our overall goal is to provide alternate routes to reduce traffic congestion in Honalo, Kainaliu, Kealakekua until the southern portion of the Bypass is completed. It also provides an alternate route, should there be road closures, such as vehicle accidents or utility constructions. SUMADA: Community events. MCCLURE: Oh, the community parades. Yes, thank you, Jiro. The scope of the problems is the complaints from motorists that the afternoon peak south bound traffic during road closures and lane closures is exacerbated during the winter when we have a lot of extra visitors here. It has gotten itself its own nickname, the Kainaliu Krawl, 30- to 45-minute travel time delays. The delays can be longer than that when utility poles go down. And part of the things we’ve addressed at the Honalo junction, in the afternoon we’ve restricted left-turns out of Mamalahoa Highway. That reduced the delay by about 20 minutes. That was on a trial we did. We weren’t sure which way we’d go. We were optimistic it would work that way, it did. And then at Oshima Store we’re removing the diagonal parking and providing off-street parking in the community. We have planned solutions, and these are completed projects that we’ve done already to address this afternoon traffic: in Captain Cook intersections left-turn pockets; Kealakekua two-way left- turn center lane and left-turn pocket; Kainaliu additional parking lot and reduced parking fronting Oshima Store; and then as I’ve said we’re restricted the right-turns at Honalo junction. These are planned ones and projects starting soon: Kainaliu additional parking lot at Aloha Theatre and jug handle turnarounds; Kainaliu on-street parking restrictions during the PM peak for the south-bound traffic to allow them to go through. So I’ll now turn it over to Jiro to complete. SUMADA: Good morning, Members of the Commission. As Bruce has indicated, in the previous slide, let me go back one, this should go back, maybe not -. The previous two slides about the solutions that we’ve implemented and also some planned ones, those are all put in place in the last, I’d say, couple of years, all geared to try and improve the flow through Honalo, Kainaliu, and Captain, I mean, Captain Cook and Kealakekua. All those projects were geared toward improving that afternoon peak flow. Even with those projects and the planned improvements, there’s still a significant amount of traffic that uses that Mamalahoa Highway through those four towns; and that’s the only way in and out. This map right here shows basically the project, and it’s kind of hard to see. But this is the Keauhou area, Kamehameha III is right here, this is Alii Drive. And for your reference, this is Kuakini and Mamalahoa starts up here. Here’s Halekii Subdivision. From the Keauhou area, this portion of the road is completed. This intersection is being final reconstruction. Oceanside tells us they’re going to finish in April, complete that intersection. This is the lower portion of Halekii Street that Oceanside constructed. This is completed also, this S curve. This dotted line right here is a portion of the Bypass that is still not completed, just for your orientation. Okay, when we examined the potential of opening the road, the portions of the Bypass and the lower Halekii Street that are completed, these are the options that we considered. And in no EXHIBIT A 9 particular order, these are the things we thought about: Restricted one-way traffic north only, and the references to north and south refer to how the Bypass portion is used. So between 6:30 and 8:30 AM Monday through Friday, except holidays, this is to handle the AM peak, to give motorists an alternate route from using Mamalahoa Highway. The second option was restricted one-way traffic south only. And this would be to address the PM peak. Then the third option was restricted two-way traffic, north and south, from 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM, this is kind of like daylight hours that it will be used two ways, north and south. And then the fourth option was unrestricted two-way traffic north and south 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So this is basically just the optional, opening the whole road up without restrictions. And then the last option was to keep the road closed and to continue to use it as it is used now, which is mainly just for emergencies and emergency vehicles, and I think the doctors that work at Kona Hospital have access to use it. So these are the general options that we looked at. We met with the community in both Keauhou and Halekii, along Halekii Street, several times. After meeting with them and listening to their concerns and trying to figure out what could be done, what was a prudent way of trying to address the overall goal, which was to alleviate traffic or provide motorists with an alternate route through South Kona, the proposal that Public Works came up with was to just focus on the PM peak; and mainly because that is the time when there’s the worst traffic congestion in the Honalo, Kainaliu, and Kealakekua area. So this is what we’re proposing, that we open up the completed northern portion of the Bypass and the lower Halekii Street to the public but restricted to south-bound traffic only from 3:30 to 6:30 PM Monday through Friday, except holidays. It would be done a trial basis only, it’s like a test. And we would be monitoring it daily. The duration of the test would last a week, a month, depending how it goes. We would start the test after a bunch of short-term mitigation measures are completed. And basically those measures, after meeting with the two communities, they had a lot of concerns about traffic, about speeding, a lot to do with safety, you know. And in trying to address those concerns, we came up with a bunch of short-term mitigation; and the term short- term is more not how long it would last but more how long it would take Public Works to implement or construct the improvements to try and mitigate the problems or the concerns of the communities. And also we would be able to do minor adjustments during the test, just to kind of develop the optimum configuration or mix of measures. So like we’re saying it’s to be from 3:30 to 6:30, you know, maybe we start a half an hour early or keep it going a half an hour late, or cut it short, or -. The time of operation we would adjust just to see what would happen. You know, a lot of the concerns from the communities are related to increased traffic and speeding. And they’ve always asked me, well, Jiro, how many more cars are you expecting driving right in front of our houses; and I hesitate to answer. In fact, I never did answer them as far as the number of cars, because we really don’t know. You know, it’s like an educated guess. And I’m not a traffic engineer. Ron Thiel, our traffic chief, he may be able to shed some light on that. But until you actually do it, we really don’t know how it’s going to work. We can give our best guess but we really don’t know. But this is the basic proposal that we’re, if the restriction in the zoning condition was lifted, this is how we at Public Works would implement the opening of the road. We met with the Keauhou community and also the Halekii Street community. These were the concerns; and of note the Keauhou community has actually been working with the County government at various levels, both legislative and the administration, for quite some time. And EXHIBIT A 10 when I met with them they impressed that point upon me quite frequently and passionately that, you know, for the past seven years they’ve expressed their concerns regarding opening up of the Bypass, not in this partial opening configuration but when the whole Bypass is opened. They have expressed these concerns; and they had the potential solutions, too, which was much appreciate. Mainly the Keauhou community in the big picture, I think, is concerned about increased traffic on Alii Drive; and with that it presents some concerns about safety, mainly as the residents that live along the condo units in that area and also there’s a golf course, how they enter and exit their driveways to get access to those properties. And also at Kaleiopapa to Keauhou Bay there were concerns about the traffic. They have trouble right now entering and exiting their driveways to that area. So introduction of more traffic by opening up the Bypass increases their concerns. Also there’s speeding on Alii Drive. That section of Alii Drive is probably the widest as far as the width of the right-of-way or the width of the, pardon me, the width of the developed right-of-way. So there’s a sense that you can drive faster and people do, so with that, again, making it more difficult to enter and exit their driveways. At some other driveways there’s limited sight distance. This is a combination of both the roadway, geometrics or alignment – there’s a slight curve at certain places – but also there’s vegetation from, that’s kind of overgrown, so that makes it difficult or provides limited sight distance. And their main thing was that they told me they were not opposed to the Bypass but they’re insisting that the adequate infrastructure be in place before the Bypass is opened. The Halekii community, when I met with them, their concerns are also about increased traffic; and their concerns are very valid, especially for the folks that live directly on Halekii Street. There are 17 houses on the north side and the south side, both. That’s the residential section. So what Mr. Hayashi said about 40 houses along Halekii is true. The way the lots are configured most of them have very short driveways. So you come home from work or whatever and you turn into your driveway, well, to get out of your driveway you need to back out. Some of the houses have a turn-around capability, but many of them don’t. So in order to leave their house, they have to back up into traffic; and in some cases depending on which way they’re going they have to cross one lane while backing out. Several of the houses have kind of a, even a more difficult time doing that because there’s a hill, and there’s a knoll. And combined with the third bullet down, speeding going up and down Halekii Street, the short driveways and backing out onto Halekii becomes a challenge. It may be a test of their driving skills. Anyway, another concern is the cars stacking up at the Halekii traffic signal at Halekii and Mamalahoa Highway. The signal has been optimized I think several times. With the possible opening of the Bypass we’d have to make some adjustments there also. But they’re worried about that. If more people are allowed to use the Bypass and drive up Halekii Street, then making a left turn or right turn at this traffic signal will become even more difficult as more cars tried to or will be stacked up along that steep slope in front of the Kealakekua Post Office. Speeding going up and down, at first when I went to visit I thought, oh, okay maybe it’s kind of steep so going down that’s what the community is worried about; but, in fact, motorists speed going up also through that neighborhood. So that’s a concern. They also expressed concern about the school bus that lets off the students or children just above Mamao Street intersection, and also concerns about noise from trucks using the compression brakes that are going down that steep slope. And then there were other concerns about no parking at the Kona Scenic Park. In trying to work out some ways to address their concerns, the Department came up with this set of measures. And, well, this is the Alii Drive. We’ve provided a little map for you folks, that’s this EXHIBIT A 11 one. If you want to look at it, you can see, it’s the aerial shot. Our traffic chief was able to find an aerial photograph of the coastline and we superimposed the different improvements. Basically though what we’re proposing to address their concerns, the community’s concern, is to initially put a three-way stop at the Kaleiopapa intersection of Alii Drive and also Royal Poinciana and Lunapule. With the potential opening of the Bypass and the Lower Halekii Street, additional traffic will be introduced to Alii Drive, not only in the Keauhou area but also farther north down Alii Drive. So the intersections at Royal Poinciana and Lunapule would also be converted to a three-way stop. A three-way stop, and you can ask the traffic chief for his expertise, is a safer, in my opinion, a safer intersection for motorists; but it is also inefficient at the same time because basically you’re taking turns. Each leg of the intersection has just as much priority as the other so you’re basically taking turns. So even though one leg or two may stack up with a whole bunch of traffic or cars they still all take turns. So a three-way stop at those three intersections, a two-way left turn lane on Alii Drive, mainly between the Kamehameha III intersection and the Kaleiopapa intersection, little bit, it goes a little bit farther past the Kaleiopapa intersection because there’s a condo unit there. And those left turn lanes, two-way left turn lanes, would be where the driveways are mainly. And I would like to, not make a correction but a, that’s the official term for the two-way left turn; and Mr. Hayashi’s depiction of a suicide lane, we’d rather him not use that term with the public. I don’t think it reflects his sense of driving capacity either. But, anyway, we also want to do a special duty police officer at the Kaleiopapa intersection during the opening of the Bypass so that just from 3:30 to 6:30 in the afternoon we would hire a special duty policeman to mainly improve the efficiency of operating that intersection. So other than the times when a police officer is there, it would be a three-way stop. But when the police officer is there, then he or she would control the intersection and the flow of traffic, just to make it more efficient and maintain the safety. So let’s see what else we’ve got there, upgrade traffic signal at Kuakini, Kamehameha III and Walua Road. This was pointed out by the community members, that this intersection up at Kuakini at the top of Kamehameha III is inefficient. Or, because the Walua Road from the mauka side there’s a number of cars that want to come in it creates an inefficient left-turn capability for those on Kamehameha III wanting to turn left to get onto Kuakini. So we can upgrade that intersection to make it more efficient. Just a signal timing at Alii Drive and Kamehameha III intersection near the bottom, and then also to construct the 8-foot wide bike and pedestrian path on the makai side from Kamehameha III to the Kaleiopapa, or a little bit past. So, you know, those are the ones that are depicted on this aerial, and I apologize for the graininess. When we blew it up it became very grainy. But I think the handout that the Commissioners have is a lot clearer and, of where those improvements are going to be. Okay, and then even on this slide we have some long-term ones; but I’ll go over that later. As far as the Halekii community the short-term mitigation measures, and for the Commissioners’ sake too, I want to reiterate that the short-term is not how long we would implement this thing but it would be how long it would take our Department to construct these improvements. So we think we can do these improvements between now and six to eight months from now. This list of mitigation measures can be put in place. So first one is speed humps, and then to accompany this list is this handout that you have in front of you. Okay. Basically we’d have a series of speed humps before the Mamao Street intersection going down to kind of slow the cars down that are traveling makai. Also, we would EXHIBIT A 12 have speed humps makai of the Muli Street intersection to slow down the cars going up. But basically in between Mamao and the Muli Street intersections where it’s the steepest grade, about 18 percent, we will have only one speed hump. And a lot of the, not a lot, but some of the concerns was that if we had put speed bumps or speed humps in between those two intersections that the motorists would short-cut or avoid them by going and using Nape and Manawa Street just to avoid the speeds humps. So then, anyway, it kind of worked out well that there’s not too many or just one in between those two intersections. Next one is to construct a raised intersection with a mini-traffic circle at Mamao and Muli Street intersections. This option I thought was very creative of the traffic chief. Basically it’s taking that intersection of Halekii Street and Mamao and Halekii Street and Muli and raising the intersection four to six inches, I forget what Ron told me, four to six inches with ramps. And basically what it does is it’s like an extended speed hump and turns into what’s called the speed table because the top is flat. But what it does is it’s a signal or a cue to the motorists that something is different on the road than normal and the tendency is to slow down. In addition to that speed table or that raised intersection, we would construct a traffic circle. A traffic circle in the center of it would have vegetation or something that would break up the visual cues that people normally have right now. Because if you go down Halekii Street and you pass through these intersections, it’s kind of like a straight away. You have priority and you have the right-of- way to go straight, and you feel like you can just sail right through the intersections; and that’s what some motorists do. So both, you have a horizontal and a vertical visual cue or physical cue that is going to, hopefully, slow down motorists. Prior to those, getting to that intersection, you have the three speed humps, so motorists will start slowing down even before they get to the intersection. And then with that, these traffic calming measures at the intersection, hopefully, will reduce the speeding concerns that the community is experiencing. Install 3-D speed humps between Mamao Street and Muli Street. Okay, so I guess our traffic chief was thumbing through some traffic magazines and saw this new technology. Basically it’s an illusion, optical illusion, that the road is flat, the road is flat like a regular road, but on the road you would paint or put, lay down decals; and the decals create an optical illusion like it makes the motorist think that, oh, there’s a hump here. Okay, so it’s kind of like a series of triangles, then, oh, I don’t know, anyway -. You know, there are these traffic engineers that kind of got time on their hands so they devised all these things. So, anyway, he saw it in a magazine and he’s going to try it. So it’s kind of like a test. But if it works, you know, then we slow traffic down, that’s the main thing. In addition to that, we want to install smart signs at the steep sections of Halekii, mainly in the upper part by the business district, these smart signs going for both directions of traffic and also in the residential area in that steep grade. The smart sign is basically like you have a white speed limit placard, and above it or below it, it has an electronic readout that it tells the motorists how fast they’re actually going. And I think you folks have seen it around town. So they have it. The significance of this is that within the smart sign it also records the speed that the motorist is traveling above the speed limit. It also records the time of day. So that by having this counter system we can have a better idea of oh, okay, so looks like people tend to speed maybe 8 o’clock in the morning or something like that; and we can then pass that information on to the Police Department. So if they’re going to be able to have a policeman to monitor and/or ticket speeders, it would be most advantageous to be in that area at 8 o’clock when most of the people tend to speed. So the smart sign is a valuable tool in helping us control traffic. EXHIBIT A 13 And thanks to one of the residents in the Halekii area, Carol Kitaoka, who negotiated with our traffic division chief, one of the proposals is to put a mid-block crosswalk with signals near the court house. We normally do not like to have mid-block crosswalks; usually they’re at intersections. In any case, we’re proposing to put a mid-block crosswalk with signals to provide a safe pedestrian crossing near the court house.Also, we want to lengthen the right and left turn storage lanes at the top of Halekii Street at the signal light with Mamalahoa. And that’s just to separate the traffic better; so when you do get green, it flows better. And the last one was to open Yamagata Road for Hokulia construction vehicles only. There’s quite amount of concern about the use of Yamagata Road and that actually be used instead of opening Halekii to the public. We have looked at Yamagata Road. There are some problems safety-wise with using Yamagata; and upgrading it to handle two-way traffic would be a major effort, we think. But, anyway, it is a usable roadway, it is one lane. We would propose that during the 3:30 to 6:30 operation we would restrict or have the Hokulia construction vehicles use that road mainly to deal with the noise issue of the construction trucks using their jake brakes or compression brakes. So those are the proposed mitigation, short-term mitigation measures. This is an older version of the map that I showed you. Long-term mitigations, three