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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2012-11-09 Windward Transcript Connections PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT NOVEMBER 9, 2012 CONNECTIONS NEW CENTURY A regularly advertised hearing on the application of PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL/CBESS (SPP 12-138) was called to order at 9:45 a.m. in the County of Hawai‘i Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawai‘i, with Chairman Zendo Kern presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Zendo Kern, Dean Au, Ronald Gonzales, Raylene Moses and Stephen Ono STAFF PRESENT: Ivan Torigoe (Deputy Corporation Counsel), B. J. Leithead Todd (Planning Director), Daryn Arai (Planning Program Manager), Phyllis Fujimoto (Staff Planner), Maija Cottle (Staff Planner), Jeff Darrow (Staff Planner), Sarah Hata-Finley (Staff –left at 11:45 a.m.) and Sharon Nomura (Secretary) ABSENT AND EXCUSED: Wallace Ishibashi And approximate 180 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: CONNECTIONS NEW CENTURY PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL /CBESS (SPP 12-138) Application for a Special Permit to develop a K to 12 charter school campus with dorm facilities and related uses on approximately 70 acres of land situated in the State Land Use Agricultural District. The property is located on both the southwest and northeast sides of Edita Street near its intersection with Kaūmana Drive and adjoining the Pacific Plantation Subdivision in Kaūmana, South Hilo, Hawai‘i, TMK: 2-5-006:141. KERN: Next is applicant Connections New Century Public Charter School. Application for a Special Permit to develop a K to 12 charter school campus with dorm facilities and related uses on approximately 70 acres of land located on TMK: 2-5-006:141. With that we will go to staff presentation. Jeff, good morning. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I can direct your attention to our presentation, our next applicant is Connections New Century Public Charter School/CBESS. The area of this application is within the South Hilo District. More specifically we’re looking in the Kaūmana area. The subject property is identified with a black outline. It actually consists of two separate parcels being split by Edita Street. For reference, this white line running through the middle of the map is Puainako Street Extension. This line running in a northeast/southwest direction is Kaūmana Drive. The subject property accesses from Kaūmana Drive onto Edita Street. For access, we’ll come in on a closer view here so we can have a closer reference. Again, we have Kaūmana Drive on the upper portion of the map, Puainako Street Extension on the lower portion of the map. The subject property is identified with a black outline. The colors on the map, 1 EXHIBIT A again, represent the different zonings of the area. The green shaded area is Agricultural 1 acre, which encompasses the subject property. You’ll see different other colors. The dark blue represents Agricultural 10 acres, dark green Agricultural 20 acres. The light and darker shaded yellow represents Single Family Residential zoning. For reference again, we also have the Pacific Plantation Subdivision in this general location, the access through Edita Steet onto Mele Manu Street. This is the State Land Use Boundary Map which identifies the different State Land Use Designations. There are two identified on this map. The green represents Agricultural zoning and the pink represents Urban State Land Use Designation. This is the General Plan land Use Pattern Allocation Guide Map for the area. The yellow represents Low Density Urban. The orange shaded area represents Rural and the lighter green represents Important Agricultural Land. The subject property is located within the Low Density Urban General Plan designation. This is an aerial photo. Again, we have Kaūmana Drive on the upper portion of the map. We have Puainako Extension on the lower portion. We have Pacific Plantation Subdivision identified in this general area, and the subject property identified with the black line, black outline. Currently it’s vacant, undeveloped, except for fencing that has been recently placed in. You’ll also notice that along Kaūmana Drive and Edita Street you do have single family residential uses occurring. The applicant is requesting a Special Permit to develop a K to 12 charter school campus, with dorm facilities and related uses on approximately 70 acres of land situated in the State Land Use Agricultural District. The request is for a new academic campus which will accommodate an elementary, intermediate, and high school and common facilities that would support these programs. The subject property is divided by Edita Street and includes what is referred to as the “lower parcel” and the “upper parcel”. All major school facilities will be located on the lower parcel. The applicant is proposing to design and construct the project in nine phases. The entire project is projected to be completed within 16 to 25 years. The reason for the request is to consolidate their academic programs at a single location and provide facilities, and support the goals and visions of the school. The lower parcel will consist of the major school facilities. And these will include the elementary, intermediate and high school classroom buildings, the administrative center, the library and resource center, the kitchen and dining facility, a gymnasium and multi-purpose building, green/shade houses, a 6-horse barn, a maintenance building, a 30-person dormitory, a caretaker’s residence, and a small facility to house the intergenerational program. These facilities would support a projected 167 elementary students, 107 intermediate students, 107 high school students, for a total of 381 K through 12 students, as well as 25 intergenerational clients. The dormitory would serve a maximum of 30 students. These buildings will be single story in height. There will be two parking lots (main and secondary) with a total of 140 parking stalls. 