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ALAMEDA: All right. Any feedback to that? Let me check with Commissioner
<br />Graham cause he is going to add some. Mr. Graham?
<br />GRAHAM: Yeah, I’d like to sort of bring forth a whole new area of inquiry in
<br />discussion here for a minute. Mr. Lim said a short while ago, as I wrote down, what we are here
<br />for today is discuss what conditions we are looking at. Well, I don’t think that’s the case. I think
<br />we are here discussing whether we are going to grant an SMA permit; and if we in fact choose to
<br />grant a permit under certain conditions, then we are looking at what those conditions are. And as
<br />that relates to the contested case hearing that was held, you know, I did read the transcript early
<br />with a lot of attention and I don’t believe our role is one of making a decision amongst the
<br />parties that took place in the contested case hearing as reflected by the Findings of Fact. I think
<br />our role is, you know, as representatives of the public, trying to make the proper decision about
<br />the SMA permit. And, in fact, the contested case hearing and the intervening parties had a very
<br />narrow set of issues in my mind, important issues but narrow issues. Their issues were mostly
<br />the flooding issue and the road location issue. And to me when I look at granting or not granting
<br />an SMA permit, again as we had in the past, the basic authority of 205A-26 says no development
<br />shall be approved unless the authority has first found development will not have substantial
<br />adverse environmental or ecological effects, except as such adverse effects are minimized to the
<br />extent practicable and also are clearly outweighed by public health, safety, or compelling public
<br />interests. And it indicates that adverse effects shall include potential cumulative impacts of
<br />individual developments not only this development. So, in my own take on this, a lot of issues
<br />that are right at the heart of the SMA issues, such as coastal water quality, such as preserving
<br />open space, also of course access along Alii highway, these issues were really, especially the first
<br />two, were really not even addressed from what I can see in the contested case hearing. And so
<br />rather than have us go through all this discussion about this or that finding, I feel like I want to
<br />be upfront with the applicant here that those issues are what are key to my findings in this regard,
<br />and not just the much more, what to me, are more narrow issues. So, you know, to me it’s
<br />beneficial that Mr. Mooers may be giving an overall presentation, that we all get ourselves
<br />warmed up to the full implications of the project, and not deal with the more narrow precise
<br />issues of the findings suggested by the different parties at this point.
<br />LIM: I agree, and that’s why we try to lead off with Mr. Mooers.
<br />ALAMEDA: Okay. Let’s see if the other Commissioners will agree with that. I
<br />agree with that, too. Mr. Iwashita, do you have any disagreement with the process that Mr.
<br />Graham has just mentioned?
<br />IWASHITA: No. But I have, my concern is the bigger picture, you know. Mr. Lim
<br />made the statement that he believes the filing by the intervenors or some of the intervenors is
<br />premature. Courts are going to have to decide that. But you know, in important fact we have
<br />had documents submitted to us, and whether or not they are called exceptions technically, you
<br />know -. Previously, we had basically the same similar types of objections presented in writing to
<br />the Department, raising these procedural concerns that the intervenors have raised, and you
<br />know, that is in advance of actually getting the decision from, you know, from the hearings
<br />officer basically making the same objections. So, my concern is that Mr. Lim has just talked
<br />about basically a perception of delay and then dragging this out.If in fact we end up with an
<br />appeal, a timely filed Third Circuit Court appeal, and a hearing by the Court on whether or not
<br />all of this procedure, if you look at it all together, whether this body properly considered the
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