to five years, it would take us that long to build or construct these improvements; and that’s why they’re termed long-term. On Alii Drive to install permanent traffic signals at Kaleiopapa, Royal Poinciana, Lunapule and also Hualalai intersections, to install the traffic signals there. Construct community bike and pedestrian path mauka of Alii Drive between Kamehameha III and the Kaleiopapa intersections in Keauhou. This community pathway would be off of the road, not on the roadway itself. It would be separated by the terrain, but it will be on the mauka side. Let’s see, further, resolve bike pedestrian right-of-way issues on Alii Drive. Throughout Alii Drive from Kailua to Keauhou there are problems that we have that relate to bikes and pedestrians and the other kind of encroachments into the roadway that make safe traffic through on Alii Drive a problem. And also install smart signs along Alii Drive, just like the ones that we talked about for Halekii Street. Long-term measures for Halekii Street is to upgrade the traffic signal at Halekii and Mamalahoa Highway, and then also to restrict truck traffic through the residential section of Halekii Street. Actually that last bullet we can probably do sooner than three to five years from now, but, anyway, those are the measures. These are some of the things we still have to do. If the Council approves lifting the restriction on the zoning ordinance that you folks are going to be considering today and we proceed with instituting a 3:30 to 6:30 PM peak operation, we still need to do some of these things to make that effort successful. The only one I want to point out right now is the one about developing, monitoring, and test evaluation criteria. You know, basically we’re going to handle this as a test or a trial period. As in any test you’d want to know how you know if you’re successful or not. And in order to do that there’s some measures and criteria we need to establish, both before we implement the test and then after we implement the test. And one of the good things that came out of the, well, a lot of good things came out of the community meetings that we had, was the idea that we involve the community in being part of the monitoring. So they will be part of our, you know, Ron Thiel’s crew that goes out there and sees how are the improvements working. So I thought that was a great idea; and we can do that. EXHIBIT A 14 Basically that’s the presentation that we have, Mr. Chairman. If you have any questions, we can hang around to ask them, I mean, answer them. WATANABE: Fellow Commissioners? Mr. Woodward? WOODWARD: Yeah, I would ask you the question I asked Mr. Yuen earlier. Is there going to be a delay on construction of the second phase until this appeal process is completed or are the developers planning on proceeding in spite of the appeal? MCCLURE: The developer is here and he was going to do a short presentation. He can answer that for you. WOODWARD: Okay. Let me say one other thing. I congratulate Mr. Sumada for several things. One is getting the community involved; and I think you’ve come up with several very innovative solutions; and for that you should be congratulated. SUMADA: Thank you, Mr. Woodward. It was kind of a group effort. It was a good learning experience for me, too. I got to practice my skills at dancing and dodging arrows, but thank you. WATANABE: Mr. Domingo. DOMINGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Sumada, since I last saw you, you’ve had a different hairdo; and I will briefly discuss again -. Could you tell me your hairstyle, what resulted in the hairstyle that you have now? SUMADA: Well, actually, you know, Mr. Domingo, since I started this Bypass thing, it’s not just the style but it’s the color that changed. It used to be all black, but it turned gray a little bit from stress and worry, but -. No there was a member of our engineering division that he had cancer and it kind of, you know he lost his hair with chemo and then we kind of did a, you know, supportive thing so I shaved my head. It got kind of cold, you know, in Hilo when that, but anyway, so -. My wife said she likes it short so I kept it that way. But, anyway, that’s just the background. DOMINGO: Very good. Again, I commend you for that, being very passionate to someone who is in dire straights and faced with problems. My question is at the northern end of the Bypass how will it be designed to merge at the existing roadway, the street that we have there? SUMADA: Where it meets up with Alii Drive? DOMINGO: Yes. SUMADA: Well, basically, the Bypass connects up to Alii Drive and motorists will just keep traveling north. I think one of the questions or concerns would be, you know, basically you’re just bringing north-bound motorists to a point where they have to choose to go up Kamehameha III or continue on to Alii Drive. So in some regards all you did is the guys that choose to go up Kamehameha III, they just bypass Kainaliu and Honalo towns just to get back to EXHIBIT A 15 Kuakini. So what good did that do, if you open it up that way? That’s true, there is that concern; and that there’s more concern also that more people would end up using Alii Drive. You know, basically the proposal that we had was just to deal with the PM peak. And the PM peak, the major concern of traffic is the south-bound motorists, so the motorists going south. For the Keauhou area residents, they were concerned that more people would be taking Alii Drive. You know, those that work or if they start out from the Kailua town, instead of going north to Kuakini, I mean to Queen Kaahumanu so that that’s the only route that they’ve got to or, not the only route, but it would be the most convenient route to just stay on Queen Kaahumanu. They would choose to go Alii Drive; and it introduces more traffic to Alii Drive, that’s probably true. And that’s why some of the short-term mitigation measures that we had planned for the Keauhou area we hope will address that concern, just during that PM peak, just during that PM peak, when that option of using the Bypass is available. DOMINGO: Are you folks planning to install a signal light at that junction? SUMADA: At the Kaleiopapa intersection? DOMINGO: I don’t know which street you’re referring to but at the junction where that Mamalahoa Bypass terminates and merge into the existing Alii Drive and the other street that you mentioned. SUMADA: The closest intersection that we have to where the Bypass connects up with Alii Drive is that Kaleiopapa intersection. I’m just trying to flip through, I want to get that big map. So at that intersection, initially it would be just the three-way stop, oh, here it is, okay. So Napoopoo junction here, Halekii Street, their community here, this is the Keauhou area. Kamehameha III is here, and this is Alii Drive, and this is Kaleiopapa. So the Bypass, the northern section that’s completed connects right up to Alii Drive, and it just flows right into it. So right at this intersection we would propose to put a signal light there, and hope to not only improve safety for the intersection but also to handle the flow or increase in traffic. DOMINGO: Mr. Sumada, you mentioned that you’ll try to restrict or, I don’t know if that’s the proper description, but to restrict heavy truck traffic going down Halekii Street. How will you folks do that? SUMADA: Well, basically, it’s to go through Council and get a weight restriction on the road so that trucks traveling down Halekii Street will not be able to do that. But you have to give the trucks an option. I mean, you cannot just put a restriction and then, you know, so what, they’ve got to drive all the way around here, all the way around to use the Bypass to get to where they need to go to. That’s why in the short-term mitigation measures, this is the Yamagata property right here, and that Yamagata Road is actually a one-lane road and it is in place. So by having that option available to the construction trucks, then they have a way to get to where they need to go to. So, you know, as far as truck restrictions, it’s like you basically leave it to the honesty or the good citizenship of the truck driver. You know, but for them that’s their business too. So I think if we gave them, as opposed to posting a policeman, you know, on Halekii Street all the time which I’m not sure they can do, having this Yamagata Road open for them would be a good alternative; and it would be more practical. According to the, talking with the Oceanside folks, most of their truck traffic will be coming from the north from Alii Drive and using the EXHIBIT A 16 Bypass, but there will be some construction vehicles coming from the south that would use that Yamagata Road. DOMINGO: Thank you. WATANABE: Any other questions from the Commissioners? Mr. Graham? GRAHAM: I appreciate all the details you’re giving us and in some way we’re just talking with the rezoning ordinance. But I guess what sits in the back of the mind is other problems are going to be created by this of somewhat similar magnitude to the problems that are going to be solved; so that there really is a lot of this and that going on, and the net benefit is going to kind of get balanced out. And one of the places I see that is like the Alii Drive stuff. When you’re talking about a three-way stop on Royal Poinciana because you’re going to have more traffic on Alii Drive, but the three-way stop is going to make it even more inefficient moving on Alii Drive, it feels like you’re just creating a whole extra problem situation by doing stuff like that. And clearly that’s not for us to decide whether you do a three-way stop there or not, that’s something you guys are going to have to work out later. But if all your mitigation measures seem like they’re creating extra problems somewhere else, it does kind of leave a cloud in your head that you’re creating almost as much problems as you’re solving here. So I just wanted to pass on my concern about what you said about Royal Poinciana and similar things like that. WATANABE: Are there any other questions? I have a question for you, Mr. Sumada. Well, first of all I’d like to thank you for limiting it to the afternoon, the PM peak because, you know, in studying or reviewing the traffic study I didn’t see how opening it up in the AM peak hours would help; and certainly this is something that is going to affect those residents on Halekii Street, yeah, negatively. But I do have a question with regard to the Yamagata Roadway alternative. You know, Kona is a small area and I believe Hokulia has the ability to use that road. But I’m wondering if what you’re referring to applies, you know, the weight limit applies to other heavy trucks that might be attempting to enter the Bypass. SUMADA: I think that, hopefully that’s something we can work out with the Hokulia, I mean, the Oceanside. Basically during this time period that the southern section is either in limbo or under construction, the primary users of the construction trucks would be the Oceanside’s development. If there’s construction going on like a vacant lot in the Halekii Subdivision or there’s some major concrete work or something like that, then by all means that’s the only road they can use to go down. So I don’t think, you know -. Hopefully the police would use their judgment that that, they would allow that. WATANABE: Okay, and Mr. Yamagata is in agreement with that? SUMADA: Well, that’s something that Oceanside needs to negotiate with Mr. Yamagata. Preliminary indications are that he would be supportive of that effort. But I have not talked to Mr. Yamagata myself. WATANABE: In follow-up questions, you know, for the Alii Drive you mentioned that you’re looking at additional left turn lanes. We have the right-of-way for those, to do those improvements? EXHIBIT A 17 SUMADA: Yes, we have enough right-of-way. The effective use of the, maybe I should let our traffic chief talk about it. He’s giving me the look like don’t put my foot in my mouth. THIEL: Go ahead. SUMADA: Basically the two-way left turns, the initiative to do that relates to the driveway entrances for the condo units that are along Alii Drive between, near Kamehameha III and Kaleiopapa, and also the golf course. So where those are needed, that’s where we will put it in. It is not only to help the people make left-turns into those driveways but it’s also to create a refuge lane so that people exiting the driveways or the condo units, for example, that want to get on to Alii Drive -. Right now they have to deal with two lanes of traffic trying to, you know, merge in, you know, find a gap that’s safe. So if we give them a refuge lane in the center they just deal with one lane of traffic to, you know, find a gap and make that exit safely. So it’s only where those driveways are. WATANABE: But as far as the right-of-way, we do have the right-of-way? SUMADA: Yes. It’s a 120-foot right-of-way in that area. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. SUMADA: Most of it’s paved. WATANABE: Thank you. Mr. Rho? RHO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Sumada, I’m not sure that you received or you have a coy of some of the public testimony and, but I wanted you to, or if you could elaborate on this Yamagata Road. In the submittal by a person from the public they attached the settlement agreement, Kelly et al. versus Oceanside Partners dated March 2006. And they refer to, I guess, it’s paragraph 3.2. And it talks about using basically Yamagata Road as a temporary connector road that will be completed and available for public use during peak traffic hours. Can you elaborate on that, or talk about that, or tell us why that can’t be done? SUMADA: When we looked at that, it can be done; and especially since they agreed to doing it, I suppose we could enforce that being done. To me when I looked at that, because basically we’re trying to deal with the PM peak, that is the worst traffic on Mamalahoa for the South Kona motorists. And in the PM peak you’re trying to get motorists as far south as possible. By opening up Yamagata Road you basically just give folks a short-cut or a faster route, but they still end up north of the Halekii Street signal light.So to me the benefit is, there’s not much benefit of having that if all they’re going to do is try to remerge with the south bound traffic on Mamalahoa before the signal light. So all you did is they drove around kind of like the long way past Honalo and Kainaliu only to be stuck in the same queue that they were in when they left or tried to avoid the Kainaliu Krawl. Basically we want to be able to give people alternate routes so you distribute the traffic; and in distributing the traffic there’s less congestion throughout, as a general concept, as a general concept. So Yamagata Road could be upgraded to handle the two-way traffic. To me it just created more problems on Mamalahoa by doing that. EXHIBIT A 18 Cause there’s not a signal light there where Yamagata Road meets Mamalahoa Highway. And some people that use the Bypass would still want to turn north. So now you’re making more, well, not more, you’re just, it’s not as an efficient intersection as a signalized intersection would be. Much of the concern from the Halekii community has been with the increased amount of traffic that’s going to pass through the traffic signal at Halekii and Mamalahoa that would impact the Halekii Street leg. And what I’ve tried to convey to them is that that intersection, the signal light at Halekii, is very problematic as more people try to use Halekii Street as a short-cut, so to speak, for those traveling south. The green light leg for Halekii Street is rather short anyway. And that if you’re stuck in a queue that goes through there, and the community tells me there’s only like four or five cars that can make the left turn through that, that leg will back up to a point where it becomes undesirable or not as desirable as if you had stayed on the Mamalahoa Highway going south. So while people, the first couple of weeks I think people would try it. I think those motorists that want to go past or through the Halekii Street intersection south will just stay on the Mamalahoa Highway. There’s also concern about drivers kind of cutting short through McDonald’s parking lot and all the other business district area side roads and all that type of thing, which I’m sure will happen, they will test alternate routes through there. But even those as they enter back onto Mamalahoa are problematic. So in actuality I don’t foresee a tremendous amount of traffic using the Bypass going through Halekii Street as much as those communities envision because the folks that want to try it, to see if they can go through faster, they won’t be able to. The Halekii signal light the priority is north-south. That’s who gets the longer green light. Now our traffic folks can try to optimize that but I think even trying to do that the priority will still be north-south. So during this 3:30 to 6:30 PM peak, after things settle down, once people try it, we implement it and they’ll try it, I think the majority of traffic will remain on the Mamalahoa Highway. So the people that will use this route in the PM peak are those that live in the Halekii community. And taking them off of the Mamalahoa Highway is of, to me, a significant value because you reduce the amount of traffic on Mamalahoa Highway. By having this alternate route it’s like this alternate route is just for the Halekii community, it almost seems that way. Because that’s the amount of traffic that would, to me, would try to use the road, more so than south-bound motorists that’s trying to go to Captain Cook or Napoopoo or even, you know, to go to Kau. So, you know, Mr. Rho, I don’t know. I’m sorry I didn’t answer your question about Yamagata that well, but it can be done; and when the Oceanside folks come up, maybe you want to press them on whether they still intend to do that or not. But to me it was problematic in how the Yamagata Road option merges again or connects up to the Mamalahoa Highway traffic and whether that’s going to be a benefit or not. RHO: Well, you know, I think it will be easy enough to actually survey the people in that subdivision to find out when they’re actually driving on Mamalahoa to get home in the PM; and you can actually count them. If you look at the traffic study that was done, there’s about, and this is just a round figure, but it’s like 100 cars that make a right turn into the subdivision. And there are about, and I’m just guessing at this point, but let’s say it’s 500 cars that actually proceed south past that intersection. So when I saw that I thought, well, we’re eliminating 100 cars; but I’m not sure that that’s true. I think a number of those cars are going to the Post Office and then coming back up again and cutting across McDonalds, coming through that left turn or that right turn without bypassing that traffic light, and then also going into that EXHIBIT A 19 traffic light, turning right to get back onto the highway. As you were talking I got the feeling like we’re just doing this to, we’re spending all of this money, and I’m not sure how much it costs, but spending all this money to make the improvements on that road or safety improvements on that road for “x” number of people using that road during that period of time to get to the subdivision to get to their homes. I’m not sure that’s what we really want to do. I mean I think we really should count them, go house to house, and see exactly when they come home, and see whether or not it really is going to solve our problem. Or are we just doing this as an exercise if in fact what you’re saying, you know, most people will not use the bottom road to go through the subdivision to get to Mamalahoa because it’s just faster to just stay on Mamalahoa. But going back to this Yamagata Road, the reason I brought that up is because of that Post Office and, to me, the amount of traffic that’s turning right to get to the Post Office and then getting back on the highway. So, you know, if Yamagata Road is available then why not use that road? I don’t really think it makes a hell of a lot of difference to go, I don’t know, 1,000 feet maybe to the intersection. And the other thing that I just wanted to point out, just to throw out on the table, is in that little area where the Credit Union is, Bank of Hawaii, American Savings, the First Hawaiian Bank, that’s also a bottleneck; and I’m afraid that by opening it up, and I know that this is just an experiment, it’s just going to create another bottleneck, as somebody else pointed out in one of the submittals that we received. And I want to stop at that point. I think I’ve taken too much time already. WATANABE: Mr. Woodward? WOODWARD: Yeah, with regard to the question of the Yamagata Road, my understanding, I look upon this from what I’ve heard all the testimony and what I’ve read, is that this is going to be on a trial basis and this is a temporary move to allow traffic to flow up to Mamalahoa Highway pending the second phase completion of the next three miles or so to Napoopoo junction. I would guess if you were going to improve the Yamagata Road that that would take at least as long as we’re looking at; and, you know, temporary is a relative term. Temporary here probably means three to five years; and that’s temporary for government purposes. That’s