2 EXHIBIT A This is the lower parcel site plan submitted by the applicant. Just for reference, everything that is proposed to be constructed is going to be on this lower parcel. The only thing on the upper parcel that will be constructed is a walkway for viewing. So the intermediate, elementary and high school facilities, the gymnasium, the administrative center, the parking areas, everything, will be located on the lower parcel. So this would be, as you’re coming in off Edita Street, it would be on the left side on the lower parcel. This is a rendering of the lower parcel that was submitted with the application. So this kind of gives you an idea again. All facilities are proposed to be one story in height. These are some elevations that were submitted. You have the library and cafeteria, again, just showing the different elevations, again one story. I won’t go into great detail on these. These are the intermediate school classrooms, some of the different buildings, elementary buildings. The upper parcel will consist of, no major school facilities constructed on the upper parcel. A walkway is the only structure being proposed, which will provide access and viewing opportunities within the ‘ōh‘ia forest. The walkway would be elevated on posts roughly 4 to 5 feet above grade. Connections intends to use this land area to support a future forestry/conservation program, which focuses on forest resource management and conservation, and forest ecosystem restoration. This is a site plan of the upper parcel. You’ll also notice this light gray shaded area, that is the Kaūmana Cave that is located under the lower parcel. There is a 100-foot buffer proposed for Kaūmana Cave. The walkway is identified in this general location. The lower parcel would be over in this area. You can see Kaūmana Cave extending across Edita Street; and it touches the lower portion of the lower parcel, but not where any of the facilities are planned. And, again, even on the lower parcel there is a 100-foot buffer. This is an elevation of the walkways so you can see what it is. You can see it on the bottom portion of the map as well. Days and hours of operation: Weekday hours for the school and administration are from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. More specifically, the elementary and intermediate instructional hours are from 7:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and from 7:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Friday. The high school’s instructional hours are from 7:45 a.m. to 2:15 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and from 7:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. on Friday. There may be some limited extra- curricular activities; however, events such as dances and graduation would occur off-site. Weekend activities connected to the agricultural program may be conducted. Again, this kind of shows you the Kaūmana Cave under the upper parcel, as well as touching a portion of the lower parcel, and a 100-foot buffer that is proposed to be there. These are some site photos. This is on Kaūmana Drive looking mauka. Edita Street would be on your left. This is on Kaūmana Drive looking makai, oh, I’m sorry, Edita would be on your right side. This is on Edita looking towards your east, yeah, towards Kaūmana Drive. And you can see that there is a designated left-turn lane and right-turn lane off Edita onto Kaūmana. This is on Edita Street, 3 EXHIBIT A again looking towards Kaūmana, although you cannot see it. The subject property is on the right side of the map and you have a drainage ditch that’s in place on the left side. And this is the upper parcel and the lower parcel identified. You can also observe the wide shoulders in this particular area. Again, this is a little further towards Kaūmana so that we could show you how the shoulders have changed on Edita. So when the Police were commenting in regards to the unsafe shoulders, this was the area that they were referring to. It gets muddy and that sort of thing. This is the subject property looking straight on from Edita Street. This is looking toward Mele Manu Street on Edita. Again, the subject property would be on the left side and the right side. And you can get a pretty good picture of what the drainage ditch looks like on the right side. The Planning Director is recommending that the Planning Commission send a favorable recommendation to the State Land Use Commission. The Planning Commission is not the final say in this particular application. Because it’s over 15 acres it proceeds on to the State Land Use Commission. I do have a few more items to