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MS. BEACH: Good afternoon, my name is Lori Beach. Thank you for listening to all this
<br />testimony today. I appreciate all your efforts to date, which is, I am sure, a challenging job.
<br />I appreciate your attention to that. I have been a resident of the Big Island for almost 30
<br />years now, and a community activist in Hamakua for about 15 years. I served on the
<br />Steering Committee for the Hamakua Ag Plan, I worked on the Hamakua Community
<br />Development Plan, and I an now running the Hamakua Ag Co -op. Over the course of my
<br />community services I have talked to many, many residents of Hamakua, and what I found
<br />is that there is a sense of place. There is a strong sense of community. We are anchored by
<br />Waipio Valley, which is probably one of the most special places in the State, in my mind.
<br />There is a reverence for the land and the area and the community. The current Plan A,
<br />dividing Hamakua, serves us a great injustice. We are not similar to either the South
<br />Kohala District, or the North Hilo District, and we need to maintain our identity as it has
<br />been for the millennium. That is what I would like to say, thank you; and I support
<br />Plan 40 in its current form.
<br />CHR. SIRACUSA: Thank you. Patrice McDonald just came back in, so I am going to call
<br />her up. You filled out two sign in forms, but you are just testifying as one person.
<br />PATRICE McDONALD
<br />(At this time Patrice McDonald came forward to address members of the Commission.)
<br />MS. McDONALD: I had a theory that since no body was representing upper district Puna,
<br />maybe I could have all day. That was a joke. My first problem, as usual, is there is not one
<br />landmark on any map, including Brenda Ford's, on what the boundaries and where the
<br />subdivisions actually lie within these districts. We spent all night, we bought the software
<br />that you had asked us to do; I can't tell, on Draft _A if Hawaiian Acres is with Hawaiian
<br />Paradise Park, or not. Secondly, we had invited certain Commissioners to attend meetings
<br />in upper Puna, which is considered most of District 3, and parts of District 6. I really
<br />admire Margaret Wille, who I had never met, who really reached out to all communities to
<br />try and get an idea of what their feelings were. I think the biggest misconception in this
<br />entire planning, is that HPP is not Puna, and Volcano is not Puna. It is comprised of all the
<br />communities, all the subdivisions, between those two areas. It is not just HPP and
<br />Volcano. Map after map after map represents their interests only. This lobbyist group,
<br />Friends of Pahoa's Future; we invited them to Hawaiian Acres, Fern Acres and Orchidland.
<br />They also did not show up. I have their testimony from a meeting in District 3 that
<br />apparently the only reason they want us as part of District 5 is to drive our roads. It had no
<br />other justification, period. So, the commonality here is that District 5 is tiny, very small,
<br />urban lots. Most of upper Puna, which is really District 3 - --
<br />CHR. SIRACUSA: Excuse me, which map are you looking at?
<br />MS. McDONALD: Friends of Puna's Future was, I believe, Plan 40. The other one
<br />submitted, Draft Plan A, I would really like to be able to see these landmarks and
<br />boundaries; otherwise nobody in upper Puna really has any idea of what you guys are
<br />doing. It is not on the website, you cannot overlay these maps with any districts or
<br />boundaries at all. So, our idea is I think closer to Draft A, at least the Puna district seems
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