a long time for us. But I would think that putting in another road as a temporary measure when the main road is going to connect this to Napoopoo junction is going to be done in about the same amount of time probably is not fiscally responsible. And I’d just like your comments on that, Mr. Sumada. SUMADA: Mr. Woodward, I would agree with you. The only caveat is that I think the settlement agreement puts the onus on Oceanside to build, develop Yamagata Road. So if you’re not worried about Oceanside’s profitability then that’s their responsibility to follow through. But as far as expending money as a general rule I would agree with you in total. Getting back a little bit to Mr. Rho’s comment, right now there are speeding and traffic concerns through Keauhou and Halekii Street right now. The short-term measures that we proposed would benefit both those communities right now, whether you folks agree to lift the restriction on the zoning condition or not. To me that is a very good investment of County funds. And it also recognizes that eventually when the road opens up, I mean I’m still hoping that that happens EXHIBIT A 20 for the traffic benefit or network for all of Kona, that it will be the first step that we’ve got to do right now anyway. So it’s like a, well, it depends who you ask, but you know, finally maybe Public Works is doing something ahead of time as opposed to, you know, waiting till the hatchet falls and then we start scrambling. But, I mean, you know, we’re pretty scrambling right now. But anyway I think it has worked to the public’s benefit to invest the money; and we do have funds available right now to implement the short-term measures. The long-term ones we have to kind of go through a CIP program and get those funded later, and also our environmental process too. So to me it is worth the investment to do that now. And I agree with you, Mr. Woodward about the investment short term, the temporariness of the improvements to Yamagata. WOODWARD: Well, I think, as a follow-up I think what you’re doing for Hokulia Road or the road from the Bypass up to Mamalahoa is going to have long-term benefits for the residents. The other thing it looks to me as though there’s going to be a significant, and Mr. Rho brought up the question of, well, there’s going to be more traffic; no, it’s just going to be rerouted. Some of them are going to go Mamalahoa, some of them are going to go up the other road. But the same number of cars, unless something else changes, should still be at that point up to Napoopoo junction. I don’t think that’s going to affect the amount of traffic on that remaining section of Mamalahoa, is that correct? SUMADA: That’s correct. The one change that we just became aware of, and I am, don’t quote me, and I don’t know if I’m getting it right, but there’s going to be a referral of court cases from Judge Strance’s court to the drug court location. So there will be an increased amount of traffic on Halekii Street from that change within the State Courts system. WOODWARD: Oh, great. SUMADA: So, anyway, to me it just means more that those concerns about traffic safety and speeding and whatever, you know, it justifies the short-term measures even more. So -. WATANABE: Okay. Are there any further questions? Okay, can we keep it short then, Mr. -. You know why, I have a number of people that have been waiting to testify that need to leave in a bit so -. No, I, you may go ahead and ask but let’s be concise, please. DOMINGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Sumada, you know, you made reference to long-term measures that will be taken by the Department. How long-term and how many years would that be translated to? SUMADA: The permanent improvements that we proposed on the slides, we anticipate to take three to five years. We have to go through an environmental process that takes some time, also the design and to be able to bid out those improvements. Hopefully we’ll beat that schedule. In the past we have not totally been successful but, you know, the three- to five- year timeframe for the type of improvements we’re making to me seems reasonable. DOMINGO: You know, my concern here is the time that we’re taking even to so-called catch up with the infrastructure needs on the island-wide basis. And I think the County Council had expressed that concern by coming up with several concurrency bills. Because if we go for the amendment to this bill, you know, things will be happening in a much faster pace than it EXHIBIT A 21 would normally take with other developments. And I certainly would like to have some assurances, you know, as to how or when these improvements will be made because the impact will be immediate when we divert traffic through the Bypass Road; and that’s my concern. And furthermore, you know, probably not your concern but it would certainly have an impact on your decisions in the future, you know, what we’re looking at, and I think Norman described that highway in its appropriate term, a scenic highway. Now if you look at the undeveloped lands from Alii Drive and south towards Napoopoo you’ll find a vast acreage of land that is not developed. Now looking at Kona developing for the past 10 to 20 years you’ll find that north of Keauhou and above the Old Mamalahoa Highway the amount of development that is taking place. And I think that is why we are faced with such a serious problem with regards to the traffic from north to south, you know. Now the question is because the Bypass Road is in its final stages of completion how many large landowners do we have owning properties above and below the highway and if, in fact, if there has been already some inquiry as to the possibility of developments along that scenic area; and that is my concern. Because the reason why we’re entertaining and why we’re having this Bypass Road is because of the tremendous amount of growth that is taking place in Kona. Now unless the Department or the administration takes some kind of position as to put some regulation or stop towards development along this area, we’re going to be faced with the same problem that we’re faced with today in trying to find some other ways to mitigate and address the congestion problem. WATANABE: Okay, Mr. Domingo, I understand that and I’m sure there are other people within the audience who would agree to some degree. But we’re still talking about restricting between 3:30 and 6:30 on the Bypass, not 10 years from now we’re going to develop and how many other roads do we need, yeah? SUMADA: Mr. Chairman, may I respond with a short response to Mr. Domingo’s concern. Mr. Domingo, you take a very broad look at how towns grow and develop which is very, I think, a very prudent thing. The thing is, though, road, government’s response to the growth in the community traditionally in every, most every town lags. You know, you do the development first and then government tries to catch up with the road infrastructure or other types of infrastructure needs. And in some ways it’s a good thing because you don’t want to be putting roads in where there’s no development, and it’s almost like wasting government money. But the thing is when we develop roadways or try to improve the roadway network we have to do it in phases cause there’s never enough funds to do it. So it’s like we take small steps. So the concept of opening this road up from 3:30 to 6:30 is just like a half a step or a small step. You know, hopefully Hokulia will come through and build the southern section quickly, you know, regardless of the, I mean, considering the appeal process; but it has to be done in steps. And what we’re, this is the same experience we’re going through in opening up Laaloa and Lako Street. Nobody wants to have traffic through their community; and I wish we could make all these projects happen all at the same time; but we cannot. So there’s this period where some communities have to bear the burden for a short time until we can get all of the steps in place. So I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman, for taking too long. WATANABE: Mr. Director. EXHIBIT A 22 YUEN: If I could jump in. You asked a planning, you know, a planning-related question so I wanted to jump in after Jiro had his say on this. And you asked a question about development along this Bypass Highway. And I would say, first of all, as far as my own view of it, we should not have any rezoning from the KIC property south along the Bypass Highway to Mamalahoa, I mean, south to Napoopoo. The General Plan does not show this as a development area. The General Plan has this as an Agricultural area. The General Plan was amended to say specifically that there shouldn’t be commercial, that the Bypass Highway should be a scenic highway, there should not be commercial development along the Bypass Highway. One of the things that tends to happen when you build a highway like this is that commercial businesses will try to move out to the highway because people are driving back and forth on it. And then that starts to defeat the function of the highway as a through route for commuter travel, besides defeating the idea of it being a scenic highway. And, finally, although the community development plan is not finished, I can’t say enough about every planning concept in that community development plan shows this as not being a development area where you’re going to have intensive future development. WATANABE: Thank you. I know I have a number of people who would like to testify, specifically we have 19 of them. But I’d like to call up Mr. John DeFries who represents Hokulia. I believe Sonny Shimaoka has a time constraint so would Sonny please step up; and I understand that Barbara Scott has been here for a while and has to leave also. So I’d like to call those three people up, please. The hearing has gone on for quite a while now and we’re only now entering into public testimony. So I’d like to ask you to please keep your statements brief, maybe let’s try to stick to 3 to 5 minutes and hopefully you won’t be redundant. So may I begin by swearing you in? Would you all raise your right hand? Do you now swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: I do. WATANABE: Thank you. Maybe you can begin, Mr. DeFries. And prior to providing your testimony, would you state your name and address for the record, please. DEFRIES: Yes. John DeFries, 1250 Oceanside Partners, 78-6831 Alii Drive, Kailua- Kona, Hawaii 96740-2440. WATANABE: You may proceed. DEFRIES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Fellow Commissioners. In my remarks, let me provide some background and some history that might help put this in further context; and that is the distinction between meaningful solutions and interim solutions. And clearly we are here today to seek alternatives that if adopted formulate an interim solution. The completed 5 ½ mile Mamalahoa Highway Bypass when linked with the completed Alii Parkway combined with the Queen Kaahumanu Highway improvements that are now in place brings us into a meaningful solution. And so we applaud the County’s efforts to try and find and explore an interim solution. We recognize like the County does that no solution interim or otherwise is possible without hearing the voices of our neighbors and the residents who are gathered here. Today’s turnout should be of no surprise. Various alignments of this highway had been on the drawing boards of either the State of Hawaii and/or the County of Hawaii for 40 years. Oceanside has every intent of completing this highway from its Keauhou entry working south to the Napoopoo junction. In EXHIBIT A 23 December 5, 2001 we broke ground at the Halekii intersection to work our way north into what is now a near-finished piece of the highway. At that time a five year clock was triggered. One of our conditions was that we needed to get this highway completed in five years or 60 months. Had that timeline held up, we would have been celebrating last month the one-year anniversary of a functional and completed highway. Having said that, we recognize and emphasize that the September 9, 2003 preliminary injunction that was placed on the project by the Third Circuit Court caused that clock to go into a state of suspense or what is formally called a state of tolling. At that point in time we consumed 22 months of that clock in getting the north half about 85 percent completed. There remains approximately 38 months on that five-year clock to complete the highway in total. It’s important to note that the clock is still in a tolling mode and has not restarted, separate and apart from the Third Circuit preliminary injunction which ultimately was resolved in a March 2006 settlement agreement and modified, an amended decision by the Third Circuit which took care of the Kelly plaintiff’s litigation. The Coupe case which currently prevents us from moving forward still places that clock in a state of suspense. I should also note that any reference I make to the Coupe family is only meant to provide some context to what we’re all having to work through. I’m not here to argue the merits or the complexities of the case. Please note that I respect the Coupe family’s right to take this decision up on appeal. The Third Circuit Court recently entered a judgment granting the County’s request to condemn the segment of right-of-way needed for the second phase of Mamalahoa Highway Bypass, keeping in mind that the Coupe family is our immediate neighbor to the south. We share a common boundary. The lead defendants in that action, the Coupes, have appealed the Third Circuit’s decision. The Third Circuit Court has also granted the County possession of the right-of-way pending the appeal. However, the Coupes have asked the Third Circuit to reconsider its possession order and a hearing has been set for January 29, 2008 to address that request. In answer to the question that came up earlier, Gary Yamagata during the course of the settlement agreement, as a concerned neighbor who was anxious to help find resolution through the litigation, stepped forward in the course of our mediation and asked us and presented us with an opportunity to explore what Yamagata Road might provide as an interim connector, knowing that the community and its wishes to get the full highway to be built, that that timeframe had been delayed. And Mr. Yamagata stepped forward with no previous engineering of the road. At the time we had a construction right-of-way which allowed trucks to go up and down that road prior to the opening of the Keauhou gate and the north half of the Bypass. At the time the settlement agreement was signed in March of 2006 we immediately embarked upon an examination with the engineers together with the County on what the possibilities might be on Yamagata Road. It was determined that, two things in particular: The slope was exceptionally steep; and at the time, and as we moved through this all of the concerns that you heard Mr. Sumada address surfaced. December of 2006 Mr. Yamagata formally withdrew from Oceanside’s consideration any further discussion using the right-of-way or using Yamagata Road as an option which prompted the County and our staff to look at the solutions that have been presented today. I also shared several people’s recognition that Jiro Sumada has worked diligently to find not only solutions for the Keauhou community and Halekii community but also operationally for what Oceanside needs to deal with given that we’re still a construction site and that intersection serves as an important staging area for the completion of the road. EXHIBIT A 24 In answer to the question, will we proceed to develop the south half of the highway in spite of the appeal, the answer is I have recommended, and our team has recommended, that we not proceed until there is a legal resolution to this matter. And here to be considered is a couple of things. The segment of the road that we require as a right-of-way through the Coupe property represents roughly over 1,000 feet going north to south that would then enable us to get south and finish the highway up to Napoopoo, the junction of Napoopoo. Should the Coupe family prevail on appeal either in the Intermediate Court of Appeals, or the Hawaii Supreme Court, or for that matter the US Supreme Court, an order more than likely would be issued for Oceanside or someone, the County, to restore the land that had been developed. If they prevail on appeal, it’s not just a matter that concerns a 1,000 feet. What it does is it renders everything south of it useless; and a whole new alignment that could affect the north half of the highway would now be part of the re-engineering of this. There has been a concept, and I emphasize concept, discussed with members of the County in Public Works as to how Oceanside would respond if the County found Oceanside harmless, financially harmless, in the event the Coupes prevailed on appeal. And I emphasize only concept because it’s a very complex issue; and I go back to the fact that the cost that would have to be borne by the County and its taxpayers is not restricted the restoration of 1,000-foot by a 150-foot right-of-way that crosses the Coupe property. It would require greater sums of money which have not been totally examined yet because such an adjusted alignment has not even been proposed or looked at.And any other alignment would cause us to cross the Coupe property as well.So I’m prepared at this time to answer any questions, or feel free to dismiss me immediately, given that we’re waiving the speeding charge on Mr. Hayashi through -. No, but I’d be happy to answer any questions. WATANABE: Do we have any questions for Mr. DeFries? Well, thank you, Mr. DeFries, for your time. DEFRIES: Thank you. WATANABE: Mr. Shimaoka, would you state your name and address for the record please; and then you can proceed with your testimony. SHIMAOKA: Sure. By the way, my dress in no way implies that I’m trying to intimidate you guys one way or the other. I’m responsible for a local school evacuation drill today, so that’s why I’m addressed like this. I’m Sonny Shimaoka, 75-264A Aloha Kona Drive, Kailua-Kona. I’m representing the Kona Coalition of Concerned Citizens. We got involved in late 2004 because of the frustration with the traffic flow up to Kealakekua, commonly known as the Kainaliu Krawl. And one of the things that we felt that was necessary in our coalition was to look for ways to open up the Bypass Road. We actually initiated a, I guess a card that we call communities’ suggestions on what to do with the Hokulia Bypass Road. And we entitled it more roads now because we felt that here you have a road that’s not being used. We secured over 2500 signatures to at least get the process going in the Courts and to let the community know that we felt that the litigation that the Oceanside was going through was not of the opinion of all of the community as, you know, with the things that were coming out in the paper. It seemed like the majority in the community were against this Bypass. And so we secured 2500 signatures that at least said to us that we need to be doing something about this road. I want to commend the County, Jiro and his group, for at least taking the initiative to look at so many different alternatives. I appreciate the presentation and the passion which I think is commendable for our County. I would also like to commend Hokulia and Oceanside for hanging with this community EXHIBIT A 25 for as long as they have in spite of all of the opposition. And I know that there are so many different opinions that’s represented in this room today. I read a book many years ago, it was a book on leadership and it was written by a guy named Tom Peters. And in the book it outlined several qualities that Fortune 500 Companies employed in order to become what you would consider a top-notch company. And one of the philosophies that was common with all of the companies that were surveyed was the approach of taking the ready-fire-aim approach. Unfortunately, that’s the condition that we are faced with in this community. If you talk to these 2500 and more people in our community, this is what they’re seeing – a road that’s perfectly usable sitting empty. That’s all they see. They don’t look at the problems that it’s going to cause and all of that; and that’s the common man’s approach. All they see is an empty road. And so that’s why I want to go on record and say that I think that we at least need to do something. The County has provided us with so many different options. I think they’re commendable options that you can at least try and take the ready-fire-aim approach and discover what will be the final solution and what would be the best answer to alleviate the traffic congestion. So thank you for the courtesies. Questions? WATANABE: Thank you, Mr. Shimaoka. Are there any questions for the testifier? Thank you. You may be seated. Earlier I called up Barbara Scott. Is she still present? YUEN: Yes. She’s in the back. She’s coming up. WATANABE: Oh, okay. SCOTT: Thanks for calling me first. Good morning and thank you all for coming here. I think that -. WATANABE: Please. SCOTT: Yes? WATANABE: May I swear you in. SCOTT: I’m sorry, yes. WATANABE: So would, yeah, would you raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? SCOTT: Absolutely, yes. WATANABE: And would you state your name and address for