share. Since this application was submitted to the Planning Commission with the background and recommendation, you’ll notice that on the background we had said that the Planning Department had not received any letters of support or opposition at that time. Since that time we’ve received quite a number of letters of both support and opposition for the project. I’d like to bring to your attention three items that are different than letters of support or opposition. One is submitted from the applicant’s representative dated nd November 2; and this is a document that goes in great detail regarding the lease. And the applicant’s representative will speak in regards to this. Additionally the applicant’s representative had submitted a press release. I don’t have the, I’m not sure what happened to that, it was right here. But that was in regards to some activities that were occurring, so that was submitted. There were some, my understanding, like stickers placed on the school property and stuff. Lastly we had been called to the property in regards to the drywell that’s fronting, that’s near the subject property. And there was a concern that maybe Kaūmana Cave was also going under this particular area where the drywell was and then coming under Edita towards the lower campus, which would place it pretty close near where these facilities would be. This letter that’s from th Pacific Basin Hawai‘i Island, I don’t see a date but it was received November 7. So you should have it pretty close to the top. And it’s titled “The Kaūmana Lava Tube Complex,” and it goes into detail in regards to his investigation in regards to that cave that they investigated within the drywell. We do have several representatives here today. We have a representative from the Department of Water Supply, we have several representatives from the Department of Public Works regarding any traffic concern, as well as a possible representative from the Department of Land and Natural Resources - State Historic Preservation Division. She had mentioned that she might be a little late because of a previous engagement for a meeting. 4 EXHIBIT A Lastly, the Planning Department has submitted a revised recommendation which is in yellow and also a revised set of conditions which is in green; and those have been handed out to the Commission. With that, that concludes our presentation. Are there any questions? KERN: Thank you, Jeff. Any questions for staff? Madam Director. LEITHEAD TODD: I did want to add a couple of things just for purposes of information. The way this works, because it is more than 15 acres, is the County Planning Commission either makes a favorable or unfavorable recommendation. If it is an unfavorable recommendation, then it does not proceed and go to the State Land Use Commission. If it is a favorable recommendation, it is then sent forward to the State Land Use Commission, which then makes a determination as to whether to approve the special permit or not. So the role of the Planning Commission is basically to make a recommendation. And depending on the nature of the recommendation either in favor or against the application, then this either terminates at the County level or it proceeds to the State level, which is why some of you may have discovered that there is no contested case process at the County level for this application; and that’s because the role of the Planning Commission is just to make a recommendation to the State. KERN: Thank you, Madam Director. Commissioner Au? AU: Can I ask staff a question? KERN: Yes. AU: Can you go back to the first map, I just want to see the very first map. Okay, can you let us know where Regency is. We just passed Regency. Where exactly is it located in regards to this proposed development? DARROW: Let me go back to that. It may take me a minute here. I was trying to prepare for that, but you caught me off guard. I put the more, the closer up view. Okay, so, let’s see, Maija you might be able to help me out better here. KERN: Down there is a pie shaped, yeah, pie-shaped lot. AU: Okay. And we have several schools in that area as well. So can you show me where -? KERN: De Silva School? AU: De Silva School and that other school up above? DARROW: De Silva, I’m not, De Silva School should be just in this general location. LEITHEAD TODD: No, no, no. That’s Kaūmana. DARROW: Oh, that’s Kaūmana. 5 EXHIBIT A LEITHEAD TODD: De Silva is off of Ainako. DARROW: Okay, okay. De Silva School is on Ainako Street; and that’s in that location right near the intersection of Mohouli and Ainako. AU: Okay, and then there’s also another school as well, right? LEITHEAD TODD: Kaūmana is above there. DARROW: Yes. So that’s just above Kaūmana Cave on the mauka portion of the road. AU: Okay, thank you. KERN: Any other questions for staff? Seeing none, thank you, Jeff. DARROW: Thank you. KERN: Could the applicant or their representative please come forward. Good morning. HELFRICH: Good morning. My name is Dakota Helfrich. KERN: Very good. Can I get you to raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? HELFRICH: Yes. KERN: Very good. And so you just give me your name and area in which you live. You’re the representative? HELFRICH: Yes. I’m a student representative. KERN: Okay, very good. And you have received the background report and recommendation and conditions? HELFRICH: