2006-09-22 TALLIANCE - Laserfiche WebLink

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NISHIMURA:Yes, we did. ALAMEDA:Okay. Do you have any responses or comments towards that? NISHIMURA:No. We’ve reviewed the proposed conditions and find them acceptable. ALAMEDA:Okay. Fellow Commissioners, do you have any questions for the Applicants or the representative? Okay. All right. We do have a lot of testimony today. Is there anything you’d like to add? NISHIMURA:Could I ask for an opportunity for Mr. Blake to make a statement, please? ALAMEDA:All right. Okay, just a point of order. I’d like to ask that, you can make a statement regarding this application; and then because of the Contested Case request, we need to have the Intervenors come up and also kind of state their, I guess, reasons for the request; and then we can entertain the possibility of testimony following that. So, Mr. Torigoe? TORIGOE:I was just kind of looking at your rules and the rules basically, it says that “The Presiding Officer shall afford all interested persons an opportunity to present testimony on the matter prior to the commencement of the hearing and prior to proceedings on any subsequent day.” So according to your rules it seems like public testimony ought to, you know, come before you go on to anything else; and then the first order of actual business would be to deal with the Contested Case procedure, under Rule 4-7. ALAMEDA:Okay. By the way, that’s why we have Mr. Torigoe, he’s making sure that we’re following the rules. Sir, if you can make a brief statement, and then I’ll move forward. BLAKE:Sure. I appreciate the opportunity to address the Board. Predominately, I want to cut to the heart of the issue why we’re here. Alliance Redwoods Conference Grounds, I think all of you received information about us, I won’t reiterate that. But why we’re here, what’s the intent? I think it’s very helpful for you folks, ladies and gentlemen, to understand our intention as an organization as a non-profit organization, is educational in nature. We serve approximately 6,000 to 8,000 public school children, as we speak, doing environmental education in the State of California, the district. The organization is a faith-based organization and the district that I represent includes Hawai`i. So we’re here primarily to give back to the Hawaiian people, especially the island residents, the church community, the educational community, the at-risk population. That’s really the intention. There’s no economic gain or benefit. And my biggest concern, I guess, that I would share with the Board here is if there’s, every intent has been made for quite a few years here to make this a possibility for the Hawaiian people. I stayed in this hotel the last few nights. It’s the people that work in this hotel that live in this community that we intend to serve at an affordable rate. Not too many people are targeting that population; and that’s why we’re here, that’s the intent of us pursuing this. And so my hope would be that we would not make it prohibitive by finding restrictions and cost- prohibitive for us to continue as a non-profit organization. We’re truly non-profit, and this venture will be the same. So I want that to be laid out. What is the intention? What’s the goal? What’s the real agenda here? The agenda is to serve the disenfranchised people of the EXHIBIT A 4