2012-12-06 Windward Transcript HI VOLCANO

Home

with Mr. Hong and Ms. Lee Loy, is Graham Ellis, the Board’s Chair of Hawaii’s Volcano Circus. I am thankful to Graham for representing our organization in the last meeting. However, I want you all to know that I am the person responsible for all the decision making and all the day-to-day operations of Hawaii’s Volcano Circus, not Mr. Ellis. When we were here in May, you told us to get the amendment to our Special Use Permit submitted by December and we did. I am relieved and happy to hear the Planning Department recommending continuing the revocation proceedings. Thank you to Mr. Darrow and Ms. Leithead Todd. We support any proposed interim guidelines that might be put into place, and we will have no problems complying with them. Just as we have had no complaints against us since the May meeting, I anticipate no problems operating until we can join you again, I hope, in the very near future to consider our amendment to our Special Use Permit, which we have already submitted. From the time that we received the cease and desist order, we have been working cooperatively with the Planning Department to solve issues. We fully understand and appreciate their position and are thankful to the guidance that they have given us, which has allowed us to progress towards a solution that meets the needs of all the stakeholders. On behalf of our SPACE community, I especially want to thank Ms. Leithead Todd for allowing us to continue to house an elementary education program operated by Hawai‘i Academy of Arts and Science Public Charter School and to operate our weekly farmers market during this time while we are working to finalize our amendment. I cannot, I cannot overstate the importance of the school and the market to our community in Lower Puna. Throughout this matter, we have been very proactive in meeting the needs and addressing the concerns of those who were unhappy with our operation. Immediately following the receipt of the cease and desist order, we held a community meeting to gather input from our extended community, both supporters and detractors. We heard the concerns expressed and implemented the suggestion of one of our neighbors to hold a smaller facilitated meeting with those most severely impacted, our closest neighbors. I was very pleased when twenty-some people attended that meeting, held on a neutral ground at a neighbor’s house. A professional councilor, arranged for by the neighbor hosting the meeting, served as a facilitator. In this meeting, we had a detailed discussion and received suggestions from our neighbors about their concerns and suggestions for future operations at SPACE. We held a follow-up meeting to receive input on a proposal that we had prepared, which later became the foundation of the amendment which we submitted. I believe that these meetings and the dialogues they stimulated were a wonderful thing. In fact, as a result, one of our neighbors who had complaints about us was open-minded enough to accept our offer to join the SPACE Advisory Committee to give guidance in our decision making process. I was also able to assure our neighbors that we intended to take their concerns seriously and were not planning to continue our activities as before. The most frequent complaint we received concerned the level of noise coming from SPACE during events. Even prior to the cease and desist order, we had taken several steps to reduce the sound coming from SPACE. They included: Landscaping around SPACE including planting trees, shrubs and other plants which, when mature, will assist in providing a barrier 5 EXHIBIT C