Yes, yes. KERN: Any comments you’d like to make at this time? HELFRICH: Yes. May I? KERN: Okay. HELFRICH: I’m a senior at Connections Public Charter School, and I’ve been a student there since third grade. This school has provided me with opportunities and experiences that have been nothing short of transformational and enlightening. One could ask me why I bother getting 6 EXHIBIT A involved in this query, when I graduate in June; I’ll be long gone if and when the campus is constructed. When we were shown the signs that had gone up around Kaūmana, we were stunned by their bold letters and blunt words…No Connections in Kaūmana, because to those opposing the construction of the campus, a school in the community means more traffic, or harm to the environment, or worse, it means a crowd of teenagers in the immediate vicinity. First of all, the campus itself is going to be made of green materials, not to mention the plan to teach students about, I’m sorry, I’m really nervous, sustainable methods of living, and cultural appreciation for the land. This shows an obvious consciousness about the surrounding environment, but I will go no further with this subject because you will hear from supportive professionals and those managing the Kaūmana project regarding raised issues such as the effect of traffic and on the ecosystem as well - Leaving it to myself and the large portion of Connections’s student body present today to represent ourselves, through testimony or simply watching the proceedings. The new campus is important to us, and so is ensuring that the community, ensuring, assuring the community that we are not who they think we are; we are going to be constructive and valuable members of society, too. My mother sent my siblings and I to Connections instead of one of the big public charter schools, public schools, excuse me, because she never wanted us to have to protect ourselves the way she had to when she attended a public school. Students come to Connections because it’s not occupied by a bunch of juvenile delinquents, and there aren’t fifty other students in every class that they’ll never know, competing for assistance from the instructor. I spent one week at Connect, I’m sorry, Keaau High School at the beginning of my freshman year. In that week, I made fewer friends than enemies, and I felt smaller and more insignificant than I ever had; that’s not the kind of person I am. It was my personal experience, and I had seen all I needed to; and I went back to Connections. When I was a freshman new to the Nani Mau campus, I was invited to join the very small high school community with open arms, and that is why this issue is important to me. What I love about Connections High School is the attitude that the students perpetuate in one another. Someone who is treated with kindness, respect, and tolerance will feel inclined to pay it forward, and that’s what has been happening at Connections. We bring out the best in one another, we make it alright for all to express their individuality without criticism, and that open-mindedness is a model for the future. I’ve met lifelong friends at Connections and I had the privilege of studying under the wisest and most inspiring teachers. And I’m here to disprove, to defeat the sweeping generalization that my peers and I are untrustworthy and undeserving of improved facilities. The team assembled to advocate for the Kaūmana campus is working hard to amend the community’s concerns. I’ve previously attended a hearing and a meeting in which I heard Mr. Thatcher and Mr. Hong, in all sincerity searching for reasonable resolutions to the foreseen problems. This is not a dispute between parties; we want to build a relationship with the community and address these issues. Today we reach out to Kaūmana, asking them to give us a chance, tell us what we can do to change their minds. Every effort is being put into addressing the issues that divide us, and we can only hope that the community will put their best effort into 7 EXHIBIT A communicating and cooperating back, just as we can only hope that you will support us in building an even better Connections in Kaūmana. And that’s all I have to say. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for their representative? Commissioner Au. AU: How many meetings have you had with the community going into this project? And I’d like to get the dates and, you know, we don’t have any records of what meetings occurred, how many people went, how much notification did you give to the public? KERN: Before you begin, Ted, I’ll get you to raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? HONG: Yes, as best as a lawyer can. Actually -. KERN: What am I supposed to do with that? HONG: Mr. Chairman, good morning, Members of the Planning Commission. Mr. Au, that’s a great question. Part of our presentation this morning was how Ms. Helfrich was going to introduce the team that’s going to be testifying and answer that specific question. I’d like to answer that question a little bit later with your permission. I think Ms. Helfrich wanted to introduce a DVD that was put together by the school. And then the plan was to introduce the rest of our team of professionals, and that’s one of the questions that we intend to answer this morning, with the Chairman’s permission and the Commissioners’s permission. KERN: Yeah, no