2011-04-08 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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MS. POMEROY: I think they don’t but what they do is well I shouldn’t speak because Eric Tanouye is a nursery person so he would know a lot more about that but when you process an ag product you have to have a certain infrastructure in place… MS. OHARA: Right. I understand the infrastructure piece but in terms of the actual product I don’t know that the county actually gets involved in any permit processing. MS. POMEROY: Yeah, I’m not sure about that, beyond mailing invasive species and stuff like that but I can find out. So a letter addressed to Cost of Government Commission? MS. NICHOLSON: You can send it to Kathy Garson and it will come to us from her. MS. POMEROY: Okay. MS. NICHOLSON: Another thing, under number 3 identify ways to enhance revenue and revenue collections for the county, the last thing is decrease purchases of imports. Can you explain that a little bit? Who is the purchaser of the imports? Are you talking about the county purchasing imports? MS. POMEROY: Well the county does and everything is set up in the state and county level and private sector for importing. So one of our goals is to produce more food for this island, be more food self sufficient and a big part of that is about not just growing the food but all the infrastructures in place for importing. So to relate it to ways to enhance revenue and revenue collections within the county if we were more self sufficient we would be having the money stay here rather than going to the mainland or overseas. MS. NICHOLSON: I’m not sure what we can make of that. MS. O’HARA: I fully understand the argument it has been around a long time. MS. NICHOLSON: Yeah, I think we totally support…. MS. O’HARA: Import substitution. MS. NICHOLSON: Yeah. But I’m trying to tie it back to revenue collection for the county. MS. O’HARA: It would improve the quality of life for our citizens. MS. POMEROY: Well wouldn’t you collect more revenue if we were having a busier business economy here? MS. NICHOLSON: Definitely. MS.O’HARA: Well yes and no. Some of that accrues to the state as we’re pointing out. The county doesn’t receive direct taxes like GE taxes so yes and no, most of our revenue comes from our property taxes but there is a spill over for the county in terms of benefits and there’s definitely a spill over for the residents of the county the more we can substitute imported foods, absolutely. So yeah we recognize that. 7