2025-01-15 Megan Isaac - Laserfiche WebLink

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Factual Background A. Public Meeting of August 24, 2023 At a public meeting on August 24, 2023, residents asked Mayor Mitch Roth and Ms. Frecia Cevallos directly about the County's involvement with SMART Cities and re- lated initiatives. Both Mayor Roth and Deputy Head of Research and Development The following dialogue took place during the meeting: Public Participant 1: "Aloha, my question is, what exactly is a 15-minute SMART City?And what, if anything, does that have to do with our Hawaii Island?And what does the planning department have in the... or what...? Bring us up to date on that, please." (sounds of clapping and cheering in the audience) Mayor Mitch Roth: "Actually, I'm not really sure what you're talking about...? 15-minute city he said...? Hang on, Frecia, are you around? Hopefully, she didn't leave. Frecia? Frecia? Okay... Maybe "R&D" knows a little bit about this... 15-minute SMART City, do you know anything about that?" Ms. Frecia Cevallos: "I don't actually, but I can find out. I'm so sorry." Mayor Mitch Roth: "Right so there's a conference in Maui, is what you're saying? In Maui? Okay... you know I know, 'you know, "SMART city." .. there's a whole bunch of stuff that they talk about there, with information and stuff like that. I can tell you, I don't know specifically about what you're talking about. We know what the SMART City is... we'll find out. We'II take a look for that, okay?" Public Participant 2: (another member of the audience handed the mic and commented): "The SMART Cities are where they want us contained within a 15-minute area, and you know all about it. It's all over the news, it's all over social media, it's all over everything. And also, it goes hand in hand with your sustainability plan that you started your speech off with, and it's in lockstep with the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization. We know all about it. You should know all about it if you're our mayor." Mayor Mitch Roth: "I will take a look and see. I mean, I gotta tell you this—I'm your mayor, but I don't know everything." Mayor Mitch Roth "I have as a notes to myself on one of the things to do is find out what the hell this 15 minute uh thing is smart city is uh and learn about it. So I will learn about it and I'm not sure what is. " Although Mayor Roth and Ms. Frecia Cevallos explicitly denied familiarity with the con- cept of "SMART Cities," a press release issued two days later contradicted these statements. (Refer Appendix page 9 & 10. Exhibit 12: Partial Transcript extracted from Public Meeting 8/24/2023 Video source: NaLeo.ty: /channel: governmental 55 /keyword search: 'volcano')