2005-05-12 TWORLD - Laserfiche WebLink

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SPRINGER:Okay, please proceed. NEELY:Thank you. Aloha and thank you for yourtime. Id like to give you a brief history of the Gardens, and how I came to be here from Wisconsin, and tell you about myself and my vision for the Gardens. The World Botanical Gardens was founded by Dr. Walter Wagner 10 years ago on land previously farmed in sugar cane by C. Brewer & Co. The combination of the rich soil, and the beautiful Umauma Falls, and the proximity of the site to a well-traveled road made the site an excellent choice for a botanical garden. Dr. Wagner provided the vision and the labor and marshaled the resources to plan, organize and plant the gardens as they exist today. Without his efforts, there would be no garden there today. Itcostsalotofmoneytodevelopanenterprisesuchasabotanicalgarden,andittakesalong time for the plants to begin to mature to the point where people can begin to really appreciate how such plant appear in their native habitats. Initially, the Garden was financed by a few investors that were interested in Walters plans. As more and more tourists visited the Gardens, share s of the Gardens were sold to interested people, until the point where now we have a few more than 500 individual investors who each own a few shares of the Gardens, these are like mom and pop investors. They are very interested in the Gardens and theyve invested on a personal level, really. Many of these people come to Hawaii each year to see their investment. They are all hopeful of seeing a financial return on their investment, but they enjoy the beauty they see as they watch the Gardens grow. I myself bought four shares of stock back in 1998 for $3,000 each. After that, we bought a time share in Waikoloa Village so we could come regularly to Hawaii. Others have done the same. The gardens consist of the original 27-acre portion, which is the portion that you have been looking at on the map, and this is located along and mauka to Highway 19. Theres an additional 165 acre portion mauka to the 27-acre portion, above which is the forest that you referred to, Commissioner Siracusa. The Gardens also leases an 80-acre section of land on which is located the viewpoint to (as well as) the Umauma Falls, this is leased from Doc Buyers. Visitors to the Gardens arrive primarily by rental car and purchase a ticket giving them access to the Falls viewpoint, and a quarter mile walk along a beautiful stream under tall trees (mostly African Tulip trees) which is a pestiferous weed -- which is what we call the Rain Forest Walk -- and then a walking tour through about 5 acres of the 27-acre portion that has been intensively planted and landscaped with several thousand species of interesting and beautiful plants. Visitors also receive complimentary fruit and a fruit juice drink. Every so often I will walk along the walkway with a few of the visitors and point out and name plants of interest, much to their delight. On a typical day, we may have anywhere from 80 to 100 visitors arriving in about 45 cars throughout the day. In the ten months that I have been there, visitor count has slowly but steadily increased from about 75 to 80 per day. I would like to tell you a little about myself now and how I came to be here from Wisconsin. I was raised in Fresno, California, and majored in Ornamental Horticulture in Fresno State College 10EXHIBIT C