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WOODWARD: Very good. Okay, if you can give us your name and address, and then
<br />begin your testimony, sir.
<br />OLIVER My name is Martin Oliver. I live at 1264 Haihai Street in Hilo, 96720.
<br />And I have a small sod farm out in Waiohinu. I’m retired. And I’d like to make mention to
<br />Jeff’s comment, I’m not very big but every little thing we do helps somehow. So if I’m run out
<br />of the community, so to say, they’re not going to miss me very much. But I do have a sod farm.
<br />I have five acres, and I have a guy by the name of James Hanka, he wants to put a half acre of
<br />onions. He has the onions in a box and they’re ready to go. Then he would put them there. So
<br />we ask that you don’t pluck our feathers. So, that’s the way Jeff looked at it. As, sure we’re
<br />small.
<br />But, anyway, there are rights and there are privileges. And I was not aware when I bought my
<br />airplane that you couldn’t fly it off a private land. I had no idea. I know there are numerous
<br />other people doing it that have no idea that if you own 10, 15, 20 acres that you can’t fly your
<br />airplane off it, you need a special permit. That’s something we didn’t know. So, anyway, when
<br />I bought my airplane, it came from Italy, pre-built, factory built airplane, in a big crate. I had to
<br />put it somewhere so I just took a road grader, that’s all I did. There’s a level spot on that land
<br />and I just graded down the cow tracks, that’s all I did, no construction, nothing. Six hundred feet
<br />right between two hills, you can see by the picture there’s no grading there, that’s just been
<br />leveled. And then I had a mechanic come, put the airplane wings on and we test flew it. And
<br />I’ve been flying out of there since 2006, not a complaint, nothing, whatsoever. And then, you
<br />know, it comes down to rights and privileges. I didn’t know I didn’t have the right to land there.
<br />And so somebody took the privilege of filing a complaint against me saying you have an illegal
<br />airstrip, although in the last three years I haven’t landed there 50 times. It’s very difficult to fly
<br />from Hilo to Naalehu and actually land. Because if it isn’t raining in Hilo, it’s blowing over in
<br />Kau. But it’s kind of like a boat, you sit there all year, you maintain your boat on that illusion
<br />that some day you’re going to take it out in the water and catch a fish. So you do and then you
<br />turn it loose. I mean, it’s the same kind of thing. So, I’m retired, I was in real estate for a long
<br />time and now I want to grow this grass. So I got the grass started, I got some growing on tarps,
<br />and then I can roll it up and get these sprigs going, cause it’s expensive. It’s zoecier (phonetic)
<br />grass, and I got some growing in the hill. And I got my sprinklers and everything going there;
<br />and it’s coming.
<br />So, anyway, rights and privileges, I want, I’ve got a pig trap there because we’ve got to deal with
<br />pigs. They’re always bothering me. Anyway I built a pig tap and they won’t go in it. So what I
<br />did, it’s a big pig trap, I planted corn in the pig trap. Now if the pigs go and eat the corn I get the
<br />pig. If they don’t I eat the corn. So I know I’m going to get skunked that way. And, anyway,
<br />it’s the same thing, rights and privileges. I have a right to fly my airplane, that’s my right.
<br />We’re allowed to fly and we have rules. We have to obey certain rules. And the first rule of
<br />flying it says you must operate your aircraft at an altitude allowing, if a power unit fails in an
<br />emergency landing, without undue hazards to persons or property on the surface. That’s the first
<br />thing. No matter what we can’t endanger people. And the next thing says over other than a
<br />congested area, and I’m, nobody is around, that’s not congested. So over other than the
<br />contested area an altitude of 500 feet above the surface except over water or sparsely populated
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<br />EXHIBIT C
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