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KUBOTA:And it says that the fate of this application will somewhat be
<br />influenced by comments. WhatÓs the follow-up on that? What was
<br />did you have one, or -?
<br />FUKE:Yes, we did have a meeting with the North Hilo Community
<br />Association. It was just a presentation. The association had elected not to provide either
<br />a letter of support or a letter of objection. And when I spoke with the associationÓs
<br />president, I guess, within the last two or three weeks and asked them whether they were
<br />going to testify or provide comment, they said, well, itÓs all up to the individuals. But we
<br />walked away with a sense that it was basically, after the visual inspection, excuse me, the
<br />visual simulation was done, that the community, as a whole, did not have any objections
<br />to the location. See, at that meeting what we had agreed to do was to put a simulated
<br />tower, you know, just to give the community a sense as far as if constructed what would
<br />be the visual impact, and we had informed the community. And it was up, I think, on one
<br />weekend, like on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. And then based upon that then
<br />I had subsequently contacted the associationÓs president and the secretary, and then they
<br />said that they had not heard any objections to that.
<br />KUBOTA:I have another question, Mr. Chair.
<br />FUJIKAWA:Go ahead.
<br />KUBOTA:Above the community meeting paragraph, MPI, Nextel, made
<br />conscious effort to lower the height of the tower, at the same time diminishing the
<br />effectiveness somewhat. And yet we talk about co-location being our, you know, our
<br />goal so that we wouldnÓt have all these things springing up here and there. And, yet, at
<br />the same time, by lowering it you have effectively cut off co-lo
<br />one more that you speak of. Talk to me about that.
<br />FUKE:IÓm glad you raised that question because thatÓs essentially,
<br />indirectly, the discussions that weÓve had with the Planning Director over the last few
<br />days and as recently as this morning. The ideal situation, of course, would be to have like
<br />a higher tower in this particular area. But the Applicants were rather mindful of the
<br />visual impact and, so, they had consciously decided to reduce it from maybe an idealized
<br />height of about like 100-120 feet down to like only 80 feet. But maybe I should just kind
<br />of, at this point in time, turn it over to Mr. Jaeger, who did a lot of this kind of search ring
<br />analysis. And then he can provide, I guess, the Commissioners and also reconfirm some
<br />of the discussions weÓve had with the Planning Director relative to how or why this
<br />particular site was taken, you know, in light of the fact that you do have other existing
<br />towers, either existing or proposed towers in that area, and why those towers were
<br />dismissed. And I think you can have a better understanding so -
<br />FUJIKAWA:Mr. Jaeger, go ahead.
<br />JAEGER:Thank you, Mr. Fuke, and Commissioners. What we tried to
<br />with Nextel is we established a specific search ring for our site builts; and the search ring
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