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ALAMEDA:Other Commissioners? Okay, thank you. You may state your name and <br />residence and you can proceed. <br />SAKATA:My name is Don Sakata. I was born and raised here in Pahala. My family <br />has been part of a business for like 50, 55 years doing delivery service back and forth. Weve <br />been part of the plantation process for all our lives. I speak in support of this project because it <br />gives us an opportunity locally. Its an affordable price, number one, basically. The thing about <br />the living on the land is it makes a big difference between being a lessee farming land, owning a <br />farm five miles away, and living at home. Thats one of my main concerns, is if I was to invest a <br />lot of money up in the farm, not living there or not being there its hard to transport everything <br />up and down. So that becomes a burden. And it would be nice to have a dwelling, or something <br />that we could be there, then that could change the whole aspect of my outlook on farming, being <br />that they could do a lot of different things other than coffee itself. <br />The other point I wanted to make, point out was Ive been involved in youth sports for all my <br />life.Ivebeencoachingfor15,20yearshereinthecommunity.AndrightnowIcouldsay98 <br />percent of all of these kids that come out, graduate from Ka€u High School have nothing left <br />here. Theyve all got to go somewhere else. And right now this is an opportunity for maybe <br />some to stay to build a life where they would like to stay home in Ka€u. And most of them, like I <br />say, theyve got to travel, weve got to travel to Kona or Hilo, three-hour drive, just to go get a <br />minimum wage job to start. So that, that outlook is real hard as far as the community goes. And <br />I can speak for that, in that sense where I dont have any of these pupils, former pupils, you <br />know, living here and making a life. So with this in support, there might, there might be a <br />chance for help change and improve our community. My kids got to go, you know, theyre not, <br />they dont have any, much job opportunities. So our economic base is basically nil. <br />ALAMEDA:Thank you, Mr. Sakata. Could you, any questions? <br />MCCALL:Yeah -. <br />ALAMEDA:Go ahead. <br />MCCALL:Hi. Don? So you, if you, you would be looking at probably building a <br />house on your, on the parcel that you now have a license on most probably? <br />SAKATA:I would like to -. <br />MCCALL:Yeah, okay. <br />SAKATA:If it could be possible, you know. <br />MCCALL:Would you, and if you did that under the current situation you would need <br />to put in water tanks or something like that? <br />18 <br /> <br />