2007-12-28 (2007 PONC Annual Report to the Mayor)

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➢ An approved site visitation plan should be developed to enable the Commission to view and better evaluate properties prior to preparation of Prioritized List. ➢ The Commission would like to encourage the Mayor and the Hawaii County Council to request of the Commission and Property Manager clarification or more information, as may be needed prior to any recommended purchase actions, on the property listings. ➢ The Commission and the public are concerned that purchase of property alone should not be the only goal of this program. Active management including maintenance and enforcement needs must be addressed to ensure proper care and protection of natural and cultural resources on the properties. Funding sources need to be identified. ➢ The Commission has received comments from the public that public access routes in some areas are obstructed by adjoining landowners to discourage public use. The County and State should resolve these problems when they are reported by the public. ➢ The Commission recommends that the County should generate a comprehensive inventory of all "old government" roads and trails so these can be identified to the public and used by the public as may be deemed appropriate. Acquisition and Management Concerns Pursuant to Section 2 -217 of the Hawaii County Code, this Commission's duties and responsibilities include exploring additional methods of funding land acquisition (see Appendix 10), making recommendations to the Mayor, and giving emphasis to land acquisitions where the County's contribution can be leveraged to obtain State, Federal, and /or private funds. In order to investigate and better understand the issues around these responsibilities, a Committee of three Commissioners was formed. The committee members are Laura Schuster, Kim Garcia and Paul Campbell. The committee members met and discussed special funding opportunities and requirements. One of the greatest concerns arising from the findings is that of management of acquired properties. In most cases, the County has insufficient funds and /or personnel to take on management of said properties. To leverage adjunct Federal and /or State funds, management plans might be a condition for application. A further requirement for some funding is that managing entities must be 501(c)(3) non - profit organizations. If funding sources are found to create management plans, it's feasible that the County could develop the plans. To fund management plans for property acquisitions in their districts, County Council members should be encouraged to transfer a portion of their annual discretionary funds to the appropriate County department. These plans could be turned over to qualified groups for implementation. Group and programs could include, but are not limited to the following: ➢ 501(c)(3) non - profit organizations; ➢ Park Volunteer Corps. — a group that would be developed to provide maintenance for specific properties, similar to a work -force program like Civilian Conservation Corps.; ➢ Heritage Stewards — for those parcels where resources are such that an on -site steward may be the best option; ➢ Adopt a Park Program — similar to the Adopt a Highway Program. -4-