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the procedure that we would encourage people to do; we would encourage them to apply for the operation before they establish it. It is fairly common that it does go the other way around. And you have seen a number of applications previously where people were operating without special permits and were cited by the Planning Department and then came in for the permission. We would not say that it disqualifies you from applying. We would encourage the Commission not to give them an advantage by virtue of the fact hat they have in some cases built a structure, put money into it; you should still evaluate whether a special permit should be issued for the site or not. It shouldn’t be an advantage to them to start up without a permit; but it should not disqualify them, either. WOODWARD: Mr. Chairman. WATANABE: Yes, Mr. Woodward. WOODWARD: If I might just put in my two cents worth. Part of the problem is that on the Big Island of Hawaii somewhere over 50 percent is land that is federal government land or state park. That leaves less than 50 percent as saleable land, and over 80 percent of that is zoned Agricultural, including the lot that the Mayor’s house is on. So you know, it’s kind of an absurd system really when you look at it. And I don’t look upon this as being precedent setting. Now, a special permit, those are given out like lollypops, you know; that is not something that is a precedent-setting phenomenon. Now, if you were to rezone it, well, yes. But as I said, our problem – and I know Commissioner Iwashita has addressed this on many occasions – we have a basic problem; the basic problem is we didn’t get it right in the beginning. We did not get it right in the beginning. And it’s absurd to think that over 80 percent of the saleable land in this County is zoned Agricultural. I live in Ocean View; you can’t grow anything on lava, nothing. So you know, this is the basic problem. WATANABE: Thank you. Mr. Iwashita. IWASHITA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won’t characterize this as defending my position, but -. I think it is precedent setting every time we grant a special permit in an Ag area. But it’s also a symptom, and it’s a symptom of a system that has some dysfunction or maybe a lot of dysfunction in it. And then you know, we are on the commission, in my opinion, part of that dysfunction; but it’s, in my opinion, systematic. And I really like it when we have lots of people like this in the room because, I’ll tell you, usually when we consider matters, rezonings included, we are lucky to have a dozen people sitting in this room. And in that process, to me that is a major symptom of the fact that this process that we are in is the same process that was used to create Oahu and Maui and all that great things that they have there. So we are going to copy them. We are going to keep copying them until 20 or 30 years from now, we’ll have -, because we have ten times or – I don’t know the exact number but – we have a lot of more land to mess up. So thank you, Ms. Bowman, for bringing this up. But it is precedent setting. It’s also symptomatic. And you know, so we do need to be careful and consider about these things. And we just had one on this side, involving a bed and breakfast that was not done properly and came in to get it legalized; and it was a very contentious issue. But it is precedent setting in my opinion. And I think in the bigger picture we need to recognize that it’s a symptom of a system that’s not really going to work real well. EXHIBIT A 5