the record, please. SCOTT: Barbara Scott, 75-5782 Lopeka Place, Kailua-Kona. Okay? WATANABE: You may proceed then with your testimony. SCOTT: Thank you. I’d like to add that I work in the Halekii area so I’m very familiar with the traffic there, morning and afternoon, in both directions. I was interested to hear EXHIBIT A 26 that there was a Yamagata Road alternative for a period of time. I never heard of that before. But that is one of the things that I am concerned, that there is no alternative to Halekii Street that’s being considered to advance the Bypass. At any rate, the Halekii Street is now proposed as a connector between Mamalahoa Bypass and Highway 11. In the frequently asked question th sheet that the County distributed for December 7, the County asked the question why the change in the use of Halekii. We never knew our road would be a connector. Well, the answer to that was that the General Plan Facilities Map was amended in 2006 showing Halekii as a collector road when the northern section of the Bypass is completed. When did the Facilities Map change? Well, apparently that occurred at a County Council special meeting held in Hilo on October 24, 2006. It was a quick recovery legislation meeting. And in response to the Mayor’s request the County Council convened the special meeting October 24, 2006 at 9 o’clock in Hilo. Following that special meeting the County held a public hearing on the proposed Interim General Plan Amendments in Hilo. Chairman Higa apologized for the inconvenience th caused by rescheduling the public hearing originally set for October 25 in Kona, however reciting it to follow the special meeting being convened at the request of the Mayor assured that a quorum would be met. Well, there was no public hearing before today to address the opening of the current Halekii as that connector; and on the amended General Plan there is one line that addresses, oh, under Chapter 13, extend Halekii Street to connect to the proposed Mamalahoa Bypass Highway. Until this had come up recently, I don’t know that there were any public hearings. There may have been interest groups in the communities, but I don’t think a public hearing had ever addressed any of this. But since there wasn’t, I’m going to say now what I would have then. The County has itemized a number of actions to improve traffic safety in the South Kona area. And the improvements are welcome with the exception of using Halekii Street as a connector for a few reasons. For one, the General Plan itself lists roadway standards that any major collector, any streets supplementary to an arterial street system should have a 60-foot right-of-way. And I think we already heard with the slide show that it’s 24 and 26 feet wide, maybe there’s room for widening but certainly not there right now. So according to the County’s own standards, there isn’t a wide enough right-of-way here. Another problem here is grades. Under County Code, Chapter 23, under Subdivisions, for street design grades, a grade of the street shall be a reasonable minimum but in no case less than ½ of 1 percent. It shall not exceed 7 percent on major arterials, 8 percent on secondary arterials, 10 percent on collector streets or 12 percent on any other street. So Halekii has a 19 percent grade in some sections. So I don’t know how that has suddenly become acceptable. At any rate, it appears that the County’s own rules prohibit using Halekii Street as a connector road. Well, I heard earlier about the speed humps that the County intends to put on Halekii Street which would be still a major route and access to the hospital. And pardon me but I don’t think emergency vehicles should have to go over speed humps on the way to the hospital. It doesn’t appear to be a reasonable thing. Well, as Mr. DeFries mentioned, there is a January 29, 2008 Coupe family motion to vacate or stay the County’s order of possession until the appeal is completed, which means that Halekii would be used indefinitely as a connector between the Bypass and Highway 11. I’m requesting that the Planning Commission give a negative recommendation in using Halekii for a connector road. Thank you very much. EXHIBIT A 27 WATANABE: Are there any questions for Barbara Scott? Seeing none, thank you. You may be seated. SCOTT: Thank you. I’m going to work now. WATANABE: Sorry it took so long. I still have 16 testifiers signed up, and I believe within the audience we have a number of people here in attendance that will be further on in the agenda. I’m hoping that we can finish up with the testimony before we break for lunch. But I would suggest to those who are, like No. 3 and further on the agenda that, you know, maybe you plan on having your meeting with us after lunch. Seeing as we have as many testifiers as we do, I’d like to take a five-minute break because I believe one of our Commissioners already kind of walked off and took a break. Probably it’s time for some others. So with that, we’ll stand in recess for five minutes. RECESSED The Chair called a recess at 11:30 a.m. RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 11:45 a.m. WATANABE: Okay, will the Planning Commission please come back to order. Before we begin calling up further contestants, I’d like to remind you that we have, I mean not contestants, but testifiers. I’d like to remind you that we have 17 more people who’d like to testify. So I would appreciate it if you’d be concise. Try and stick to the three minutes. We will break for lunch at 12:30 whether we get through this or not; and we’ll reconvene at 1:30. Hopefully we can get through all the testimony before 12:30. So with that, let me begin by calling up, I guess I can call up four people. Let’s see, Karen Huff, John Harris, Harold Murata and Carol Kitaoka. Okay. Would you all raise your right hand please, so I can swear you in. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Hawaii Planning Commission? TESTIFERS: I do. WATANABE: Thank you. I guess we can start I believe on my right. That would be Mr. Murata. Is that correct? MURATA: Yes. WATANABE: Yes. Would you please state your name and address for the record before you begin your testimony. MURATA: My name is -. WATANABE: Would you please use the microphone. We’re recording this so it’s difficult for the secretary to -. MURATA: Sure. Good morning, Commission Members. My name is Harold Murata. My address is Post Office Box 1752, Kealakekua, Kona, Hawaii 96750. WATANABE: Thank you. You may begin with your testimony. EXHIBIT A 28 MURATA: Okay. I’m here today representing myself as one of the common folk; and I want to talk about two things basically. This proposed amendment, the project, is objectionable intrinsically to me in two ways. One is a mater of public trust. The project that was proposed originally was Mamalahoa Bypass and a collector road. Now the partially completed Bypass plus Halekii Street will be used as a through way. So what was promised is now being delivered. The other part is this Halekii extension, which I call Halekii Detour, this project will cause a lot of undesirable effects; and paradoxically it will cause no effect. I’ll go into both things. First, the undesirable impact is over at the Kealakekua Village. There were safety concerns about the steepness, due to the steepness of the hill and the residents fearing pedestrians and what not. It was covered quite well and responded to the community concerns, but what I would like to add to that is the problem of local circulation at that intersection. I heard one of the Commission Members talk about the location, the intersection at Halekii and Mamalahoa. That intersection on one corner there is Tesoro. On the other corner there’s a post office, the Labor office and other offices. Further makai there is a business center. There’s lots of traffic. I visited the area quite often, so I’m a frequent visitor and familiar with a lot of the traffic circulation there. There are times when traffic flow is hectic. I wiggle through the community too, so that I can get on Halekii Street and continue on further. I use the side street that I wriggle through to get out of the area. That will, I visualize where hectic can come chaotic where there will be more, I’d say, preemptive aggressive driving. By that I mean, you know, people will cut off others, they will cut in to, you know, just move around. So that’s one thing. The other thing that, oh, another thing, let’s say mitigation. I’m glad that there’s mitigation for the community with traffic calming features both at the makai end at Alii Drive and the mauka end at Halekii Drive. But those things do not, they are just short-term mitigation. The real long- term mitigation involves better junction management. Let me illustrate what I mean by junction management. Here’s a half a liter bottle. Let’s say this is the Halekii intersection, and this is the existing capacity. Imagine there are some cars in there. They’re going to go out at a certain rate, it’s manageable, it’s safe. Now this proposal will, at the junction it will create this, the next size is the same. The outflow rate is going to be slower or longer. The rate may be, the rate is the same because they have the same neck size. But the outflow, the time for it to empty this is going to be at least twice, theoretically twice. But with the hectic and chaotic conditions at the junction, it’s going to be more. So the junction management at Halekii is going to be severely impacted. If you leave things alone, you have this Halekii junction now operating, you know, at the level, you know, it’s a problem; but the problem will be worse. You have similar kinds of junction phenomena going on at Kam III, at Lako, at Palani, and further. So you have a whole series of junctions that need to be managed. And the illusion that Halekii will solve the problems of all the other junctions is, it’s sort of like an illusion. Mr. Sumada talked about optical illusion, so, you know, there could be, you know, we may be seeing things that are not so rosy. WATANABE: Yeah, Mr. Murata, would you kindly summarize. I understand your position and I think the fellow Commissioners also get the point. But I do also have other testifiers -. MURATA: Yes, yes. WATANABE: And so could you kindly summarize. EXHIBIT A 29 MURATA: Yes. My recommendation is Option 5 as Mr. Sumada, you know, when he presented the power presentation point, close it to the general public and use it as an emergency, you know, usage only. WATANABE: Thank you. Mr. Woodward? WOODWARD: If I might ask you a question. You brought up your analogy there using your two half liter bottles, liter bottles. It would seem to me if your concern is traffic at the junction it would be just a matter of resetting the timing on the traffic light to allow more flow from the connector road and therefore you’ll have more flow. You’re going to have the same traffic on that road. People may take one road or the other road but you’re going to have the same amount of traffic heading south. And all you would have to do I would think, and tell me if I’m wrong, would be to reset the timing on the light so there’s more time allowing people to come up that Hokulia Bypass Road. MURATA: In general you are perfectly correct, except the system has been tweaked so that it’s operating at an optimum now; and the way to optimize traffic flow is to manage the various junctions that feed into Mamalahoa Highway and the proposed Halekii detour. WOODWARD: Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. Any further questions for Mr. Murata? Thank you. May I call on Carol then, Kitaoka. Could you state your name and address for the record, please. KITAOKA: I’m Carol Kitaoka. I live at 81-901 Manao Street in Kealakekua which makes me a resident of Kona Scenic Subdivision. And I also work at the Prosecutors Office which is in the Kealakekua Business Plaza which is also located on Halekii Street. And my assignment is Drug Court prosecutor work so I use the Drug Court Courtroom which is also on Halekii Street. So in essence my whole day is in that one area. And I am here to represent myself and also some concerns that the Prosecutors Office has because our office is on Halekii Street. And our overall concern is for safety. I have gone to the meetings and had discussions with the Public Works. But as a resident, this is just as for myself, I really feel that we still need a four-way stop and crosswalks at the Mamao and Halekii Street intersection. I feel that’s the safest solution. And also on Alii Drive the proposal of Public Works is to have those three-way stops; and he says because it’s the safest way to manage the traffic. Well, then he says that’s the safest intersection. So I still feel that that’s the best solution. However, if that is not going to happen, I really feel that we need that crosswalk And I did talk to Ron Thiel yesterday and he has put it in as a solution for people crossing the street with that pedestrian signal. So if someone needs to use the crosswalk, you hit it and then some lights or whatever will show up. But I just wanted to make sure that that is kept as part of the safety measures that are going to be put in for Halekii Street. And as representing our office, now just to be short, we agree that we need that crosswalk because of the number of people that will be using the street. And just to clarify, on July 1, 2008 criminal cases from South Kohala and Kau which are currently heard in Hilo are going to be coming to Kona to the Drug Court Courtroom. So that will mean a lot more traffic. Any time you have criminal cases there’s always a lot more, there’s just going to be a lot more traffic EXHIBIT A 30 there, jurors, people needing -. And there’s no parking so everybody will be parking on Halekii Street or in the subdivision. So we will need ways to get to the Courtroom, I mean, to cross the street. So we really need that crosswalk. And our other concern is the use of the Kealakekua Business Plaza parking lot as a thoroughfare to, as an alternate route from making that right turn on Halekii Street to, you know, they’ll go through our parking lot in order to get back onto Mamalahoa Highway. And the only other thing I wanted to say is in speaking with Public Works they’ve used formulas to determine whether safety measures are warranted on any street. But I would just ask that they look at what is safe; and, you know, our street wasn’t built to be a major thoroughfare. So if they could, you know, just look at what’s safe and not just go by the formulas. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for -? Mr. Woodward. WOODWARD: Yeah, I might just have one comment, and see if you agree. If in fact there is going to be increased business for the Court system from Kau and Kohala, that’s going to happen whether this road goes through or not. KITAOKA: Yes. WOODWARD: And it may well be that having a better road system leading to the Courts would actually be of benefit to you. Now there are logistical things, and I’m sure the Department of Public Works has made efforts to try and address concerns about parking, etc. But my comment is that if there’s going to be additional burden on the Court system there, that’s going to happen regardless of this connector. KITAOKA: So our concern is just that we, you know, there’s some way for us to cross the streets. WATANABE: Thank you. Any further questions? Mr. Rho? RHO: In the County’s presentation, Mr. Sumada’s presentation, in the short term eight months, well six to eight months mitigation measure, he lists mid-block crosswalk with signal near Court House. Does that meet your requirement? KITAOKA: Well, I talked to Ron Thiel yesterday and I think he put that in there because of my concerns. And I just, you know, it’s in there. I just want to make sure that it stays in there in the final whatever, you know. RHO: But that substitutes for your, I think you said four-way crosswalk? KITAOKA: Well, four-way stop. RHO: Oh, four-way stop. KITAOKA: And crosswalk. Well, from what they said that they don’t want the stop signs because people aren’t going to, well, they’re going to ignore the stop signs and just go up cause they don’t want to stop because this is a pretty steep road. So they’re saying, you know, if EXHIBIT A 31 they put the stop signs in, well, I shouldn’t -. This is what I think they say, that if you put the stop signs in people are going to ignore them and, you know, what’s the use of having them there. But my argument is that you’re going to put in speed limits signs and more people are going to ignore those speed limit signs than the stop signs. And, you know, just to say that people, you know, my job depends on people breaking the law so I know people break the law. But, you know, just to say that they’re going to break the law so you’re not going to put it there, even if that’s the safest thing -. RHO: No, but the reason for not having the stop signs is because they’re going to put in a mini-traffic circle so you wouldn’t need a stop sign necessarily. KITAOKA: Well, I understand what they’re saying is that, you know, traffic flow is really, there’s not going to be a traffic flow if you put in stops signs and it’s just going to be too cumbersome. But I guess what I’m saying is, you know, what is safe for the community, for everybody, you know. And I think they’re worried about car accidents because people are going to be stopping and then, you know, because it’s a steep grade they’re going to be, you know, how you just kind of go backwards and then you know, create accidents. But I guess for me it’s what is safe for people that are going to have to cross the roads, cause right now there are no crosswalks on Halekii Street. So, you know, maybe this is going to be helpful in that we will get crosswalks. But with the amount of traffic that will be flowing plus then more people, I think you need something to make it safer to cross the street. So I just wanted to make sure that’s still there. RHO: Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. Seeing no other question, I had a request that John Harris go first. So may I call on Mr. Harris. Would you state your name and address for the record please. HARRIS: My name is John Harris. My address is 78-6920 Alii Drive, Unit 331 in Keauhou. I’m Chair of the traffic committee of the Keauhou Outreach Group. Keauhou Outreach group represents, consists of representatives of about 1600 homeowners, and in addition to businesses that are located in or do business in the Keauhou area. I have submitted written testimony and I’ll leave the reading of that to you. I just want to summarize it very briefly at this point, especially in light of the position that the Public Works Department has described this morning concerning the Alii Drive and Keauhou and the short- and long-term mitigation efforts. Our situation is different than the folks in Halekii Street in that we’ve known for a long time that the Bypass Road is going to open some time, some way, some how; and that when it does, Alii Drive in Keauhou will become a part of a major north-south connector. And since the late nineties our group has been looking at what the effect of that road is going to be on us and what we can do to mitigate it. Right now Alii Drive is essentially a local street. It has been that for 40 years. Most of the condominium complexes along Alii Drive have been there for 30 years, some of them longer. So we’re talking about a situation that’s going to change quite dramatically. One of the features of Alii Drive is very limited sight distances, and Jiro referred to that. And in your packet attached to my testimony is a number of photographs of not only Halekii Street but of, from entrances looking north and south along Alii Drive. So you can see the effect of the curves and the hills on safety, especially in getting out of those driveways. As I said, we’ve been addressing these Bypass Road related issues for seven years. Last year in 2006 the County Council in response to various contacts that we’ve made with the Council over EXHIBIT A 32 the years adopted Resolution 311 06; 311 06 is attached to my testimony. It asks the Mayor and the Public Works Department to expedite the construction and design of improvements on Alii Drive that are essentially designed to mitigate the Bypass Road effects. Most of those have been incorporated in the mitigation measures that the Department of Public Works has proposed today. We’ve been working with Public Works and meeting with them and folks from Halekii Street. And I’d like to second the motion to congratulate Jiro Sumada and his staff and Bruce McClure for all of the hard work they’ve done to meet with us and to understand what our problems are. The only disagreement we have at this point, well, essentially there are two, first of all we believe that the traffic signal at the Kaleiopapa-Alii Drive intersection should be moved into the short-term mitigation measures and put in before the Bypass Road is opened. That’s a very dangerous intersection. It leads eventually to the Sheraton. They generate a substantial amount of traffic every day, many of them tourists who aren’t familiar with the ways of driving around in Keauhou and West Hawaii in general. So we think that traffic lights should be there. Secondly, we think that the actual amendment to the ordinances should refer to at least in a general way to the principal mitigation measures for both Alii Drive and Halekii Street. And as to the short- term mitigation measures provide that if they are not in place within a year of the enactment then the amendment should somerset, which would have the effect of closing off the Halekii Street access to the Bypass Road until such time as the Bypass Road is fully complete. Again, I’d like to express our thanks to Public Works and Noelani and all the others who worked hard. We have a number of representatives of our community that have been here this morning, some of them left after the break or during the break, but we’re very interested in this and we appreciate your attention. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for the testifier? Thank you. WOODWARD: I’d just like to thank you for your testimony. I think it’s very valuable for us; and thank you once again. HARRIS: Thank you. I’ll answer questions about my hairstyle too if you’d like. WATANABE: Okay, that was John Harris. Karen Huff, right? Would you state your name and address please for the record. HUFF: My name is Karen Huff. I live at 78-6980 Kaluna Street in Keauhou, Kailua-Kona, 96740. John pretty much covered just about everything that we have worked on and talked about, with not only the Public Works Department but elected officials over the past seven years. And we see the Public Works Department’s proposals for mitigation measures as a real positive sign, that after all of this time some of this may actually come to pass. However, as John says proposals aren’t promises and we all know which road is paved with good intentions. So we would strongly urge that any amendment to this ordinance include as a condition of approval of the amendment all of the mitigation measures which Jiro laid out in his testimony. And if they fail to implement those within that year’s period of time, that the amendment, this amendment that you’re considering today would be void and the ordinance would just revert to its original wording. I can’t say strongly enough, and the people that are here still and the people that left, we want some guarantees that these are going to be. We have tried to be as cooperative EXHIBIT A 33 as we know how to be in working with the staff over the years; but we would like to have some guarantees that what’s promised will actually be delivered. Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. DOMINGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ma’am, you mentioned with regard to improvements that Public Works committed in doing and they were broken in short-term and long-term uses. Are you referring to the long-term uses also if nothing is done within a year then the amendment should somerset? HUFF: The only long-term amendment that we have discussed, I mean the long- term mitigation that we have discussed in our committee is the installation of the traffic signal at Kaleiopapa and Alii Drive. The other traffic signals, three-way stops and so forth that are recommended are really out of the community of Keauhou and are not affecting us physically. So, yes, I would like to see at least going out for bid on the traffic signal at Kaleiopapa prior to, included in the short-term measures so that at least we have a design and we’re out to bid in a period of a year on that. The other long-term measures I’m not familiar with all of the ramifications of those and, because of the width of the streets and so forth that they’re talking about. DOMINGO: Thank you very much. I would like to note, Mr. Chairman, then if Mr. McClure can take note of that and possibly respond to us at a later time in today’s proceedings. WATANABE: Yeah, I believe he’s taking notes on that. Thank you. Are there any further questions? No? Then let me call up the next four; and I do have a request from Judy Emanuel. She apparently is a doctor and needs to leave shortly. So would you please come up. Then could I have Horace Yanagi, Andy Guillermo, I hope I didn’t murder your name, and Kalani Mills also. Okay, would you all raise your right hand so I can swear you in. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: I do. WATANABE: Thank you. Maybe I can start with Judy Emanuel. Would you state your name and address for the record and proceed with your testimony. EMANUEL: My name is Judy Emanuel. My address is 78-6654 Alii Drive. I’m a physician. I have two properties on Alii Drive. One is fairly close to Kahaluu Beach. The other one is about one mile north of that; and I use that to see patients, and have for quite some time. I have a couple of concerns; and some of them relate specifically to the safety on Alii Drive. First and before that, Alii Drive is probably one of the prettiest streets in Kona.It has been in here for a long time. We’ve had a lot of older homes on there. We have a couple of beaches, we have Jameson’s Restaurant. Tourists really enjoy traveling on Alii Drive. It’s a beautiful place, probably the prettiest in Kona. When we open that up to more traffic that is already there, it’s not going to be very appealing; and I think it’s really important to think of that. More important than that is, and I want to kind of try to paint a picture that I have in my mind that I’ve thought about many, many times. Okay, you’re going to open up the road, the Hokulia Road. A lot of that traffic is going to be filtered EXHIBIT A 34 onto Alii Drive. I think that’s just plain common sense. They’re going to put in some really nice stop signs and signals. They’re going to put in speed bumps. They’re going to open up Laaloa and put in speed bumps. So there you are, you’re sitting there at 8:30 in the morning having a nice cup of coffee looking out at the ocean and enjoying your early morning when there’s an earthquake down south. You have five minutes maybe if you’re lucky to get off of Alii Drive. How many people are going to be able to get out in time and get to high ground the way things are? Even now with all of the development, all of the traffic that’s there, it would be very difficult to get out. And I’m really concerned about that, okay, which to me brings up a topic of Queen K and Mamalahoa. I treat accident patients, that’s what I do. That’s a lot of what I do. And so I see all of these people who have been in these terrible collisions on that particular road; and you have no idea what is going on with regard to head-on collisions, rear-ends, crashes of all kinds, and in particular between Kailua-Kona, between Palani Road and up north where a lot of the hotels are, and the airport. It would seem to me common sense, but it’s just me, that putting the money into enlarging and having Mamalahoa and Queen K being a four-lane road around the island, and maybe even considering what the previous candidate for mayor had thought of which was a monorail around the island, would somehow be a better use of money than all of these stopgap measures that are going to create tremendous problems for people. But anyway that’s just, I’m just representing myself; and those are just my thoughts as a citizen. Thank you very much for listening. WATANABE: Is there, are there any other questions for her? No? Thank you. Let’s see, Mr. Yanagi, please state and address, please. YANAGI: My name is Horace Yanagi. I live at 81-889 Halekii Street. I speak for a few other residents that live in Kona Scenic Subdivision. Basically we are opposed to changing the Ordinance 96-7, 96-8 by removing the barricade to open Halekii Street. I guess that’s the issue today, is the ordinance to change that. Halekii Street was never meant to be a connector road to the Bypass. Both Halekii and Nape Street, which is on the south side of Halekii, deadend at the entrance to the park. Presently Nape still deadends at the park with only a chain across. Halekii Street is connected now to the Bypass Road. Majority of the homes built on Halekii Street are designed with short driveways, single driveways, where vehicles are backing out onto Halekii Street. The same condition exists on Nape Street to the south, Manawa Street to the north, Mamao Street to the east and Muli Street to the west. Our subdivision is no different from a majority of the older subdivisions built in the past, with the exception now that Halekii Street might be opened as a connector road. Imagine trying to back out of your driveway or back up a boat or a utility trailer into your driveway, especially during the peak traffic. Will it be possible? Would we be able to access our homes? Some background is when Hokulia’s representative came over door to door to support the project, we were told basically that Halekii Street will never be opened. I understand it’s not Hokulia asking to open the road. But presently Hokulia uses the road for the construction people and creating some speeding issues. The employees are speeding up and down the road. And sometime along the way after that the site selection process Department of Education declined to build an elementary school there because of the grade of the road. Now these are information that I’ve gained, you know, recently; and I hope I’m correct. About ‘90 or ‘94 or so, somewhere around there, I guess, there was a resolution passed not to open Halekii Street until after the Bypass Road was complete; and I believe this was due because the grade was too steep. Why was it too steep then but not too steep now? The grade is not going EXHIBIT A 35 to change. The grade is always going to be the same. At that time it was too steep, now it’s okay? I don’t understand. In the past the people utilizing Kona Scenic Park which is the supporting community asked for a stop sign to be placed at Halekii and Muli Street, which is on the bottom. At that time, Henry Cho who was the Mayor’s liaison told us the traffic engineer said it was not possible because the grade was too steep so they couldn’t put a stop sign on the bottom. It’s common knowledge now and hopefully for the Public Works that, you now, during heavy rains cars come to a skid before being able to stop coming down Halekii Street when the water is running down the road, which it frequently does when there’s big rains. With this request to change the ordinance and allow Halekii Street to be opened, the County is taking away our freedom of the residents of Kona Scenic to move about safely, creating an unsafe environment by adding more vehicles to the subdivision. Residents trying to exit the subdivision during the peak hours to pick up their kids from day care or schools, or if they have doctor appointments, emergencies, they’ll all be severely impacted from exiting the subdivision. Understand we have one exit going up into the places that people need to go. As you heard there’s a District Court which expects more caseloads. WATANABE: Mr. -? YANAGI: I understand, yes. WATANABE: Can you summarize cause I think your testimony is starting to overlap, yeah -. YANAGI: Okay. WATANABE: Other people’s previous testimony, yeah -. YANAGI: Is there other avenues that we can approach, can we see, is there? Can we accelerate the opening of the no-parking restriction in Kainaliu town before taking such a position on Halekii Street? I mean are there different avenues of approaches that we can take? Can the Planning Director, Chief of Police, or whoever, can they authorize a trial period that the County is asking without changing the ordinance? What is it? Once open stays open? What happens after that if it doesn’t work as the County planning will, to relieve the traffic? What then? Will these mitigations be part of this ordinance change to make sure that the future administration stays in focus where we are at today? Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Mr. Yanagi? Seeing none, thank you. I believe, Kalani Mills, would you state your name and address please for the record. And, again, you know, we have quite a few testifiers so please be concise. MILLS: Okay, good afternoon. My name is Kalani Mills. I live on Halekii Street, 81-891, Halekii. And the reason why I’m here today is I am very concerned for myself and my family also. My son is 11 years old and has to get off the bus from Konawaena at the Mamao and Halekii intersection. From what I’ve been told, that’s even illegal for the bus to do, to stop right in the middle of the intersection there and to let out the kids. Now if that’s true or not, and with what is proposed, where is the bus going to go? The bus now has to stop on Mamalahoa Highway and let off elementary, intermediate, high school kids to walk down into the subdivision which is pretty far. And if you’re going to change the path and create additional EXHIBIT A 36 traffic through that subdivision, everybody knows how kids are, they’re not going to look for the closest crosswalk to cross. So by increasing traffic even a little you’re putting the kids in danger. We already have problems with, as everybody knows, timeliness of the buses dropping off the kids, blah, blah, blah; and it’s experienced all over. So because of that the kids come home later and later. It’s definitely going to fall within that 3:30 time range. The other thing I’d like to say is the kids are going to be impacted at the park. A lot of kids use this park. It’s beautiful, it’s huge, it’s big. We have football programs there, baseball programs there, soccer. They use the park year-round. So it’s not only the people that live on Halekii Street that are being impacted by this change. We need to take into consideration what’s happening to the secondary usage of the area. There is a proposal to build parking below the park. And, I’m sorry, I don’t remember how many stalls it is, but that’s part of the Oceanside 1250’s impact, the improvements that they have to make. When? Why is it taking so long? I mean if, I don’t understand. That’s not connected to the road. So, but anyway -. The last one is quality of life. And like my neighbor Mr. Yanagi was saying, what do we do? There is currently parking on both sides of Halekii Street. As was detailed in the video provided by Mr. Hayashi, when he went up Halekii Street he crossed the centerline. And that’s because there are cars parked on both sides of the street. Now that’s on an ideal day when the sun is shining. There are a lot of days when it rains in the afternoon. Halekii Street is very slick. If we have back out of our driveways just to get in and out of our homes, what are we supposed to do? There is increased traffic now, even if it’s increased by a small percentage like Mr. Rho said, we’re going to be impacted greatly. The last thing I wanted to say is what exactly is 3-D speed decals? Because I know that from myself just driving around, when there is painted signs on the road, a little bit of water creates a slippery road. Now if there is a 3-D decal going all the way across the road, it’s going to make it even more slippery, not to mention the kids are going to look at this decal and they’re not going to know that it’s some sort of a measure to tell the driver to slow down. They might mistake it as being a crosswalk and try and use it as a crosswalk, which is in the middle of a very steep grade. That same sort of illusion is evident right outside here where there was crosswalk that was removed on Alii Drive and you can still see on the pavement where they removed it, but people routinely use it as a crosswalk because they can still see the lines on the road even though they’ve been blacked out. And the reason why I’m bringing that up is because I was on a subcommittee for Kona Traffic Safety Committee that looked at traffic improvements on Alii Drive, and this was two years ago. And none of our suggestions have been taken up until now? It’s the timeliness of everything, I don’t understand.Maybe you can help me out. WATANABE: All right, are you about complete? MILLS: Yeah. WATANABE: Okay, thank you. Do we have any questions for Mr. Mills? Thank you. Okay, final testifier for this morning would be Andy -. GUILLERMO: Guillermo. EXHIBIT A 37 WATANABE: Guillermo, I’m sorry. Would you please state your name and address for the record. GUILLERMO: My name is Andrew Guillermo. I live at Nape Street. I’m a resident there. No make sense if I keep talking and it becomes repetitious thing, what Horace said and what he said, I’m going to say the same thing. But all I got to say, there’s 124 people of residents in Kona Scenic. Okay? If I were or we’re to take a sample check with everybody there, I can guarantee almost 100 would say no. So what does it tell you? If we only knew when we bought the property, the homes, we wouldn’t be like, be, you know, appearing like this. We would sell the property. So this is totally ridiculous. And like anything else, I’d rather have to see the Kainaliu Krawl than the Kealakekua Stall. It’s a difference. So I don’t need to say any more because it’s all going to be repetitious with the rest. Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you for being concise. Do we have any questions for Anthony? No. Well, seeing as it’s 12:30 now -. I have a request to take one more. Can I call on Matt Binder. BINDER: I’ll be quick. I do. WATANABE: Yeah. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? BINDER: I do. WATANABE: Would you state your name and address for the record. BINDER: My name is Matt Binder, 81-901 Nape Street in Kealakekua in the Kona Scenic Subdivision. I’m here to talk about safety. There’s a major liability issue that I think the County faces with Halekii and Nape Street; and that is that the surface is so slick. People have mentioned this but I’m going to give you a couple of examples. You can skate down it in running shoes after a rain, and I’ve done that a number of times. I go visit my friends up the block and instead of walking down the sidewalk which is very cracked and has a lot of bushes hanging over, you go in the street and you just slide down. A year ago a truck was coming down the hill and stopped, put on its brakes and was stopping, and just kept sliding right into the wall between my house and my neighbor’s house. This is not the only time that has happened. It has happened many times. You see cars just slipping and sliding. Sometimes you try to go up the hill and your tires are just spinning. And I think it’s the aggregate, it’s just worn so slick. And then because it’s a 19 percent grade you have cars when they’re cold they don’t burn the gasoline, and if they’re dripping oil I think some sheen comes out of the tailpipe so you have a very slick surface, incredibly slick surface. And the reason I’m here is to repeat a little bit what, or second what Kalani Mills said, I also have an 11-year old son who gets off that bus and he and his friends are playing on the streets, Nape Street in particular. And I think what’s going to happen is as you make it harder and slower to go up Halekii Street with the speed bumps and the backups on Halekii Street, you’re going to have cars whipping around onto Nape in order to get in front of whatever 20 cars, if you can get in front of 20 cars by whipping around just one block over, one block up and then back over, you’re going to avoid a big long line, and all those speed bumps that they have slated to put EXHIBIT A 38 on Halekii Street. So I would request if you’re going to do speed bumps on Halekii Street, you also put them on Nape Street so that that will stop people from using it as a shortcut, you know, right through where kids are playing. Now one other point, and then I’ll be done, is that as I understand it, and I asked Mr. McClure out in the hallway, what they are requesting to the Council is carte blanche to do anything that they want. They’re asking to just remove all restrictions to the use of Halekii. Is that your understanding as well? Because that would make their mitigation measures that they presented today simply informal plans that don’t have any, there’s no necessity that those plans be implemented if they’re asking the Council simply to remove all restrictions. So I too would like to second what I think her name was Barbara Huff said that the mitigation measures be included in the ordinance so that they don’t just wake up one morning and decide to do Option No. 3 instead of Option No. 1. And as I understand it, there would be nothing to stop them from doing that. There are no public meetings, no neighborhood input would be requested, required. So that’s it. Thank you very much for taking me before lunch. WATANABE: Thank you. For your information, earlier in the meeting we did discuss how some of these agreements would be memorialized. And they won’t be memorialized within this statute itself but by separate agreement, yeah. Does anyone have any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, okay. We’re going to recess for lunch and then we’ll reconvene at approximately 1:30. RECESSED The Chair recessed the meeting at 12:45 p.m. RECONVENED The meeting reconvened at 2:00 p.m. WATANABE: The meeting will come back into order. When we left we were discussing Agenda Item Nos. 1 and 2, both initiated by the Planning Director. One regarding an amendment to Ordinance No.96-7 and the second regarding amendment to Ordinance No. 96-8; and we were in the process of taking public testimony. And so, I have a request from a Marshall Browne, I believe he has to go to Hilo. BROWNE: Yes. WATANABE: Would you come up, please. Could I have Bob Ward come up, Maile Koyanagi and, let’s see, and George Cross. We have a George Cross? CROSS: Right here. WATANABE: Oh, okay. Who am I missing then? PUBLIC: Bob Ward. WATANABE: Bob Ward? Bob Ward is no longer here? Okay. Deanne Swenson? Okay, would you kindly raise your right hand, please. