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Main Street Pāhoa Association Board Member, and I’m a college newspaper adviser. I have dreams of
<br />developing a journalism program for HAAS School, but that’s down the road when my kids go there.
<br />They’re on the waiting list, I hope, still. Anyway full support for HAAS.
<br />
<br />About the roads, the State, the County, whoever wants to take the ball, it shouldn’t be HAAS, needs to
<br />develop Highway 130 at Kahakai Boulevard. I prefer a roundabout. It’s a stone’s throw from the
<br />entrance to the school. If anything there needs to be a school crossing. That is all the State’s kuleana.
<br />We should develop Nanawale Road, which is closer to Kahakai, make that an entrance to Pāhoa. Let’s
<br />take the old road that goes, that is along Jan’s Barber Shop, let’s open that up on Highway 130. Make
<br />Highway 130 that is bypassing Pāhoa bring people to Pāhoa. That’s, if you can try to envision -. We
<br />don’t need stop light after stoplight after stoplight. We need maybe some yellow go slowly, there’s
<br />children crossing into town, coming into town after school. Let’s not ignore that issue, but it should
<br />not be HAAS that has to put that stuff in, maybe a little bridge right over the road. But let’s get the
<br />State Department of Transportation to really start looking at Pāhoa and seeing, hey, you put Woodland
<br />Center in, you made Kahakai with a right-turn only, let’s put it, let’s do it completely and correctly.
<br />
<br />And, anyway, so if you guys could work on the recommendations and make that happen and just really
<br />support these alternative schools because we need to be thinking out side of the box and we need to
<br />look at the continuum. This school is very community oriented, and that’s why you have someone like
<br />me who’s a business person coming to you saying I support the school. I can call up the campus
<br />security guard and say, hey, come look at my shoplifting footage and make sure that there is no HAAS
<br />School student here. You know, I have a very good relationship with the principal, the teachers, the
<br />students that come in and shop at our store. It is about making sure that these kids know that they are
<br />part of a community and not just inside an institution. And so let’s just try to, like, think big picture as
<br />we mold the special permit into place. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Aloha. (Clapping)
<br />
<br />KERN: Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Okay, now we’re done with the
<br />public testimony portion of this. I’m going to kick a little bit slightly out of order here, and Planning
<br />staff is going to say, uh huh, Puna boy. Born and raised on the Big Island, I got the fortunate, I’m just
<br />going to kind of, yeah, get this portion in then we can kind of see what’s going on. Cause, you know,
<br />I’m the chair and I can’t make motions and stuff necessarily. But, you know, I was born and raised
<br />here, had the opportunity to go to a nurturing preschool and kindergarten, Montessori and Kinderhale.
<br />From there I got a chance to go to Malamalama for a year, and that was an interesting experience.
<br />From there I got a chance to go to Kea‘au School, second grade, and that was even more of an
<br />interesting experience. From there since I grew up in lower Puna my parents were trying to kind of,
<br />you know, keep me sheltered because I was growing up in the Kapoho area and they wanted to, I don’t
<br />know, maybe not give me to the wolves quite yet. But the time came, third grade, I got to go to Pāhoa
<br />School. And, you know, you say you got the three options, right, of private school, public school, and
<br />school of hard knocks. Well, Pāhoa School was both of that public school and school of hard knocks.
<br />And there’s no joke. I mean it was a challenging experience to say the least, issues that I still deal with
<br />to this day based on going to that place as a, you know, haole boy. And at one point in time, you
<br />know, I used to go to Mr., probably he doesn’t even remember me, but I used to go to Mr. Cockcroft’s
<br />classroom at break and it was kind of this place of peace. You get to watch surf videos and like wow,
<br />okay, I’m not going to get beat up in here. Cause everywhere else, I mean I was getting my lunch
<br />money in front of security. I would get out of my car and would have to be scrapping, it was nuts. I’m
<br />not there anymore.
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<br /> EXHIBIT A
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