2024-03-05 PL-SMA-2023-000046 Candice Fragas Opposition Testimony

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From: Candice Fraoas To: Roy.Alex;WPCtestimony; Kern.Zendo Date: Tuesday,March 5,2024 8:36:05 AM Aloha Planning Commissioners, My name is Candice Fragas, I am a resident of Ka'u and has been for years. My family has been in the Ka'u district for many, many generations. My grandma told me when I started dating my husband that because he was from Ka'u, to make sure that we weren't family. Why?because my family has ancestral background in Ka'u. My grandma was a cultural practitioner and was very well known throughout our islands;she did Hawaiian style Lomi Lomi. That is something she passed down to her mo'opuna's. I am not just a community member, but I am also the Property Manager for Black Sands Beach LLC. I first got introduced to this project when Daryn Arai reached out to me and askedwho should Black Sand Beach reach out todetermine how they could move forward on this project. That's when I told him the best advice I could give him was to reach out to the Kupuna's of the area. He asked if I could make that happen-------- `,and that's exactly what I did. Later my family and I was asked by Daryn if we would be interested in helping volunteer in an area down in Punalu'u. We were more than happy to help, so we did. We helped in two different areas around Punalu'u. We go to get to know Eva Liu and some of her team members at that time. It was that day Eva Liu offered me a job to help maintain the area part time. Just about two weeks later she asked me to become her Property Manager. And here I am now almost 3 years later. In my position and working the aina, I have been following properprotocol that I was taught by my Kupuna's. And I have learned by the Kupuna's of the area as well. In the first meeting that Black Sands Beach LLC had with the Kupuna's, their first thought was to clean up all the mess that Roberts Hawaii left behind. And this is something I continue to do! And with each new task,I still work with the Kupuna's. When Eva Liu bought this property, she was given some documents from Roberts Hawaii, but there are no drawings of the water, sewer or the irrigation plans. Yes we may have some plans but nothing was actually there to help us support the area. As we started investigating the existing infrastructure systems throughout the property, we encountered unknown issues that this is way more then we expected. But did it stop us? No! We just kept moving forwarded and continued doing what we had to do to make the area better. So far, we have put up 2 solar lights around the loop road and just recently purchased 4 more solar lights to put up along the roadway; 2 at the top connecting to the highway and 2 placed on the rest of the loop roadway, staggering it around. We have 16 fire hydrants, of which7 out of the 16 are in working condition. We have fixed 2 of them, althoughone of these newly repaired hydrants was subsequently damaged by one of the community members from the Ka'u district who decided to burn out and crashed into our hydrant. We have tried to find parts for these hydrants, but they are so old that we are having trouble finding them. We need to replace the entire hydrant, which includes the flange down to the elbow; which means redoing the kicker and further down the pipe all the way to the shut off valves. I've been talking and working with Pahala Fire Departments Fire Captains, as well as Tyson Goo, the