GMAC 4.16.24 Minutes Draft - Laserfiche WebLink

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Action: R. Duerr motion to approve the minutes of March 19, 2024. Seconded by P. Dedman. Motion carried by voice poll vote with 6 ayes, no nays and 1 excused. 3. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: There were no statements or questions. 4. COMMISSIONER REPORT BY DISTRICT RD: District – 1, Robert Duerr. Thanks, Chair. This month is pretty much been about the Wailoa situation, it’s become increasingly shallow boats cannot make it out if they’re large fishing boats, which are primarily boats from Pohoiki, but the other problem that they’re having is that when you do make it out you’re sucking sand into your engine. So DOBOR is aware of the situation but essentially has been late to the party,with boaters who went to the legislature to get the dredging monies and when the dredging monies were released last year, DOBOR was able to get a sanding permit from Army Corps but – they waited to when there was an uproar from the public. However, that being said, we met with Mayor Roth and this was a coalition of boaters and fishers and we met in the Mayor’s Office and, attending was the Fire Chief Kazuo Todd, former senator Laura Acasio, myself of the Wailoa River Association, Carl Shoiji for Hilo Trollers, and Mike Tokunaga for Tokunaga Fishing Store and then Gary Beales for HIFACT. The mayor has been very pro-active and back in March contacted the Governor on the situation. Pressure was put on both from the public and from Mayor Roth to the Governor, so that now DOBOR has received a permit except that they’re in the process of getting a contractor and they believe that they’ll start sometime in June, early June. Mayor Roth is not in town, he’ll be back in a couple of weeks and he said he will be following up. That being said, there’s still some problems. Dredging has to stop for, I mean, \[unclear\] for coral spawning which is from Mid-June to early July, and then in August the World Sprints so paddlers around the Pacific will be coming so a lot of pieces are still in play, quite frankly, \[unclear\] and fishers are not happy but as the Mayor says this is as fast as he’s ever seen government move so that’s, that’s kinda where it’s at. The second issue of District – 1 is Council Chair Heather Kimball is interested in working with GMAC to find out how our report gets to the Council. So, she’s still open for the Chair meeting via Zoom or others meeting via Zoom on how that goes down. The last issue is PR, which is the hunting zone on the Mana Road, still following up on that. That’s it Chair. Thanks for the opportunity. LT: Mahalo. Do we have any discussion about that? SW: No, no… Just reports… LT: OK. Just reports, do we know if any of the Pittman-Robertson money goes towards dredging rivers? 2