2008-05-08 TPUNAcdp - Laserfiche WebLink

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because we’ve involved so many people. As you’ve heard earlier, you know, we’ve had over 3,000 inputs on the very first round of the small group meetings. At the first meeting of the Steering Committee, the one thing that we came to unanimous agreement on, and very quickly, was that our function was to carry the mail for the community, that we would honor the inputs of the community and that we would honor the work of the working groups, which actually really did the trench work. And our function would be to sort that out, prioritize it, get numbers. You can wish for things that you can’t afford, you can wish for things that are not practical in terms of a doable timeframe, keeping in mind that this document has a life span of about seven years and this process will start again. So that was the thing that we reached agreement and consensus on almost immediately, and we set out to do that. And beyond that I’m not going to, I know there are a lot people here that want to give testimony and I’m very interested in hearing that testimony, hearing what they think about what we’ve done. WATANABE: Thank you. Mr. Yuen would you care to maybe enlighten us on how the process goes from here before we entertain questions? YUEN: Yes, thanks. And just, I also welcome everybody that has come here to the meeting. Sometimes folks are not sure what happens with the plan and what happens next. The plan only comes into effect if it’s adopted by ordinance of the County Council. The role of the Planning Commission here is to give a recommendation to the County Council, similar to a rezoning action. So the Planning Commission, we’re recommending that although this is a Puna plan it has an island-wide effect that the Planning Commission, we’ve set aside this meeting solely for the plan. We’re planning to put it on the agenda on a West side meeting and we will bring it back to a meeting on this side of the island for a vote by the Planning Commission on a recommendation to the Council. The Planning Commission can recommend approval, denial, modifications. The Planning Commission cannot actually implement any changes. That’s up to the County Council. If the County Council wishes to amend the plan that has been submitted to them by the Steering Committee it can do so; but it first must get, if the Council makes an amendment then before they finalize the amendment by a final vote, it has to seek the comments of both the Steering Committee and the Planning Commission before it takes a final vote on the plan, including, if it includes any amendments. So that’s what happens to this next. WATANABE: Thank you. With that I think I’ll open it up briefly to questions from the Commissioners. Yes, Ms. Siracusa. SIRACUSA: Yes. Several of the letters that we have received in our file make reference to the manner, questioning the manner in which Steering Committee Members were chosen. And I would actually have liked for the sake of clarity and openness to put that issue out on the table right up front and ask -- I guess it’s the Director, or would it be someone else to address that question -- so that we can all be clear about what the answer is to that, what the process was. 5