2007-05-24 TSUPERSTORE - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Kaahumanu Highway, Historic Kailua Village and scenic beaches that people travel from around the world to visit. Our reputation is on the line. We deserve to keep our priorities in place. We must contribute to the excellence of planning of our community to a world class destination. It is our responsibility as residents of the County of Hawaii, the Planning Director, the Planning Commission, the County Councilors to stop Big Box stores. They do not belong in a visitor destination area – island, I should say. The traffic congestion around the island is already in a major problem. The Big Box stores would cause a gridlock situation in the larger population areas. The number of visitors to our island and the growing resident population create a daily heavy use of our highways. We are experiencing a level now of under developed infrastructure, and it will take years to catch up with our growth. We can not create more gridlock to our highways now or in the future. The Planning Commission should make their recommendations to the County Council and the Planning Director and decide to halt Big Box superstores on Hawaii Island. It is the right decision. Thank you for allowing me to be here at this meeting and to make my comments regarding this important decision. I am here because my partner can watch my store. But I can tell you today, this is a day where there is a cruise ship, and most of the businesses would have been here today, but they had to take care of their businesses. So I want you to know they would have been here to represent themselves. And I want to also tell you that today the County Council of Kauai County voted to ban superstores at 75,000 square feet by a unanimous vote. Their voice should be heard. They made a great decision. And thank you very much. GRAHAM: Thank you, Ms. Aguilar. Any questions from the Commissioners? Yes, Commissioner Domingo? DOMINGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Comments not directly involving superstores, but the fact that there is a gridlock and traffic is congested, I think that is not contributed by those Wal-Mart or Costco or other huge stores that we have in Kona or in Hilo. Congestion is here because of the rapid growth and the influx of people from the mainland or wherever they come from. And because of the huge numbers of in-migrants who come here, that has caused the problem of congestion in traffic and other problems, social problems that we face. So regardless of what happens and what the Council decides to do and whether or not superstores come here, the traffic problem will persist unless we can do something about it. I just want to make that clear and not blame those huge stores for the problems that we are facing now. GRAHAM: Thank you. Thank you for your testimony today. I appreciate it. All right, I have four more testifiers. If you all would come forward, please, Sally Marone, Gordana Leonard, Alapaki Tampos and Billy Kimi, III. Jeff? Excuse me? DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a reminder, if any public testifies and happens to bring written testimony, if we could get that or a copy of that or the original for our records. Thank you. GRAHAM: And as a kind of an addendum to what Jeff just said, if you did bring written testimony and we get it, you don’t need to just repeat it verbatim. Maybe you can just summarize it quickly because we’ll be having it to read. All right, thank you. Could the EXHIBIT E 7