2008-05-22 TPUNACDP - Laserfiche WebLink

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were circulated.) What’s coming around is a half acre of forest. You know, native forest is not limited to Volcano, folks; there is native forest in lower Puna. This is what’s happening, pin to pin clearing of the forest all over Puna. This is a gradual but very systemic thing that’s happening. And when I allude to the second point here about this being a grassroots plan, there were four kickoff public meetings 300 people came to. These are statistics from R&D Department. Three hundred people came before kickoff public meetings. And then there were 130 small group meetings; 1,152 people came to those smaller group meetings. And they were pulled on a very small personal level in people’s living rooms, community centers. And when they were concerned about the land, the number one thing that kept coming up was grading and grubbing. And it’s a reaction and notification of what these pictures are showing here. And there were two more of large public meetings; 250 people went to those. Then there were Working Groups; they talked about land use and then transportation, natural resources. Those were the major issues. They went into sub-groups, a thousand fifty-three hours. Then the Steering Committee, I think it was 12 dedicated people hours upon hours; they put in 1,400 hours. The hours of just people volunteering to produce the paper as the Plan totals up, from R&D here, 5,600 hours. Folks, you know, if there isn’t a more grassroots effort that put this Plan here, yes, with all the imperfections and zoning issues and this or that, I don’t know of anything else there is. And for my children and hopefully my grandchildren, should I live so long, you know, we need one plan. My last point is that in some ways I believe this Plan is already working because on Monday of this week, before the Council Committee interdepartmental committee, Brenda Ford chairing, a petition was presented to the Council folks by 700 residents of Puna, saying you’ve got to do something about the grubbing and grading. Twenty people spoke for nearly two hours, seven of the nine Council folks stuck it out from 4:30 to 6:30. And there were testifiers, no not just tree huggers from Volcano, they’re people who care about the grubbing and grading issues island- wide; people from Kona came, people from Waimea, people from lower Puna, upper Puna. Two of the Council folks said, hey, give us some wording, give us some language. I know previous Councils have tried to -, certain folks have tried to get this Chapter 10 revised. But this is how a plan is supposed to work is that I feel this is the voice of the people, there is a momentum building; so already it’s happening towards amending Chapter 10 at the Council level. So that’s just my take. And I would say one last thing. I don’t think anyone has any problem with Shipman doing a regional center; I don’t think anyone has any problem with the woman to my left, on that regional center. But we do need smaller regional village centers around Puna, close to home that maybe we can walk or bike to or not get in the car so much. So I think it’s not either or. I don’t think Shipman really has in my personal opinion anything to be that concerned about. And you know, Bill Walters, I heard that he was involved in the work at the Working Group level many, many, many, many times and always welcomed. So I don’t want that impression or to be implied that Shipman wasn’t involved; they certainly were. Thank you so much. WATANABE: Any questions? Thank you. MERMEL: Thank you. EXHIBIT C 17