|
buildings, some of the buildings are built fairly close to the road. In fact, if you go on Keaau
<br />Road we have a papaya processing plant that is virtually smack on the road. So part of the, that
<br />was handled under the negotiations. But if you throw out one part of it then you set in question
<br />the other part also, in our opinion.
<br />WATANABE: Okay, could you then share with us at what point you feel the negotiations
<br />broke down, where, what was the bottleneck, okay, related or not, whether it’s limited uses -.
<br />Because I do recall from your earlier testimony at the previous meeting that you were looking at
<br />restricting usage, and you were certainly concerned about liability because it’s a privately owned
<br />road -- all valid concerns, yeah. At what point did those negotiations break down?
<br />WALTER: Well, it broke down, as far as I could tell, 8:30 this morning. So I’m
<br />hearing that from counsel and talking a little bit with the other party, that there were a couple of
<br />issues, one of which did deal with restriction of uses. And again the issue, to me, there is the
<br />restriction of uses, and I thought we had agreed down to basically the square foot. But at some
<br />point I understand the feeling was, well, nonsense, I’m going to do whatever I want to do. Well,
<br />do whatever I want to do doesn’t take care, doesn’t mean that we’re going to get adequate
<br />infrastructure. Cause I think it’s very difficult if not impossible to get, for instance, a 60-foot
<br />right-of-way and get it paved. And, if you did, I still am concerned, maybe I shouldn’t be, but,
<br />you know, I’m still concerned that we have schools on both sides of this road and you’re now
<br />going to introduce a fair amount more industrial traffic. You’ve got a playground on one side
<br />and the elementary school on the other. I think that’s a problem. But -.
<br />WATANABE: Mr. Woodward?
<br />WOODWARD: Yeah, I just had a question, Mr. Walter. It’s something you said just a few
<br />minutes ago about building a 40-foot road. What is the width of the easement?
<br />WALTER: The easement is, the right-of-way is 40 feet of which 20 is paved. When
<br />you go beyond that 20 feet, you start running into some physical problems that can be
<br />problematic. For instance, you have telephone poles or power poles that you start to run into -.
<br />People have placed fences because, remember, it’s a private road. So people have placed, from
<br />what I can tell, their fences. And their parking area is close to buildings that you’re going to start
<br />to run into -. And if you’re going towards Hilo, again that was all part of the agreement. But if
<br />you go towards Hilo you have a problem of a hill which is blind and you also have a couple of
<br />bridges that are only 20 feet wide which would have to be rebuilt. And, one last thing, again,
<br />you have this agricultural processing plant that is within several feet of the paved road.
<br />WOODWARD: Okay. Well, since I serve on the board of two road maintenance
<br />corporations, I can tell you that the easements belong to the public. They don’t belong to the
<br />landowners. And if people put things up there you don’t have to buy. You already own the
<br />easement. So you mentioned something about you have to buy that extra easement, well, that’s
<br />not true.
<br />WALTER: Can I clarify?
<br />WOODWARD: Sure.
<br /> EXHIBIT A
<br />18
<br />
<br />
|