problem on the DVD, no problem bringing up the professionals. I would like to make sure that you respect the public testimony part of it and not try to slip that in further -. You know what I mean? The professionals that are up there, let’s stick to the point of the applicant, and not what could be deemed as public testimony to it. HONG: Absolutely. HELFRICH: Okay, well, this DVD was made by -. ONO: Hold on. Before you continue that, I have a question -. KERN: Oh, Commissioner Ono. ONO: Yes. Where is the present campus located? HELFRICH: We have the elementary and middle school at the old Kress building and our high school is at Nani Mau Gardens. ONO: Thank you. HELFRICH: So the DVD was made by the students with the help of Mr. Kris Kua and one of our really dedicated parents. Have him show it. 8 EXHIBIT A (The DVD was played at this time where students spoke favorably of Connections and in support of the application, and expressing their sadness in seeing No Connections signs posted around Hilo. The Connections staff asked the Commission’s help in helping the students). KERN: Any questions, Commissioners? Seeing none, you may continue. HELFRICH: Okay. Well, from here I would introduce the rest of the presenters. We have Mr. John Thatcher our principal, Mr. Eric Boyd, the administrative assistance, Mr. Dennis Hirota, Civil Engineer with Sam O. Hirota Inc., Mr. Ted Hong, our dedicated attorney, Ms. Sandy Kelley, Mr. David Miranda, Botanist, Mr. Paul Nash, Civil Engineer at Atlas Engineering LLC, Mr. Rowland Reeve, Archaeologist, Mr. Phillip Rowel, Traffic Engineer of Phillip Rowel and Associates. KERN: Can I pause you right there. Is everybody going to speak? We don’t have many chairs here. HONG: These individuals are here to answer any questions that the Commissioners may have -. KERN: Okay. HONG: They can answer the technical aspects of the project. KERN: Okay. So maybe what we could do is if you could let us know who they are cause obviously there’s too many for the amount of seats that we have. HONG: We have nameplates for them so the Commissioners can identify who’s speaking. KERN: So maybe what we’ll do is bring up the people that will be adding to this now; and then if we need to -. Or we can rotate as you see fit. So you have four that are going to speak now? HONG: They’re just here to answer any questions the Commissioners have. KERN: So, yes, continue. . HELFRICH: Okay, last two people are MsCelia Shen, senior planner with Will Chee Planning and Dr. Fred Stone from UH Hilo. HONG: Actually, Ms. Shen is going to be speaking right after this about the project. NOMURA: Microphone. HONG: Ms. Shen will be speaking after a few remarks from me and then she’ll be giving the overview of the project. KERN: Begin. 9 EXHIBIT A HONG: So, good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Commission. KERN: Good morning. HONG: We’re here today to ask for the Commission’s approval of the Planning Director’s favorable recommendation to the State Land Use Commission. The determination whether this project can go through will be made by the State Land Use Commission in the next few weeks. We agree with the amended recommendations from the Planning Director as circulated. As an administrative matter, as the Planning Director pointed out, there is no contested case hearing with respect to this project. th On October 12 we sent a letter to surrounding property owners informing them of the right to file a contested case hearing under the Planning Commission’s Rules of Procedure. We discovered there was an error on October 29, 2012 within the required deadline for notification. We sent an amended and revised second notice to surrounding property owners informing them that they can intervene at the State Land Use Commission pursuant to Section 205-6(d) of the Hawai‘i Revised Statutes and Section 15, 15-53 of the Hawai‘i Administrative Rules. Surrounding property owners who wish to stop the project can intervene at the State Land Use Commission level; and we apologize for any misunderstanding. We would note in terms of the land that we’re asking the Commission’s favorable recommendation for this. It’s a State Land Use District designated for Agriculture. The County zoning in the area is for Agriculture; and I’d also note that the status of the lease is that it has been approved by the Land Board. We’re waiting for the Attorney General’s Office to give us the paperwork. We are proposing a school dedicated to conservation, sustainable agriculture in the area; and that it is designed and zoned for Agriculture. The goals of our project are to promote and instill on the Connections ohana responsible stewardship of the land, treat the land a part of a community trust, education, sustainable agriculture and to be a good neighbor. To highlight some of the questions that were brought up, Mr. Au’s question that was brought up, we amended our, with respect to the community’s concerns in the several meetings that we had, we amended our plan to only develop the lower half of the property. We’re limiting the student population. We had four community meetings. Those were on April 16, 2009, June 3, 2011, August 22, 2011, April27, 2011. And I along with some of the Connections students and staff personally walked door to door along the houses on Mele Manu Street and Edita Street, handing