2010-03-05 TMIZUKAMI - Laserfiche WebLink

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MELROSE: Certainly. Jeff Melrose, 1405 Waianuenue Avenue, Hilo, 96720, representing here today Mr. Sid Mizukami. I want to get into some of those specific issues in a minute. But let me just start by introducing you to Mr. Mizukami. Mr. Mizukami is, you know, I’ll just let him give you a little bit of background. And then he, like a lot of folks who get into this circumstance, is nervous as he can be. So I’ll just let him talk a little bit about the background of his property and what he’s doing. I’d like to address the building permit issue. That’s a new one to us. We were unaware that it wasn’t finished fully. We’ve got electricity and that kind of stuff already in place; and we can talk about that in more detail, and the Ag use we can get into too. But let me just introduce you to Sid and let him kind of give you a little bit of background. WOODWARD: Okay, if you’ll give us your name and address, and then you may begin, sir. MIZUKAMI: Thank you. First off I’d like to thank you for allowing me the time to present the request for this special use permit. My name is Sid Mizukami and my address is 73-1388 Hikimoe Street, Kailua-Kona, 96740. I’ll be working off notes so I’ll remember the information I would like to share with you, as well as hopefully it will help take aware some of my nervous energies. I’d like to begin by providing you with a little background information. In 1999 I purchased the property as a mature mac nut orchard, and then permitted, and constructed a farm warehouse on the property. The building was built to service the orchard to house the farm equipment, tools, and other farm necessities, as well as a restroom and a place for the workmen to eat their lunch. The building was built with extra space to allow me to husk, process and store the nuts, and maybe some from the neighborhood farms as well. Soon after the building was built, the price of mac nut dropped dramatically. While several of my neighbors knocked down their trees we continued to maintain the farm operation. We still prune and trim the trees, replace the fallen trees, fertilize the trees, and provide weed control in hopes that the market will rebound. The building in the surrounding apron was left with unused space. So I began to park some of my telecommunications equipment, telecom equipment on the site to support my growing island-wide business. This turned into a sensible habit as the building had adequate room and it provided protection from the elements. Some equipment is used strictly on the farm and others are used in the telecommunications business. Some serve dual purposes. Except for two cable trailers which are used strictly in the telecom business, all of the other equipments are used for dual, in the dual operations. The equipment consists of an earth saw, an argo truck, bucket lifts, trenchers, pickups and a flatbed truck. These equipment are used on the farm by our neighbors and by our employees on their personal properties as well. There are seven to nine employees in our telecom business, all of whom live in East Hawai‘i.I too was born and raised in Hilo and relocated to Kona in 1977. When employing the telecom business, they pick up and drop off equipment as needed at the Wainaku property. Other times they report directly to the job site from their homes; and for the most part they report to the Kona baseyard for their equipment needs. We do not perform any on-site work for the telecom business at this location, at the Wainaku location. All on-site work is strictly farm related. There are no sales of any kind on this property. Except for a few materials used during emergencies to restore service for the utility companies, no materials at the 5 EXHIBIT A