Laserfiche WebLink
therapeutic living programs, we can get them off the street, we can lower crime, as mentioned in <br />the West Hawai`i article today that Virginia Isbell brought in, 80 percent of crime can come <br />down in your own backyards. <br />As far as the number eight, it’s not a magical number, it’s not a therapeutic number. It’s a <br />number of needs. Right now there are people on waitlists who are seeking help, who want <br />treatment, who want recovery, who want their lives back. And we have waitlists of people <br />wanting to get in; and they fall in between the cracks and we lose them. We try to re-integrate <br />back into the community. That’s why we’re looking at houses versus putting them out into the <br />boondocks, segregate it from society. We’d like to see these people come back into the society <br />as contributing members. <br />BISAC is working with the standards of the Department of Health, Alcoholic and Drug Abuse <br />Division. We’re audited. They come out to our facilities and check them on a quarterly basis, so <br />we have those standards to come by. We have rules and regulations already in place for our <br />houses. We have policies and procedures that we follow. <br />With that I’m going to end. <br />ALAMEDA:Thank you. Any questions for Ms. McIntosh? Seeing none, thank you for <br />your testimony, really appreciate it. You may be seated. Sir, will you please state your name <br />and address for the record? <br />WALKER:Yes. My name is Richard Walker. My address is 35-1805 Kapehu Road, <br />Papaaloa; and I may be able to shed some light on some questions that were asked of residents of <br />the Keaau Ag Lots earlier. Mr. Yuen mentioned that the planning had begun for a change, <br />making this an amendment over a year ago and indicating that that ruled Marimed out as a focus. <br />But, in fact, Marimed has been operating on this island for a couple of years now. They’ve been <br />in Papaaloa. They first bought the property in our neighborhood in July of 2004 and began <br />operations around October of that year. <br />It was a big surprise to us because they made no attempt to outreach; and, consequently, they <br />earned the enmityof most of the neighborhood, except for there is one homeowner that has been <br />working with them in having the youths pave and haul gravel and so forth for him. But as is the <br />case in Keaau Ag Lots, otherwise, it’s unanimous that they’re not appreciated based on our <br />experience with them, both their attitude toward the neighborhood and in our experiences with <br />their people escaping, and traffic issues, noise issues, and so forth. <br />I can shed a little light on the Department of Health requirements. In the earlier testimony stated <br />that there was a limit of two per room. However, at the facility in our neighborhood, they have <br />one large unitwith bunk beds. So that may be that they’re following different rules than the <br />mental health situation. <br />Also, in terms of Department of Health issues, they bought the property which is on catchment, <br />as all of our properties are, and only later discovered after making their investment that the <br />County, or rather the State Department of Health was going to require them to be on County <br />EXHIBIT D <br />17 <br /> <br />