2006-08-03 Board of Ethics Minutes Special Meeting kd

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ND: Which one? The June one? Yes. KKS: You did? ND: Yes. I did. RW: Can we ask Gary Safarik to go to the mike and continue this same thread of conversation? GS: Right here? RW: Yeah, sure. GS: Thank you. RW: So please identify yourself. GS: I'm Gary Safarik, and I reside in the Ainaloa Subdivision. And I represent - -this is my third term on the Hawaii County Council, my first term beginning in 2000. First of all, it seemed that when I reviewed the way that we normally communicate with our constituency in Puna, it struck me that we don't have all the necessary avenues that, let's say, somebody that would have cable, that would have access, lets say, to other means of receiving the news. And so, in my three terms on the Council I discovered that even though we did mailers and we did radio, and that we did town hall meetings, and we communicated via internet there was always somebody that would come to me and say "I don't know what you are doing, you need to increase your communication capabilities." And that has been something that I have been sensitive to over the last six years, is how I can effectively communicate. When we sent out the first mailer, the first mailer, if you refer to your packet, you will notice that its with my signature. I have a kind of unusual way of signing my name, looks kinda like chicken scratch. But that it's me signing it. And if you refer to that, it would be dated June 6, 2006, and I begin "Aloha Friends." RW: Have you seen that Ms. Stocksdale and Mr. Olesen? Do you need to see a copy of that? It is the June 2006 mailing. It's the first one, right, in which there is no mention of the website. Okay. GS: But on the back, or attached to that cover letter is documents that were not changed. And that, basically, just gives an outline on all the various capital improvement projects and programs that we were doing in Puna over this last 18 months. I felt especially a need to communicate with our Puna population because of our community development plans right now. We've got a steering committee and I needed to receive as much input back from our constituency as possible on some of the issues that we are going to be dealing with in our community development. RW: Let me just interrupt. So, thank you. Let the record also reflect that the attachment or the enclosure to the letter, which is called "Subject: Update on Project and Program Funding for Puna Makai" is also dated June 6 and is identical to the case of both letters, both mailings. So the first mailing went out, was only around June 6. I don't know the exact date of that, but with this enclosure, here. The second mailing went out later. Subsequent mailing went out with the identical enclosure, with a different formatted cover letter, which was the offending cover letter. I think if I've got that right. M