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IWASHTIA:But Billy is special. <br />KENOI:I can give you my number. You can call me up. We can set up one <br />meeting. I’d be happy to go over this with you, Mr. Iwashita. <br />IWASHITA:I know your number. Okay. I would like to get your input about that, you <br />know, this top-down kind of concern. <br />KENOI:Okay. If I may, Mr. Chairman? <br />ALAMEDA:Sure. <br />KENOI:I believe there are two questions I was able to discern from that. One is <br />the question of Department of Health and their ability; and, two, is the issue of homes in our <br />community being part of the plan if this is, and whether this amendment is kind of not well <br />thought out and not part of a strategic effort.If I may start there first, this amendment was, <br />Director Chris Yuen would admit, and has admitted, that this is about timing. We were planning <br />to do this years ago. This is something that we’ve been talking about for four or five years. <br />When you talk about as our community grows there’s going to be great need, there’s great need <br />now. There’s great need now. We’re sending 200 of our youth off-island for decades and they <br />come back worse than when we sent them; and we act confused. How are our kids getting <br />worse? We’re sending them away without family, without support, out of their community, <br />away from their schools, away from everything they’ve known their entire lives, and they come <br />back home worse. Why is that? The document and the research show because people need to be <br />treated, healed within their own communities. So the therapeutic living programs, adults who <br />needed treatment, shouldn’t go off-island, same thing, away from friends. So we act like these <br />people who are getting help are from somewhere else when they also were born and raised here. <br />And it’s our obligation and responsibility to do whatever we can to help them within our own <br />communities. <br />These group homes, like you said, need to be in every community. If this amendment happened <br />four years ago and Marimed wasn’t in Keaau Ag Lots, this wouldn’t have opposition. But <br />Marimed went to Keaau Ag Lots, there is the opposition; and the timing of this amendment looks <br />like it’s for a specific program and a specific geographic location; and that’s the breaks on our <br />part, was just bad timing. Because the issue of having eight unrelated persons is an effective <br />way to treat community-based therapeutic living programs statewide, Department of Health said <br />that. So with regards to need, the need is overwhelming. No matter how many group homes we <br />are able to get Federal, State funding for and get programs to actually come here, we’ll still be <br />behind. We’re never going to catch up. So the fact of need I think is overwhelming. <br />Two, Department of Health certification. The Department of Health I believe regulates homes <br />both through Alcohol, Drug Abuse Division or ADAD, as well as CAMHD, Child and Mental <br />Health Division. They go through a rigorous inspection process. They’re monitoring not only <br />effectiveness of these group homes, but also the livability, the operation, the implementation and <br />meeting measurable outcomes, are they doing the job they’re contracted to do. So if you ask me <br />do I have faith in the Department of Health in effectively regulating group home programs on <br />Hawai`i Island? Yes, I do. Felix Consent Decree was a statewide federal consent decree <br />regarding special education that involved the Department of Health and Department of <br />EXHIBIT D <br />10 <br /> <br />