2009-11-06 TMALA MOHALA - Laserfiche WebLink

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WOODWARD: All right. You may begin if you’d like. Are you going to testify first? ZELKO: Actually, I would really like Mike McKinney who runs the day to day operations just to kind of explain what the camp is doing. You saw some photos. But there’s a lot of farming going on there, so I thought he’d be best. WOODWARD: Okay. If you’ll give us your name and address and then begin. MCKINNEY: Sure. My name is Mike McKinney. My address is 419 Huali Place here in Hilo. I’m happy to kind of give you guys an overview of what we do. I’m also happy to answer some of the questions that were brought up. We serve adolescents. It’s mainly a farming program, a lot of experiential education. We work with kids who are mostly coming from the mainland. These are kids of who have very minor issues, loss, grief. It’s more about building these kids up, having them connect with nature and the land. We typically work with these kids for about 60 days. It’s a real quick overview of what we do. WOODWARD: All right. Any questions? Commissioner Domingo. DOMINGO: Was a cease and desist order placed upon your -? MCKINNEY: No. DOMINGO: Land use and what you were doing in the past? Were you permitted to do it? MCKINNEY: Well, when we first came to the hearing in 2004 we applied for a special treatment facility. And some of the questions you guys have are questions we’ve had this whole time about how do we fit into the mental health area. We come from states where it’s more clearly defined. And when we came here there was really only one category that kind of met or was anywhere close to what we were doing. And rather than try and pick something that you’re not familiar with we thought it would be most appropriate to try and apply for a special treatment facility. At this time we thought we were operating as a farm and a campground. I believe that this permit was, we wanted to be proactive, we wanted to look into the future and be able to combine all the components that are in a farm like this. And when we went to the hearing some of the conversations were around the mental health issues; and would the Health Department even consider us a special treatment facility because we work with mostly voluntary kids. They are a very soft program. There’s a lot of testimony that maybe we weren’t appropriate for that level of supervision. So when we left the meeting we had a continuance and continued to operate as a farm and a campground. And to answer your question, sir, we were, later the Planning Department did make contact with us and said we were in violation and operating -. And that’s why I was a little surprised. I said we were operating a special use facility; and in my mind we were always operating the campground and a farm. And so at that, I could step back a little bit too. I had, I had received a survey. You guys have the survey. It’s a little confusing because I purchased the property and it was 7.8 acres. By the 6 EXHIBIT B