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Plans being adopted; but more important is that many hundreds and hundreds of people are
<br />participating in this process, and that the Plan that comes from each community is a plan that the
<br />people themselves have drafted and it reflects their needs, their wants and their hope for the
<br />future. And that’s the best part of it. I just want you to know that we know about that. And as
<br />soon as we can get this done with, we’ll send it up to the Council with a positive
<br />recommendation. Thank you.
<br />WATANABE: Mr. Iwashita.
<br />IWASHITA: Did he just cast a unanimous ballot by himself?
<br />WATANABE: Well, that’s debatable, but anyway -.
<br />IWASHITA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, your words just sort of overwhelmed me,
<br />Commissioner Domingo, I forgot what I was going to say.
<br />Just talking about the overall Plan, I made my comments about the four separate community
<br />plans – that’s great. My Fellow Commissioners know that as far as the island-wide concerns, my
<br />view, and I would just share with you, and when your action committee starts working on this,
<br />please keep it in mind. One, Ag is important, and in order for us to, to me the County’s role is to
<br />provide the infrastructure, the roads. In my mind, when there is half a million, 700,000 people,
<br />living on this island, the train, and you know, they are fighting about that on Oahu now, but
<br />that’s a fight they should have got over a long time ago. So when you’re working on making this
<br />Plan work in the future, infrastructure is important, needs to be fleshed out like that, so you know
<br />where the train station go in Waimea in, like, 30, 40 years – that kind of stuff.
<br />And you know, as far as, obviously, schools is a very difficult jurisdictional issue because the
<br />County got actually nothing to do with school infrastructure – that’s a State function. But when
<br />you are organized, continue to be organized as you are as a community or in your various
<br />communities, so that you can pull your resources and figure out, because DOE has its own – my
<br />wife is a principal – DOE has its own ways, right, some of which – nobody tell my wife I said
<br />this but – some of which principals don’t agree with, okay? And you know, so to the extent that
<br />you as a community can be really engaged in terms of trying to help the schools be better, you
<br />know, however that is, then please continue to do so and engage more than you already have,
<br />Mr. Souza and other DOE people, right, in your ideas, right, because it has to go up and then
<br />come back down. Or maybe, I don’t know, Con Con is coming up – if there’s enough
<br />organization and enough radical ideas, you know, maybe something even at Con Con.
<br />But to me, I join Commissioner Domingo’s praise and observation really that, I mean, for myself
<br />having been raised in the 60s, right, and having those kind of radical notions, and being in my
<br />right mind, you know, it really does impress me. I am really impressed that the community
<br />comes out, because to me, I mean, when you’re talking about democracy and all of that, you
<br />know, that only works when the people come out, right? And the reality is we had the poorest
<br />voter turnout, like, in the country, right? And hopefully, this kind of process, and if it continues,
<br />and as I urged you earlier to double your efforts, if not more, if you can get more and more
<br />people involved, then as far as I’m concerned, it works. It has worked, it will continue to work;
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