2022_01_18 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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and I guess with his passing I corrected my thoughts about it – I talked to Robbie Hind a couple of days ago – Robbie was an early member there – and asked him how’s it going cause I hadn’t checked in in a while and he said it’s been really great – they got sixty local families all engaged in hunting but mostly I think they go, according to Robbie, they go up and they teach the kids about what it’s like to be outdoors, what it’s like to be up on that mountain – it’s bow hunting only – they just felt like it wouldn’t have been fair to the sheep and they didn’t have enough sheep coming through to have rifles involved. But mainly here’s a 23,000-acre lease made by Kamehameha Schools, actually, I think it was a license – and there are some differences here – sorry – it may have been a license to start but a 23,000-acre area entrusted to – at that time – 50 local families and the weight was on all of us to see if this would actually produce good results on the land. Well, what do you mean by good results, you know, the education part is really important, it didn’t turn into a – it just turned into a really good wholesome family hunting club and there’s no reason there can’t be more of them. Later on – DS: Is everybody having audio issues? I can hear everyone except what’s happening in the Mayor’s Office. Looks like they’re working on it… BO: OK. You should be able to hear now. Checking… Good? Hello? AA: Yeah, yeah, you get four thumbs up. PS: Again, this is Peter Simmons and I was telling you a little history. I was never very good with computers so… So that’s the best part of it – but I was the guy that was responsible for buying the Hamakua Sugar Company out of bankruptcy. I’ve been involved with Forestry with Tommy Crabb and others who – just as a volunteer – and I learned a great deal from Tommy. He was with the C. Brewer Bioenergy project – back in the day – anyway, I just started penciling out what price Kamehameha could afford that land that was in bankruptcy and going, you know… Anyway, it turned out that we were able to purchase that land based on putting it into cattle ranching and forestry and it paid for itself in the first six years. That was OK. It wasn’t a real high bar – it was $700.00 an acre. The reason I even mention this is – well two things – one because of the early success that we saw evolving with the hunting club over in Kona we thought we would try one in Hamakua too and we did – I can’t remember who I was working with – I think – can’t recall – but it flopped in the second year and I was very disappointed in that but it made sense too because the guys in Kona they charge each family $500.00 a year for insurance and road work and maintenance and so forth and they built a cabin and that wasn’t part of what was gonna happen in Hamakua and so it wasn’t the same formula – it wouldn’t work everywhere – so \[unclear\] with that and so I just had a long history of managing land in Hawaii. I’ve had really good opportunities to learn even if I didn’t learn all of what I should have – and that’s what got me started on this waiwi problem - I was happily retired. I was promoting forestry as a thing to do and working in my shop and whatnot – but when I – ten years late now – I retired 11 years ago – so that’s when the 3