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: I do. EXHIBIT A 39 WATANABE: Thank you. Maybe we can start with you, Mr. Browne. Would you state your name and address for the record and then you may proceed with your testimony. Again, as a reminder, please keep it to three minutes and try not to be overly redundant. Thank you. BROWNE: My name is Marshall Browne and I’m at 81-902 Nape Street in Kealakekua 96750. And actually what I’m bringing up is something brand new and something that hasn’t been addressed. It’s actually a solution to the problem, not just treating the symptom. And my proposal is that in conjunction with the off-street parking in Kainaliu is actually civilian overpasses. Cause part of the problem is people crossing the street, so if you had civilian overpasses which I know aren’t cheap and all that. But in light of all that we’re hearing of all these other problems, cause the problem is people stopping in Kainaliu which creates the backup; and so we’re trying to eliminate the backup. And if you have the no on-street parking and then also have in conjunction with that a center turn lane that people can turn left into a parking lot so that they can still go to the businesses on the other side of the street, then there should be no reason for any stoppage through Kainaliu. And like I said in light of all these other issues that you’re having to grapple with, because at first I thought, well, you know, it’s a little bit out of the norm thinking about it, but it just, then you’re actually treating the problem and not just trying to band-aid the solution. And I don’t know how long it would take, I mean, if it would take as long to do that as completing the bypass then, you know, it’s less viable. But you’re actually treating the problem because then there would be no reason for people to have to stop. The other thing that’s sort of gotten lost in the shuffle is where would the bus turn around, the school bus? Cause right now they come down, make a left on Mamao and they back up across the intersection so they can go up the hill. And really that’s all I have. Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions of Mr. Browne? Thank you. BROWNE: Thank you. WATANABE: Let me see, must be Deanne Swenson. SWENSON: Yeah. WATANABE: Okay, would you state your name and address for the record, please. SWENSON: Deanne Swenson at 81-6620 Kaeo Place, Kealakekua. I’m here because I live just off Muli Street and drive up Halekii daily. My feeling is that the most important thing or one of the most important things in life is time. And the people that are out work today that are commuting from Ocean View and Point South aren’t here to speak up. Most of them have to work. My daughter and grandchildren spend three hours a day in their car. If you take a loss of 30 minutes a day and multiply that out, that’s 120 hours per year of lost family time that’s affecting hundreds of people. So I’d just like you to think about that. I do understand and empathize with those that have the impact on their roadway. For myself I can voluntarily remove myself from that roadway about 95 percent of the time because I can come right down Muli and head down on the Bypass; and I can go to the bank, the post office, the grocery store, the drug store, the farmers market, theaters, restaurants. And I can actually get there in five minutes and back in five minutes instead of spending 15 to 20 in traffic, breathing fumes and EXHIBIT A 40 paying $5 a gallon sorely for gas. So I think that it’s going to benefit. Although we’re hearing an awful lot of negatives, it’s going to benefit everybody in that community to have a very quick access as well as a second way in and out of that subdivision. We go down on a weekly basis to visit an Aunty in the care home in Keauhou; and just to drive down there five minutes and five minutes back, instead of driving down 15 minutes and then turning around going back through traffic. It’s right at suppertime. We love to go down and visit her. She’s a very special lady; but it would be nice. And so there’s a lot of conveniences, a lot of positive benefits, health-wise, time-wise, family-wise; and I’m thankful for the work that has already been done. I feel there are very wonderful solutions, mitigations that have been mentioned by the County and the Department of Public Works. I want to thank you for letting us come and speak. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Ms. Swenson? Mr. Graham? GRAHAM: Yeah, Ms. Swenson, I think from the presentation we’ve had if I didn’t get it wrong they’re only proposing to have this open going one way between 3:30 and 6:30. So it’s only going to potentially save you one way on these trips you’re talking about, and it’s only if you happen to come back at that time of the day. Yeah? SWENSON: That’s correct at this point, yeah. GRAHAM: Thank you. WATANABE: Any other questions? Thank you. Okay, next up will be Mr. George Cross. Would you state your name and address for the record, please. CROSS: My name is Ben Cross, living at 81-918 Halekii Street. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Commission Members, for letting us speak. I’m speaking for myself at this time. I would like to see a study of the use of the Yamagata Road instead of the Halekii Street. It’s a little north of Halekii, less than a third of a mile and was priorly used for construction of Oceanside 1250 employees. The road is paved. Money-wise it will be quite an expense to fence both sides of that road so animals within that area wouldn’t get in the traffic lanes, cattle, horses and pigs or whatever is in that area. On the top of Halekii, the right turn lane going to Mamalahoa is inexistent. It is shorter than the length of this table here and you’ll have the through traffic heading south merging to go towards McDonalds and the back side of the post office. So right turn heading south right now is nonexistent. There are no other properties that we could take to make that right turn lane. This endeavor according to this morning’s paper is $5.5 million and it was stated this is going to be a short-term test. I believe it will be a permanent solution after spending over $5 million. Because we did a short-term test at Honalo junction for three months that is still in effect at the cost of the County employees, and police offers manning that during that period of time. We have 100-year rains coming at least once a year now. The mini-traffic circle on Mamao Street, I’ve seen the rains coming down Halekii moving hand-sized rocks from 8 to 12 inches in diameter rolling down. Quite a bit of rain comes through that area. If we have this mini-traffic circle with a speed table on top, that water will be diverted north and south of that direct intersection. When that happens you’re going to impact two private properties subject to water damage that the County will be responsible for. I don’t know if anybody has given any thought to this water, where it’s going to go once you raise that pavement 4 to 6 inches. EXHIBIT A 41 The 3-D humps I believe will work one time. It’s reflective tape to assimilate a hump but isn’t really there to slow passengers down. If I was driving through there, I’d slow down when I saw it, I’d realize there is no hump to slow me down. Subsequent trips down that road I would not slow down because I’d know there is nothing there except tape on the road, which was previously mentioned that also would make it more slippery for cars trying to brake. And I’d like to know why it would take 3 to 5 years to upgrade the traffic signal at that Halekii intersection that was on the long-term proposal. The light is already in place. What else could we do but lengthen the times in either direction. As is well known, the Coupe family who has every right, they could appeal all the way to the US Supreme Court and it will take many, many years for litigation to be resolved. So this short-term use of Halekii I don’t believe will be short- term. I believe it will be very long. Thank you for your attention. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Mr. Cross? Seeing none, thank you. Maile Koyanagi, would you state your name and address please for the record. KOYANAGI: Yes. My name is Maile-lei Koyanagi, PO Box 2230, Kealakekua, Hawaii 96750. WATANABE: Thank you. KOYANAGI: We own a property on Halekii Street. We’re on the bottom. We are the corner lot on Halekii and Muli. It’s on the very bottom. We witness speeding daily, on a daily basis, be it people who go down to Hokulia or people that turn onto side streets. Some of them come down in excess of 50 miles an hour. You just see them blast past. There are a lot of children playing on the roads, there are a lot of people walking, there are people biking, not only people in our subdivision. There are people that don’t live there that we see biking, walking, dogs with other people who live there, children playing. If people don’t know that there are children and people on the streets there, there is no way they can stop in time as it is now. I fear the safety of the children and the people down there. And when the park is in use, the park is in use almost daily for practices, from baseball to football. I’ve heard people playing basketball sometimes till late at night, and I believe soccer if I’m not mistaken, too. And there are 30 to 50 kids, sometimes they’re practicing, not only, I mean on top of that there are families, parents. So the cars build up and they’re parking on the sides of the road. On Saturdays and Sundays when there are games down there, there is an excess of 200 children at a time, on top of their families, down at that park; and they all park on the sides of the road, including buses that bring them down. With all of this congestion on the sides of the road, opening up this road I believe would be very hazardous. Children or people walking across the street are in danger if people speed up and down. We have a 25-mile per hour speed sign on the top of the road that no one ever notices. They pass by, they’re going well in excess of 25 miles an hour. Because of the grade, as you’ve heard from everyone else it’s such a steep grade, we were told that speed bumps could not be put in place. Now the County has proposed to put speed bumps. I believe that would be hazardous because of the grade. If people don’t know the speed bumps are there and can’t stop in time their car is going to go flying into someone’s property. Our properties on Halekii Street are very EXHIBIT A 42 small. Some of them 7,000, 8,000 square feet; and they’re long. So a lot of our houses are short and long. So our driveways, that’s why our driveways are really small, because we have to build the houses long and we have no place for the driveways.It’s more or less in and then out. So we either have to go into the street and back up into our driveway if we want to drive out front ways, or we drive in and we have to back out of our driveways to get out. This will cause a problem if our streets, if there are people speeding, number one, or if there is going to be a backlog of traffic and we can’t get into the traffic because they’ll be waiting in line for 45 minutes and won’t want to let us into traffic. We’ll be stuck in our driveways. My husband and my daughter, my husband has worked down at Keauhou for about 15 years. My daughter paddles daily after school. Even though they work right there in the Keauhou area, we are still against the opening of Halekii because of the safety issues. What I’d like to propose is for the County to look more into the Yamagata Street because of the easy access and the turn- around on the top of the street. If you haven’t ever seen the street, there’s a big turn-around on the top. So it would be easy to go into the street and go down Yamagata, and it will be easy for people coming out of the street and go and turn the other way. It’s a big, big u-turn. There will be no bottleneck traffic on the top as there would be on Halekii Street because of the people who live on there and all of the businesses that are on the top. There will be no place to turn in and out, so there will be through traffic. I believe that will be easier and faster for everyone to get in and out of. And I believe it would benefit the County more to put a little bit more money into making the Yamagata Street safe instead of opening the Halekii Street, knowing that it is so dangerous. And the law suits that will come about with this I think it will be worse for the County. Thank you. WATANABE: Thank you. Is there, any of the Commissioners have any questions of the testifier? Thank you. Okay, we’re hitting the home stretch here. I have a E. Engle, Randy Ruis, and Charles Flaherty. I called up three. Do we have E. Engle here? No? I guess they’re not present then. Okay, would the both of you please raise your right hand. And do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes, yes, sir. WATANABE: Thank you. Would you like to start by -? RUIS: Sure. WATANABE: Name and address, please. RUIS: My name is Randy Ruis. My address is PO Box 917, Kealakekua 96750. For the past five years I have been the Driver’s Ed Instructor at Konawaena High School. So this year I happened to have been transferred. I am at Kealakehe High School. So I do, and I live up by the McDonalds up there. So I do commute now on a daily basis from Kealakehe High School, which I know they’re doing the road construction there, all the way up to just past Halekii Street. I make the very next left turn on Nani Kupuna Place which is the street, people call it the Armory Road. It’s between American Savings and Bank of Hawaii. Now since the County redid that stretch in Kealakekua and put in the suicide lane, which is a shared center turn EXHIBIT A 43 lane, when you pull out of the American Savings parking lot and you go to make a right on Mamalahoa Highway, they built a wall and put a telephone pole there. So there’s no longer a shoulder so you can pull out and look. So I can’t even pull out safely and see the traffic heading south. The only chance I really get to, have to get out is because of the light at Halekii Street. When that stops the traffic there’s a gap. But if everybody is making right on red at Halekii Street, I’m not going to have a chance to get out of that road. The two complexes up that road, Nani Kupuna and Hale Hookipa, are both elderly and disabled residential facilities. When the County redid that in front of the Hongwanji, there’s no sidewalks for the elderly to go to Kamigaki Market. They can no long push their shopping cart from the market in front of the Hongwanji, in front of Bank of Hawaii, and go to the elderly and disable residence. As a matter of fact, the County put in a bus stop there with probably, I would say, a good 18 inch curb that the elderly have to step on. So they put the supposedly, they say there’s a sidewalk on the makai side of Mamalahoa Street, which would be in front of the new Kamigaki parking lot there and the credit union. Okay? So are we expecting our elderly people to cross the crosswalk, go down to Kamigaki Market by the church and they cross back across? Okay. So that’s one of the problems. To address what the guy said about there being no right-hand turn lane at Halekii and Mamalahoa, there was one. It was a weaving lane that shared with McDonald. As a Drivers Ed Teacher I have to point it out to my students all the time that it’s a weaving lane. The County took it out, put in a lane that’s about as long as this table, and put in a bus stop there. So there’s not even a weaving lane in there any more. A mile further south down the road there’s a proposal for a 101 lot subdivision 20 acres each. It’s a 2,700 acre project. So as soon as you get past Halekii less than a mile down the road, when this project goes through, there is going to be a lot of people making left-hand turns there. I don’t want to, see, again I’m, just not to reiterate, but Kainaliu is the bottleneck. In five years of doing this commute, a normal day, it backs up to about Higashihara Park, and then you have to do the Kainaliu Krawl. And I can tell you from five years of experience, it’s about 10 minutes. As much as we gripe about it, it’s really not that long. By the time you get past Kainaliu the traffic flows. And when you get to Halekii there’s no problem whatsoever. Okay. I’d also like to mention, put Mr. McClure on the spot, but a couple of years ago he stated in the newspaper that we don’t have lousy roads, we have lousy drivers. Okay, so if he truly believes that we have lousy drivers, you’re going to send all those drivers through a residential neighborhood that has a 19 percent grade. Mr. Su, is it Sumada, is taking notes there, he said that Yamagata, it can be done, but I think it’s just easier for the County to sacrifice the Kona Scenic neighborhood than to deal with putting through Yamagata Road. And if we can condemn the Coupe property and wait for years and years and years, why don’t we do the same thing on Yamagata and build the first one that clears the Courts? I can tell you again I can just back up what everybody said about that hill, about the kids that play there. Cause I teach my kids, my drivers, I say be careful, this is a neighborhood, stay below the speed limit. And I can tell you from experience that nobody except my drivers ed kids are driving underneath the speed limit. So Yamagata, I keep hearing that, I think that is a great idea. It comes out in a big flat area next to the road, it’s just north of the hospital. Some of the other things that weren’t covered on Alii Drive were the intersection of Makoleawhich crosses to Kahaluu Beach Park. There is a low-income housing up at the top of Makolea which has been recently renovated so there are going to be residents there, and there are all sorts of traffic in and EXHIBIT A 44 out of Kahaluu. So where is the stop sign for that intersection? Up at the top by, just below Keauhou Shopping Center, there’s the Kona Coast Resort at that particular intersection; and that’s a really odd intersection because if you’re heading north on Alii Drive it’s sort of like a weird left-hand turn lane. What happens when you get more than one person there? And then I might mention something, if you’re worried about traffic flow heading south above the double lanes, we need a left-hand turn lane at Haawina Street and at Kalelei Street. Because if anybody stops there to turn left, everyone comes grinding to a halt. And I guess I can finish up by saying that I have been writing to the Department of Transportation as the Drivers Ed Teacher for over five years. I have been totally ignored. Or every time I bring up something, the latest guy is Brandon Morioka, he just says, oh, no, that’s the County; we don’t own from Teshima’s to Kealakekua Ranch Center, so all those problems there -. So I say, “Well what about the other place?” You know, so I’m trying to work on some other things as a traffic, someone who is interested in traffic safety. The bottom line is this is a horrible idea; and I hope you guys don’t vote for anything, even the mitigating factors. And that lady that was here, Deanne Swenson, there is no way you can drive from the Halekii Post Office to Keauhou in five minutes, unless you’re speeding. Thank you. WATANABE: Well, do we have any questions for Mr. Ruis? Thank you. RUIS: Thank you. WATANABE: Mr. Flaherty, name and address, please. FLAHERTY: My name is Charles Flaherty. My address is PO Box 922, Captain Cook, Hawaii 96704. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Thank you very much. I’ll be brief. I just wanted to address a couple of issues with the Hokulia settlement agreement. The first one, I just wanted to explain that personally my understanding was that the, well, the reason that I personally agreed to the Yamagata Road proposal of the settlement agreement was because I wanted to avoid the impacts to Halekii Street, and the residents on that street, as the original rezoning ordinances -. I mean that’s why that condition, it’s my understanding, why that was actually put into that ordinance. I mean, and that was, and we were hoping that we would be able to avoid the impact prior to the opening of the entire Mamalahoa Bypass Highway. Because once the entire highway is opened only local traffic most likely would be using Halekii Street, versus everyone trying to go south or going north using that as an alternative going into Kailua- Kona. And as a gentleman had mentioned here earlier I was in the Courtroom when Mr. Kupchak, the Coupe’s attorney, stated that it was very likely that they would take their case all the way to the Supreme Court; and that he actually was consulting with Justice Kennedy of the US Supreme Court on the issue. So I believe they’re probably pretty serious about that. I can’t speak to their reasons, I don’t understand it. But they did make that statement in Court, for your information. And the only other thing is I’m kind of disturbed that we don’t have any, there hasn’t been a traffic study done here. I know the Department of Public Works has done a lot of thought about this. And we have all these different proposals, and we’re sort of guessing, and we’re doing an experiment sort of rather than having consulted -. You know, there has been adequate time from the time of the settlement agreement to look at these different proposals and get a traffic study done, but that has not been done so we’re sort of doing guesswork right now. And I realize that EXHIBIT A 45 given the urgency of the current situation a traffic study may not be something that he would be willing to consider. But I wish one had been done. The last thing is the scenic corridor. That is a condition of the Hokulia settlement agreement. Mayor Kim and the administration agreed that the Mamalahoa Bypass Highway would be designated as a scenic corridor in the settlement agreement, and the General Plan also does call for a scenic corridor between Keauhou and the cliffs above on Kealakekua. I was hoping that Mr. Yuen would have added that language in this proposal, if only just to get the language in there that that would be done, rather than having it within a contract between the administration and the different parties of thesettlement agreement to actually have it in the rezoning ordinance. So if you would see fit, if you do make any changes to the ordinance, if you could add that in as well, I’d very much appreciate it. Thank you very much. WATANABE: Thank you. Do we have any questions for Mr. Flaherty? Thank you, Mr. Flaherty. We have written testimony provided by Peggy Ciriako that she requested be read. She was unable to stay till the end. So Mr. Hayashi. HAYASHI: Thank you. Ms. Ciriako wasn’t able to stay so she asked me to read this into the record. It’s a very short letter, or testimony. “Aloha, my name is Peggy Ciriako from Kona Country Club and the Keauhou Resort Association. Thank you for allowing us the time to present our concerns to you. Kona Country Club has between 200 to 300 golfers per day which varies season to season. We also have 75 to 100 employees per day, depending on the season, not counting the non-golfing guests that dine at our Vista Restaurant. We all use Alii Drive and when leaving the golf course 98 percent of us turn left on Alii Drive. We are concerned that we would not be able to safely get onto Alii Drive, should the Bypass be opened. As of now it is difficult to get on Alii Drive due to the blind spot south of the golf course entrance and the increase in traffic. The golf course supports the Keauhou Resort Association that the Bypass not be opened until we have the assurance that all necessary safety measures are considered and implemented. Mahalo, Peggy Ciriako.” WATANABE: Okay. Seeing as that testifier is no longer here I guess we’re not able to ask questions of her. So I think I’ll invite Mr. McClure and the Department of Public Works back up so you can possibly comment about some of the testimony we’ve heard. SUMADA: Mr. Chairman, you have the specific questions for us or you just want our reaction? WATANABE: Well, for myself no. But there may be some other questions from the Commissioners and -. Mr. Domingo. DOMINGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There have been several individuals suggesting that we consider Yamagata Road rather than Halekii. Has any attempt been made, or has any thought been given to that, and any attempts to do that, and if any, what are the possibilities of that happening? MCCLURE: You’ve heard from Mr. DeFries when he spoke that the offer was no longer on the table from Yamagata for them to do it? EXHIBIT A 46 WATANABE: Yeah -. MCCLURE: So if it’s going to be done and that’s the one, then it would fall to the County, and it’s not a timely solution. What I mean by that is we would have to condemn the land. And as the gentleman said which would come up first, the Coupe resolution or the condemnation of, you know, Yamagata? So using Yamagata Road if the 1250 Oceanside can’t build it is a 3- to 5-year solution. We’re trying to find something to do now. There’s a piece of road out there that could be used if people feel comfortable with the mitigating measures that will be in place. WATANABE: That satisfied you, Mr. Domingo? DOMINGO: Yeah. I have other questions. You know, there were speakers who expressed some individual concerns with regards to some issues already in place and the Halekii Street. Like for instance they suggested that four-way stop or crosswalk with lights when going to several of the businesses or the Courts along there. Can those issues be considered as you go along with the studies and everything? SUMADA: Why don’t we let our Traffic Chief talk about what he considered when he looked into the four-way stop issue versus the traffic circle and the concerns about crosswalks. So Ron, if you could go over that. THIEL: Thank you. I originally thought that perhaps four-way stops would be advantageous at the Mamao intersection and Halekii. I went out and looked at them; and as I was really, I didn’t know what the grades were when we were talking about it in the office. When I went out and looked and measured the grades, we’re looking at anywhere -. The lower portion, the Muli intersection we’re looking at 12 to 14 percent grades. And on the upper portion we’re looking at somewhere around 10 percent grade. The grades really disturb me; and I just think that that is an issue that needs to, that just isn’t, it prevents four-way stops. Also when you do put in a four-way stop at an intersection you’re supposed to go through the warrants and the MUTCD, which is a Manual Uniformed Traffic Control Devices; and there’s a formula for looking at whether or not you put in four-way stops, that that intersection with its volumes won’t meet that warrant. And the reason for the warrant is to determine whether we’re putting them in a safe condition. If you don’t meet the warrants, the idea is that you’re causing more of an unsafe condition than you might just leaving it the way it is. So it doesn’t meet the warrants, the grade is too steep. You’ve heard testimony here about the drainage through that area, about it getting really wet. Yeah, I mean it gets wet and it gets really slippery when it’s in a wet condition. If you have the stop signs there the wet conditions, people won’t be able to stop at the stop signs. WATANABE: Okay. As a follow-up to that, you know, I believe the testimony came from Carol Kitaoka and she did note that one of your short-term solutions was to put in a crosswalk there, yeah. And I guess, you know, the way she voiced her concerns was that she wanted to just make sure that that would be, remain in the conditions and not be forgotten in lieu of the four-way stop. And -. EXHIBIT A 47 THIEL: When I was talking to her, we were talking about crosswalks at the intersection and I said they wouldn’t be. I didn’t feel it would be safe if we didn’t have the stop signs, and I didn’t feel that the stop signs would be safe. So in discussing further with her, she brought in more information than I was aware of before, and that was about the Third Circuit Court docket being changed and there’d be more people there using the road. And the more we talked the more it made sense to look at a crosswalk, a mid-block crosswalk up above the intersection. So I went out there this morning and I did some measurements, 6.5 percent grade at the location that we would look at. And at this point in time I don’t see any problems with putting it in. So that’s why we stuck it. Last night we only put it, we put it in the -. WATANABE: Yeah, very good, because I think that would satisfy her concerns in lieu again of the four-way stop. You have further questions, Mr. Domingo? DOMINGO: Yeah, one more question. You know, one of the concerns or a few individuals underscored the fact that the street, the finished surface is slippery. And is there any technology that you can use to do something to the surface of that roadway so that, you know, that you would have at least something, a surface that would be rough and not slippery, and just like glide through with a car, or even walking? SUMADA: We can look into that. We’ve done it at different places around the island. Couple of choices, one is to scarify the road or to grind the surface to create grooves, basically to roughen the surface. I think if you, like State Highways has done it around the gulches, the horseshoe gulches, so something similar to that. Another method that we’ve also tried is to resurface or repave the roadway and use what’s called an open aggregate of asphalt where there are less fines so that there’s more medium sized rocks in the asphalt mix so that it becomes a rougher surface. So we can look at those, both of those. There’s tradeoffs too because there’s increase in noise that usually happens, accompanies that, but then you trade that off with the safety of, you don’t want the cars sliding all over the place like a couple of the testifiers had said. So we’ll look into that also. DOMINGO: Thank you. That’s all I have, Mr. Chairman. WATANABE: Is that it? DOMINGO: Yes, that’s all for me. WATANABE: Okay, do we have any further questions? RHO: I do. I don’t have this in order. I’m just taking it based on the testimony provided. One from I think John Harris was that a traffic signal be placed with, I’m not sure the name of the road, but where the old Kona Surf was or is, -- you know the one I’m talking about - - before opening the Bypass. So I wanted your comment about that since it’s listed as a three- to four-year down the road kind of thing. THIEL: I’ll answer that question. I was originally trying to figure out how we could get it in before we opened it up. And we have intentions to get it in as soon as possible. There are design issues that we have to look at, and so we didn’t want to promise something we EXHIBIT A 48 couldn’t guarantee, you know, in the short-term, which is we’re looking at like six months from now. RHO: Right. THIEL: So it is something that the longer we don’t put it in the more expense it is to us because we’ve agreed to put a police officer there. So it would be to our advantage to get it in as quickly as possible. RHO: Okay. Then after he testified several testifiers mentioned having guarantees that these mitigation efforts will actually be done prior to or I guess as the Bypass is opened. But they didn’t, I mean, it’s a matter of trust, right? And at this point I get the impression that they don’t really trust that, in fact, what is written is going to be completed, done, prior to or as this Bypass is opened. So I just wanted your reaction, if you could answer that. THIEL: I would like to, I think each one of us would like to comment on this one. I would like to say when you look at the items that we had identified in the short term, you’re going to find that those are items that we feel very comfortable being able to do; and we do have the money for them at this time. So we can’t say we don’t have the money. And most of them are going to be able to be done in-house. So we don’t have to go out to contract. And that’s the way this presentation was tailored. MCCLURE: It’s kind of like Charlie Brown and Lucy, right; every year Lucy sets up the football and Charlie Brown says, yeah, yeah, every year Lucy pulls it away. So we’re the public’s Lucy, you don’t trust us. We would ask that if we’re going to try and memorialize it that it not be part of the planning ordinance. We just think that it becomes real awkward to do it, and we certainly are open any other ways of doing it. And perhaps Chris has suggestions on how we could do that. WATANABE: Mr. Yuen? YUEN: Well, yes. What I would, you know, we still request that the Planning Commission make a favorable recommendation on this item; and we would not support or we think it would be not the best way to do it, to have a list of ten mitigating conditions that should be done at some point in time attached to the zoning ordinance. That makes it quite awkward to change those, if conditions change on the ground; if they look at something and it doesn’t work as well as they might think at this point, because some of this is still being worked on. There are other ways to attach conditions on it. This lifting of the restriction would not take effect until the Council passes it. And Public Works could have a parallel ordinance that is attached to the Traffic Code, which is Chapter 24 in the County Code, that has various kinds of restrictions, including the hourly restriction. So there are other ways to assure that the Halekii barrier condition is not lifted before other kinds of controls are put on, and the Council has the ability to do that. WATANABE: Okay, so once again that was under the Traffic Code, they would file an ordinance under that? EXHIBIT A 49 YUEN: Right. That, so for example, and actually Public Works as a matter of emergency controls can limit uses of public roads without passing an ordinance, but there’s only I think a 90-day time limit for that. But for example this 3:30 to 6:30 could be part of an ordinance, would be part of an ordinance that amended the Traffic Code that said Halekii, Mamalahoa Bypass sections were open only 3:30 to 6:30. The same ordinance could say that it’s not open until “x” other improvements are done. That sort of thing can be done. WATANABE: Okay. Mr. McClure, I understand your hesitance but, you know, this is not entirely an issue of trust amongst this administration per se. Cause as we know this is an election year and, in fact, a number of the Council Members have also said that they’re going to run for Mayor so they won’t be there either. And so, you know, kind of having a hand-shake agreement at times may be uncomfortable when we don’t know who we’re going to be dealing with or who may finally be implementing these measures. And with that in mind, it was a concern of mine that, you know, that we could document some of these, not so much that there’s lack of trust for this particular administration but in reality another administration probably would carry this forward. MCCLURE: We don’t have any problem with that. WATANABE: I appreciate that. Mr. Domingo? DOMINGO: Yeah, I was going to make comments similar to what you suggested, Mr. Chairman. To the credit of these three gentlemen and their staff, they’ve done a fantastic job within the community and they’ve done a lot of work in trying to convince them of the mitigating steps they would take so that their concerns will be addressed. But, you know, reality speaks to the fact that who knows whether these three gentlemen will be here after the next election and as we go into the future. And who will hold the Public Works Department to fulfilling the requirements, the immediate- and long-term mitigating steps that will be taken? I’d feel much more comfortable and I think Bruce, Mr. McClure, got the gist of what our concerns were. And we can spell this out in the, I don’t know if it would be appropriate in the Zoning Ordinance because it is part and parcel of what the Zoning Ordinance intended to provide for the public, but in this in a different sense spelling out what the mitigating efforts will be taken both short term and long term, I would prefer that this be written into the ordinance so that it will become law. WATANABE: Okay, Mr. Yuen, in that light, could we in the Zoning Ordinance refer to a, you know, restrictive ordinance over the time, etc. in the Traffic Ordinance? You know, in other words make it the zoning change subject to passage of this Traffic Ordinance that memorializes the agreements? Would that be comfortable or -? Cause we’ve heard the agreements but we don’t have sample language; and I’m thinking that that way you could bring that up, you know, to the Commission. It’s obviously going to take time anyway. It’s not as though, you know, you’re going to get everything done right away. But I trust that you have taken your notes and you’ll be able to, you know, document these things that we’ve discussed. Do you think that’s possible? YUEN: Well, I think it’s possible to put a general statement in the Zoning Ordinance that would say that the opening of Halekii in the interim, which is what we’ve been EXHIBIT A 50 talking about, before the completion of the Bypass would be subject to reasonable controls being placed on the use of Halekii Street and the Mamalahoa connector by a separate ordinance. And I think a general statement like that would be fine. What I would be cautious about is trying to list, you know, ten things that you have to do. WATANABE: Yeah. Do we have -? Yes, Mr. Rho. RHO: I’m not changing it but I still have my list to go through, just one more question probably. We had a Mr. Browne I think testify about people overpasses in Kainaliu and a center turn lane in Kainaliu. I wanted some feedback on that, if you have any. MCCLURE: Let me jump in. Pedestrian overpasses, our three favorite initials, ADA. Okay? For pedestrian overpass, it’s going to be probably a minimum of 14 feet off the ground so that vehicles can pass under it. The ramps on either side at 12 percent, you know, at 1 and 12 become, you either get a spiral at what, with the thing like that. You can’t have stairs like the old ones. So it’d be really hard to build. RHO: How about the turn lanes? MCCLURE: Well, we’re looking, I think, instead to prohibit parking on one side and have the lanes that way during the PM peak, that’s separate from this initiative here. We’re already looking at that through that area. RHO: For those turn lanes in that area, eliminating the parking and doing turn lanes in that area? SUMADA: It’s kind of a challenge. When we met with the Kainaliu community, the business community feels though that on-street parking is their livelihood; we take that away, we take away their business. Even though we were only talking about the AM peak or the PM peak, which are the mauka-makai side of the road, to them they feel very threatened. Not all businesses there handle cash flow on a yearly basis. It’s sometimes even month-to-month. So any threat to their livelihood is very significant to them, as is the concern of residents that live in the different subdivisions. But we looked at that, the center lane, in order do the center lane, we would have to take away all the on-street parking on both sides of the road. In the interim, short of doing that we felt that we could accomplish what that would achieve by just doing time restrictions for on-street parking; and in so doing we would have to provide them alternate parking, which is what we’re doing right now. We finished the Oshima Store parking and then now we’re doing Aloha Theater. There are other alternatives that can help alleviate or improve the flow through there. We kind of want to go at this in stages. I think the time restrictions for on-street parking, depending on the peak, will help alleviate or help improve the flow through that area when it’s at its worst time. Other than that worst time, I think the traffic flows pretty well through Kainaliu town. Who knows what will happen if more traffic comes down as Kona grows or whatever. But anyway right now that’s what we wanted to concentrate on, just that removing the on-street parking just during the worst times. RHO: My last question was I think Ms. Swenson, I think it’s Ms. Swenson, she talked about there was no right turn lane on that Kona Scenic Subdivision Street. And I wanted EXHIBIT A 51 your comment about that, whether or not there is a right-turn lane or there isn’t; and if there isn’t how you folks are going to solve that problem.. THIEL: Before the last improvements there was a short right turn lane but it didn’t have a separate lane. It had to merge into the through lane. So it wasn’t really effective before. We took it out because now when the traffic is going down Mamalahoa Highway through the signalized intersection you can’t make a right turn on red because the traffic is, it has only got one lane and it’s full. So it doesn’t really give you any benefit to have this right lane that they’re talking about. So it’s very, it’s basically a taper right now.I looked at stretching out that taper, making it, you know, half. There’s a certain distance between there and McDonald, splitting it in half. But it’s not going to really do you any good because there’s only one lane and the traffic is going to be full on that lane. So it’s not going to add to -. Now what they’re saying is that it was there once and it worked; but when you get more, there’s more traffic that we’re dealing with now, it’s really not going to help. RHO: And that right-turn lane is on Mamalahoa? THIEL: Yes. It’s not Halekii. It’s right, what they’re talking about is on Mamalahoa Highway. RHO: Thank you. WATANABE: Are there any other questions? So I take it then, Mr. McClure, that if we modify this wording to some extent such that it would subject you to create in the Traffic Ordinance to mitigate measures, you’re agreeable to that? MCCLURE: Yes, we are. WATANABE: Thank you. I guess you may be seated then. Okay, well, we’ve heard quite a bit of discussion. Obviously it’s an emotional issue. There are some for, some against. I would entertain a motion now if anyone is prepared to do so. YUEN: If it would help -. WATANABE: Okay. YUEN: And this question of guarantees and making sure that the project will not just open up has been raised by the Commission. The proposal that we originally, what we came to