them out information concerning the project, the proposed conception plan; and a comment card that if they had any comments they could submit it to us. We have reported any abuses and criminal acts on the property, including vandalism where the Connections School’s locks have been glued and had to be cut. We’ve reported to the police marijuana growing on the property in questions. And most recently we’ve reported the harassment of elementary and intermediate school children at their Kress building. We have taken responsibility where our trust and a contract with the develop -, contractor has been criminally abused. We’ve invited members of the community to participate as project manager and part of a design committee with respect to the building. We’ve engaged people of substance 10 EXHIBIT A and standing in the community, like David Miranda, like Dr. Fred Stone, to essentially show individuals like you on the Commission that we’re walking it like we talk it. This is not, and I’m certainly not, and my client is not, some big bucks developer telling locals one thing and then doing another. We are trying to promote good local jobs for local working families, from construction to electrical, with respect to all aspects of this campus. And we’re asking the Commission to agree that we’ve complied with all procedural requirements that any other developer has had to comply with and to allow us to go o to the State Land Use Commission for approval of our new campus. I’d like to introduce Celia She, a senior planner with Will Chee and Associates, who will discuss some of the conceptual aspects of this campus. Celia? KERN: Before we begin, can I swear you in? Is it Shen? SHEN: Shen. KERN: Shen. Can I get you to, could you use the microphone, please. And raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? SHEN: Yes. KERN: Very good, thank you. (Mr. Hong conferred with the staff off the record at this time.) LEITHEAD TODD: For the members of the public that are wondering what all the little conferring is, we’re discussing procedural issues as to what has to be made part of the record, if this is part of the presentation to the Planning Commission, so how we’re going to number it, what’s going to be included. So that’s what’s going on in the background as people go up and have discussions. KERN: Thank you for that, Madam Director. Are you, as far as yours -? SHEN: Good morning. Again, my name is Celia Shen. I’m with Will Chee Planning. Our firm along with Urban Works, which is an architectural firm, have been assisting Connections with developing sort of the planning and architectural concepts for the new campus up in Kaūmana. Jeff gave you a brief overview of the campus. And I’d just like to go into a little bit more detail and kind of show you some of the concepts that are being developed for this new school. So if you look here, this will be Exhibit 4, is that correct? DARROW: Sure. SHEN: Again, this is kind of an overview of the property. This is the upper parcel and this is the lower parcel. And, again, all of the major school facilities are being planned for the lower parcel. And this is Exhibit 3, and this is a blowup of the lower parcel. So, again, at this stage, we’re in the very early stages of designing this campus. This is just a conceptual plan. And I’ll just kind of give you a quick tour of how this campus is laid out. This group of buildings here are the elementary school classroom buildings. This building here, No.7, would be the 11 EXHIBIT A intermediate school classroom buildings. Between the two are shared specialized classrooms, like an art classroom and music classroom, as well a shade and green houses that would be shared between the elementary and intermediate programs. These buildings here in blue, this would be the new high school. Again, the high school classroom buildings. This building here, No. 6, would be sort of the specialized classroom buildings for STEM program, art, music. These two up here, again, would be the shade and green houses. And in this center portion of the campus would be the shared facilities, so we’d have the administrative building, a library resource center, and the dining and cafeteria facility. This edge of the campus here we have the proposed barn. This facility here would be the gymnasium multipurpose building which would serve as the school’s great room. And so this would be for school-wide, you know, events, where all the student body could gather in one place as well as serving as an indoor play area for when it rains. This small facility here would be the intergenerational program, and then up here would be the caretaker’s residence and the dorm facilities.So this is, this campus is being envisioned as very small scaled single story buildings. You know, we realize this is in a residential area and so we want the design of the campus to fit in with that and complement the sort of residential feel. And so this wouldn’t be like your typical institutional school buildings. So these sort of design concepts were developed by Urban Works. And then this Exhibit 2 shows sections of selected buildings. You can see they’re all fairly small scaled, one story in height. And they would be designed to be elevated off the ground to minimize the site work that would be needed on the property. These conceptual renderings, showing Exhibit 