2007-06-05 TSUPERSTORES - Laserfiche WebLink

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TESTIFIERS: I do. ALAMEDA: Okay, thank you very much. We can start on my far right. So if you could please state your name and address for the record. You can speak into the mike. That way we can get everything recorded. GUMAPAC: My name is Kale Gumapac and I live in Puna, Paradise Park. ALAMEDA: Go ahead, Kale. You may share your testimony with us. GUMAPAC: You know, this reminds me of an interesting song that was written back in, a few years ago. You know, they paved paradise and put up one parking lot, they paved paradise and they put up one parking lot. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. Your responsibility, oh, I forget, I represent the Kanaka Council; and the Kanaka Council is made up of all of the leaders from the different Hawaiian organizations throughout this island. It’s your responsibility as a Commissioner, Planning Commissioner, to also respect the Constitution of the State of Hawaii. And it’s our responsibility to remind you about that responsibility. And the responsibility that I’m talking about is in regards to Article 12, Section 7, “The State reaffirms and shall protect all rights, customarily and traditionally exercised for subsistence, cultural and religious purposes and possessed by ahupua‘a tenants who are descendents of native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands.” The Kanaka Council takes the position that all superstores must and should be banned from Hawaii. The superstores are not in keeping with our cultural traditional rights here in Hawaii. The superstores are a threat to the very fabric that we are here today. Let’s not kid ourselves. The superstores and Wal-Mart guys make it a practice to find locations where they can usurp all of the existing laws that are now existing to make it easier for the superstores to be built. They have done that on the mainland. They have done it when they have been shut down. And so where do they go? They go to the Indians to have the Indians to go and buy land so that the Indians when they buy the land now they can put it under the reservation and is no longer under the jurisdiction of the County and other bodies. The Wal-Mart attorneys, and E kala mai for the managers here because those are local boys, they’re not back in the main office planning out and understanding how they can make all of these things happen. All of their attorneys, they knew long time ago when they built this Wal-Mart that the superstore was going to be planned. And it was no accident that they went on Hawaiian Home lands, because they knew that the County doesn’t have jurisdiction over Hawaiian Home lands. And the issues that you guys are talking about right now as to whether or not you have the jurisdiction or not, they already know that. This is, you guys are just going through a formality to do this kind of stuff. And the Wal-Mart guys back at their home office, they know you guys cannot make the decision. So this is why they come onto Hawaiian Home lands. And I oppose that. And I also oppose the superstores because it’s a threat to people like us in Puna. Because why? We’re going to be forced to drive all the way into Hilo and pay all of that expense and gas in order to just go shopping in Hilo. For what? They’re going to save us 10 to 15 cent per item when we pay $3 or $4 per gallon on gas? It’s also a threat in the fabric that we make up of the ahupuaa concept that we’re trying to push that we have district shopping centers so that each of the districts will be able to sustain the district of Puna, the district of Kau, the district of Hilo, the district of Kona. When you approve these superstores, you guys are forcing all of the people to EXHIBIT D 15