the Commission with was simply to delete the paragraph that talked about barricading Halekii Street. And we could accomplish what we’ve just talked about by continuing to delete that paragraph but adding, but by replacing it with a sentence that said “The use of Halekii Street as a public vehicular thoroughfare prior to the opening of the entire Mamalahoa Bypass shall not be allowed prior to the enactment of an ordinance establishing interim controls and mitigation measures.” And what that would do at the level of the Planning Commission here is assure that the Halekii Street couldn’t just be opened up for general public travel through the passage of this amendment to the ordinance, that there would have to be another ordinance which established these, the interim controls and mitigation measures in order to have that opening happen; and, of course, that ordinance would have to be passed by the County Council. The idea here is that then EXHIBIT A 52 Public Works, and these traffic ordinances don’t go to the Planning Commission. I think we’re getting to the point of detail here on where you would have a turn lane and that are really not the kinds of zoning matters that the Planning Commission deals with. And we really, we would not be wanting to get into that level of detail at the Commission. I think it’s useful what we did today to have some feeling that there are things that can be done to deal with the problems that would arise if you open up another connection. And I have to say like just talking generally, if you look at the map there and you look at three miles of road that’s just floating out there, unusable at the present time, you have to think we should be trying to use that road. And it’s true that there are problems that come up with making that kind of connection. By the same token, for the person who’s going to drive that road and take the Mamalahoa Bypass and take Halekii Street, there are problems along that route. We could identify 50 problems along the route that they currently take on the Mamalahoa Highway, places where there are bad turns, narrow shoulders, driveways and the like. But at any rate what this suggestion would do is assure that at the level, and to give a level of comfort here at the Planning Commission that it cannot just go through and be opened, that there would have to be another ordinance passed by the County Council. But it would be in an ordinance that would amend the Traffic Code. It would go to the County Council, but it wouldn’t go to the Planning Commission specifically. WATANABE: Any discussion on this? Mr. Domingo? DOMINGO: I can appreciate what the Planning Director is saying with regards to the inclusion of those short-term and long-term measures that would be taken by the County. As I understand, the existing ordinance before us is in essence an agreement between the developer Oceanside 1250 and the County. And the conditions contained therein is placed there to address the impact of the development that they’re undertaking right now; and that should they not be able to meet those conditions then the ordinance would be null and void and things would be at a standstill. But I think what we’re talking here at this time are measures which the public themselves have come before this Commission to express, and cautioning us, and letting us know of the conditions that exist on Halekii Street, and that if in fact those barriers are taken, the impact it will have on the street itself and on the people who live there. And I can understand that although we cannot put it in the existing ordinance, that we make reference, that we can refer to another agreement that was made today to submit that in an ordinance to make that a law that the County will abide by the commitments it made and that the public trust would be maintained to that degree. And if we can do that I have no problem with the amendments to the - . WATANABE: Would you care to make a motion to that effect? DOMINGO: Mr. Chairman, I could just say that, you know, I move for the amendments of the, both resolutions and -. WATANABE: Inclusive of the wording provided by the Director regarding the -? DOMINGO: Let me look at my files, unless someone is ready to make that motion, I’m not adverse to it. I just needed to express my concern with regards to what we’re doing here. And, you know, when this ordinance was first adopted many years ago, there was a public trust placed on those people who enacted that ordinance and that those people who enacted that ordinance in behalf of the people of this County and the government made a commitment that EXHIBIT A 53 these conditions would take place. And what, and specifically the condition pertaining to this Halekii Street definitely states that Halekii Street gate or whatever there is would be replaced upon completion of the Bypass Highway. And, of course, obviously it’s not completed and there is probably another fourth of the way, or maybe less, to be completed to ascertain that the road is completely done and the traffic therefore can go through it. WATANABE: Okay. DOMINGO: But in view of, and, you know, I just need to say that because I’m aware of the conditions that existed at that time. And because I see now that the problem is overwhelming and the conditions of that day has changed and has increased, you know, by I don’t know how many times, but it has come to the point that, you know, we have an overload of our infrastructure up there. And that through the wisdom and study of our Public Works they have decided that, you know, this has to be done; and I realize that. So -. WATANABE: So can I have maybe Ms. Ogata take a stab at making a motion then? DOMINGO: Okay, I’m not adverse to it. WATANABE: Thank you, thank you. Ms. Ogata? OGATA: Thank you. I move that a favorable recommendation be forwarded to the County Council on the amendment to Ordinance Nos. 96-7 and 96-8 with the wording provided by Mr. Yuen to incorporate those -. WATANABE: Ordinances, traffic ordinances? OGATA: Traffic ordinance. WATANABE: Do we have a second? WOODWARD: Second. WATANABE: Okay, we have a motion and a second to send a favorable recommendation with the revised language. Any further discussion on this matter? Mr. Graham? GRAHAM: I very much agree with Mr. Yuen’s characterization that we’ve got a great asset out there on that road and we ought to be able to use it to solve a very pressing problem we have. Yet when I go through this whole hearing today I certainly came in feeling like I would probably go along with this from reading last night; but the more I look at all the specifics and the very good efforts that Public Works has put in, I just don’t see that the solution is really, the solution proposed before us, is really likely to be any kind of substantial step forward, looking at the overall prospects of what’s going to be all the repercussions. So I just feel like I’m not going to be able to support it for that reason. WATANABE: Any further discussion? Mr. Hayashi? RHO: Mr. Chairman? EXHIBIT A 54 WATANABE: Oh, yes, Mr. Rho. RHO: I have the same problem. I did come into this meeting after reading what we had sent to us believing that there was no problem with passage. And my only, I guess, concern that I had was on the traffic study that was in fact done. Although one of the testifiers mentions that there was no traffic study done, there was a traffic study done. That thing is dated June 2006. And if you look at that traffic study, it talks about, and I’m looking at the AM peaks, so maybe I should turn to the PM peak. But regardless of which one you look at, the number of cars passing the Old Mamalahoa Highway connection near Teshima’s, if I’m reading this correctly, numbers 622 cars. And please don’t ask me to explain how that’s actually determined. When you get to Halekii Street, the number of cars passing that intersection is 542. So in my mind last night I thought, well, I mean what are we really solving by opening up this subdivision to through traffic, cause all the cars will do is go down Kam III or stay on Alii Drive, come through to Halekii Street, come up the road, and then merge at that point, basically, on to Mamalahoa and go south to Naalehu, Ocean View. WATANABE: I saw it -. RHO: I guess -. WATANABE: Oh, go ahead. I’m sorry. RHO: I didn’t, today anyway, I did not get a clear confident statement that allows me to believe that my thinking last night needed to change.And my thinking was along the lines of passing this thing with no problem. But my concern again was with the number of cars that I see on the traffic study. Even the Public Works person, Mr. Sumada, basically says that in the end all this thing will do is provide relief or some relief to the people in the subdivision, make them get faster to Keauhou and faster back from Keauhou. But I don’t really see that this really will impact the traffic. And yes I understand that this is like an experiment. But the experiment may just last for a longer period of time than we all want. WATANABE: Okay. You’re done? RHO: So maybe I can, I mean -. WATANABE: Okay. RHO: Maybe I, if any of you can explain to me how this thing will really help the traffic situation on the mauka road. WATANABE: Okay. I saw it a little bit different; and I tend to agree with the solution. Now I did not agree with the traffic consultant’s suggestion that it be opened both ways because I saw more of an issue as people are traveling north in AM peak traffic where the numbers as you continue north keep increasing at the intersections. On the other hand when you’re looking at the PM numbers, the numbers start to decrease as we’re headed south, which tells me that we have people that are living in Kona Coffee Villas and at St. Paul’s road, etc. that are all traveling up Kuakini and exiting prior to Halekii Street. So the numbers are then decreasing. The other EXHIBIT A 55 thing it told me is that people make adjustments to their travel time and that’s why we have fewer people in the PM peak than we do in the AM peak periods. AM peak periods everybody gets to work at the same time, everybody has to take their kids to school or the sitters or whatever at the same time; and everybody floods the roads. And, unfortunately, everybody is headed north well past Kam III. To that extent, I sort of disagree with Jiro’s statement that this will benefit only those individuals in Kona Scenic Subdivision.We had quite a few individuals who live on Halekii Street that feel they would be adversely affected by this. I cannot disagree with that. I do share their concerns with the 36-foot width of the street, I do share their concerns with their backing up into traffic, even with the kids, etc. But I think what will happen, yeah, is we’ll have a number of people, remember now we’re only opening or suggesting that it be opened between 3:30 and 6:30, there will be a number of people who will be able to avoid Kainaliu and continue on south from Halekii Street. And I really, actually I really think those are the people who will benefit. And in the process that will cut down on the overall traffic running through the true bottleneck, which is Kainaliu town. And I quite frankly don’t see how we are going to condemn half of Kainaliu town so that we can widen the road. So short of a Bypass Road, I think this is the next best solution, or at least that’s the way I saw it. RHO: Okay, so can I just say one other thing. If you look at Figure 4 in the traffic report, it says existing PM peak hour traffic; and again if I’m reading this correctly, at the Old Mamalahoa Highway which is Teshima’s Restaurant, I highlighted 622 vehicles. And then when you get to Halekii Street it comes out to 675 with 116 making a right turn down into the subdivision, apparently if you go to the park or to the post office or to the prosecuting attorney’s office or whatever -- but they’re also coming back up, I’m sure -- or to the community college. So that’s where my hang-up is. Somebody needs to clarify for me or tell me that this thing really is going to work. WATANABE: Could you point out the page, please. RHO: It doesn’t have a number. It’s within the first couple of pages of the traffic study. GRAHAM: It fronts against page 10. RHO: Back page, Figure 4, existing PM peak, peak traffic, peak hour of traffic. And, you know, I don’t know what the timeframe is, I can’t tell you that. I’m sure it’s in the report some place. I just got stuck on those numbers. SUMADA: Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman? WATANABE: Yes. SUMADA: May we assist in explaining that traffic study? WATANABE: Yeah, I appreciate it. I read the report entirely different than he’s reading it so -. SUMADA: Okay. I’ll turn it over to our Traffic Chief and he can help explain what’s happening, and give his opinion too about how things may work. EXHIBIT A 56 THIEL: Master Chairman and Fellow Members, what this gentleman is pointing out is one of the biggest problems we have with TIARs. The volume counts are derived by the number of cars passing through an area. If it’s queued, if it’s not moving very well, there will be less cars going through. And what he has identified here is less cars up at the beginning than down at Halekii, that’s because the cars aren’t moving up there. We’re only counting the cars getting through the area; and that may be even more confusing to you. But it’s very difficult, especially on this report and this section of road to make comparisons from one point to the other because you have long queues in the road where you’ve got, your cars aren’t moving through and you can’t count them. The only -. WATANABE: Oh, so, may I interrupt? So what you’re saying is we count the number of cars that’s past this specific intersection over this specified period of time. And so if everybody is stalled, one car went through even though there are 500 cars in the back of it. THIEL: You’d count one car. WATANABE: Cause nobody moved. And on the other hand if traffic is flowing a little faster you could have less cars on the road but theoretically create a traffic by these numbers because -. THIEL: Right. WATANABE: More cars are able to move through this particular intersection during that same period of time. Is that what you’re trying to say? THIEL: Yes, yes. So when you’re trying to compare these numbers you’re going to have a very difficult time making any sense out of them because it doesn’t identify when the car, that intersection or that point to where they’re counting is actually not moving at all. WATANABE: So much for quantification. THIEL: So if I could, let me try to paint another picture to you; and I hope this doesn’t confuse you even more. But a normal road without any restrictions whatsoever driving at about the posted speed 30 miles an hour, you’re going to get 1,011 cars passing through it per hour. The Kainaliu area with normal traffic tie-ups is running around 800 cars in the peak hour. That’s what our counts were over a long period of time. These counts are based on one time. The more the traffic tie-up the lower the counts are you’re going to get.What we’re trying to do in this proposal is to move cars around the area where they’re tied up, and that’s Kainaliu town, and get them back into the main stream and an area where we have two-way left-turn lanes and we have basically three lanes, that we have a better movement of vehicles. And that’s the whole idea of this proposal. WATANABE: Mr. Rho? RHO: Just to clarify. So this 622 vehicles at Teshima’s Restaurant is not an “accurate” figure, and I’m using that in quotations, because there may have been another 100 EXHIBIT A 57 cars down the road that wasn’t counted because it wasn’t within the peak hour timeframe? Is that what you’re telling me? THIEL: Almost. RHO: Right. Okay, so therefore those 100 cars can actually take the bottom road, which is the Bypass Road, come back up here, meet up and actually get down south faster? Is that what you’re telling me? THIEL: That’s what we expect will happen. RHO: But the number 675 is pretty accurate because the flow there generally flows? THIEL: Well, it’s not that it’s not accurate. That’s the number of cars going through but this study doesn’t say how many cars are queuing behind this point. RHO: Right, I understand that. THIEL: Yeah, yeah. RHO: My accurate is in quotation mark. WATANABE: Mr. Woodward? WOODWARD: Mr. Chairman, I think there are really two issues here that we are being asked to decide. One is do we want to use these three miles of excellent road; and I’ve driven it, it is an excellent road. It’s better than Mamalahoa by quite a good bit. And are we willing to accept this as the way Department of Public Works has proposed it? That is this is a trial, this is an experiment. They’re planning on opening it one way for three hours a day. If it turns out it’s a train wreck, they can change that. You know, it’s not like we’re giving them -. And that’s the whole reason for putting in this provision that Director Yuen has suggested, that there be concomitant ordinance with mitigation involved prior to opening this road. I think we would be foolish to say let’s not use that three miles of road. What you’re going to do essentially is you’re going to have two paths out. So the traffic that normally goes Mamalahoa, some of it will go the other way; and some of it is going bleed off to the surface, to the, you know, side streets on the way. And, yeah, you might get a little bit of a backup where the two join back together, but you’re still not going to have more traffic. And, again, I think the fact that this is being proposed as let’s see how it works, we’re going to open it for a restrictive period of time, you know, if it’s train wrecked, we’ll change things. I think that’s a perfectly reasonable approach. WATANABE: Thank you. Any further comments? RHO: One last question. WATANABE: Sure. EXHIBIT A 58 RHO: Should this measure pass both the Commission and the County Council, at what point can the Department of Public Works have north and south bound traffic flow through Halekii Street? WATANABE: I trust, I’ll try to answer that and hopefully I’m paraphrasing this correct. Because the County Council is the controlling factor and the County Council will then see the required ordinance that we are referring to in this change, yeah, they would be able to say wait a minute now, Mr. McClure, or whoever the Public Works Department head is, we agree to this. It’s on record, we said 3:30 to 6:30 only headed south. We did not say all the time. We also said, you know, there are certain mitigating events that need to occur; and the way the County has broken them down they have it as short term versus long term. Some of these events as the County described are things that were actually on their agenda any way which hopefully they had intended to produce at any rate whether we open this road or not. It’s just a secondary measure. And I think that the fact that we at least took the lead in placing restrictive language in there, referring to that subsequent ordinance, traffic ordinance, that will, that and the fact that the same body approves both of them will be the controlling factor, I’m confident that nothing will get really lost in the shuffle. Yes? OGATA: I’ll just make a comment. I think there’s one more controlling factor, and that would be our communities keeping it high on their priority list that it is our responsibility to hold the County accountable by helping through this trial process to collect the data, share our experiences on what’s working well with the trial and what could be changed, and working together with the County. So I think that’s another factor that will help. WATANABE: That’s a good point. And certainly the way they’ve approached this has opened the door for further public input; and I trust that that will continue. Do we have any further comments? RHO: No. WATANABE: Okay. Mr. Hayashi? HAYASHI: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m assuming that the motion was to make changes to both ordinances simultaneously? WATANABE: That’s correct, with the amended paragraph and wording provided by Mr. Yuen. HAYASHI: Okay, so Ordinance No. 96-7, Condition M-4 and Ordinance No. 96-8, Condition L-4, is amended to read as follows: “Construct the extension of Halekii Street to the subject property as generally reflected in Exhibit B which phasing of improvements shall be approved by the Department of Public Works.” That is the current condition. And added to that would be the wording that the Director had suggested; and this would be: “The use of Halekii Street as a public vehicular thoroughfare prior to the opening of the entire Mamalahoa Bypass shall not be allowed prior to the enactment of an ordinance establishing interim controls and mitigation measures.” With that I’ll take the roll. Commissioner Ogata? OGATA: Aye. EXHIBIT A 59 HAYASHI: Commissioner Woodward? WOODWARD: Aye. HAYASHI: Commissioner Domingo? DOMINGO: Aye. HAYASHI: Commissioner Graham? GRAHAM: No. HAYASHI: Commissioner Rho? RHO: Aye. HAYASHI: And Chair Watanabe? WATANABE: Aye. HAYASHI: Mr. Chair, motion carries. The vote was five to one. WATANABE: Thank you. Well, that concludes Agenda Items 1 and 2. The discussion ended at 3:25 p.m. A T T E S T: Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, West Hawai‘i Secretary Sharon M. Nomura, East Hawai‘i Secretary EXHIBIT A 60