1, kind of gives you a flavor, the architectural flavor, that’s being thought of for the school. And, again, it’s very small scaled, one story buildings, you know, to work with the existing landscaping and to sort of fit in. And as, you know, Dakota has mentioned, one of the main visions for the school is that it be a model of sustainability. And so what’s being planned to be incorporated is, you know, a lot of sustainable features. The buildings are oriented to maximize natural lighting, natural ventilation, minimizing heat gain, as well as, you know, use of photovoltaics to reduce energy demand. And, you know, the other feature that we’re looking at is, is maximizing the use of nonpotable water. So using rain catchment, using recycled water, to minimize the demands on, you know, precious natural resources, which is potable water. So, again, that kind of gives you a little bit more information of what’s being proposed for this campus. And, you know, I’d like to stress that right now, like I said, this is in the very early planning stages; and so this is a conceptual plan. You know, what you see here is not fixed in stone. This plan really sort of represents sort of the ultimate vision for the school. And, you know, like Jeff had mentioned the timetable for this is, you know, perhaps 16 to 25 years. So it’s, this whole thing is not going to appear on the property at one time. It’s going to be developed slowly. But at most this is what it’s going to be. I mean it’s not going to be any bigger than this. This is the ultimate vision. And, again, it’s at a concept level right now. As we get into the next phase of design when, you know, the engineering details are worked out and the architectural details, you know, this may be modified somewhat. So there’s room, there’s room to adjust the plan, not only to, to address, you know, site specific information that comes up during, you know, the engineering design and architectural design, but as well to address 12 EXHIBIT A community concerns and issues as far as, you know, what they see here. So there is opportunity to, you know, to address those, those concerns. So this is not fixed in stone. And with that, and as Ted has mentioned, you know, we invite the community to help, you know, develop the ideas for this school, you know, whether it’s being part of the design committee or design review board. We certainly welcome the community’s input to help make this vision into reality. Ted, is there anything else you’d like to add to that? HONG: No. Thank you. And if the Commissioners have any other questions. I’d be happy to answer them. KERN: Yeah, Madam Director, a comment to make, and then Commissioner Au. LEITHEAD TODD: If I were to suggest that the access to the school should come across the neighboring property and connect to Puainako Extension, can you reorient the campus to accommodate that? KERN: Please use the mike. SHEN: Yes, that is possible to -. You know, we could, you know, dress things down or reorient the parking lot so that it’s closer to, you know, a secondary access, if that were the case. LEITHEAD TODD: That’s because we do have a subdivision application in the office that we’re in the process of reviewing. It hasn’t been, you know, approved yet. But there is a subdivision application which would connect the land immediately next to the property with Puainako Extension and provide an access for the school off of Puainako. So you can easily reorient the school. SHEN: Yes. And, like I said, right now it’s at an early conceptual design phase so, you know, it can be modified. HONG: And we have met with Mr. Brilhante; and Mr. Brilhante has allowed us to represent that we’re still in negotiations and discussions. My understanding is that some of the people opposed to the project have also talked to Mr. Brilhante and encouraged him not to allow us to go through his subdivision to foreclose any possibility of, or make life more difficult for us. And certainly that’s their right, but I think Mr. Brilhante is keeping an open mind about that. KERN: Commissioner Au? AU: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I understand this is just a conceptual design. It’s a guesstimate, right? So, you know, I don’t know if you can provide that for me. But what is your guesstimate on the dollar value of the project at 100 percent buildout? CHING: It’s a little hard to say right now. I mean our early estimates were about $30,000,000; and that was based on a comparable dollar per square foot on a similar sustainable building. But, 13 EXHIBIT A you know, this project is going to require a lot more infrastructure. So, I think, you know, when we get into the next design phase, costs, a more detailed cost evaluation will be done as well. KERN: Thank you. Are there any questions for Ms. Shen? Seeing none, thank you. Mr. Hong? HONG: Well, I think that actually concludes our presentation of the project. I understand we have a lot of public testimony. I just note that, I just note that I live in Kaūmana. My students, my two children went to Kaūmana Elementary School, just like John Thatcher who lives in Kaūmana. So when we talk about neighborhoods and neighbors, I live there too. KERN: Are there any questions for Mr. Hong. Mr. Hong, hang on for one second. I’ve got a question for you. Any questions from any of the Commissioners? ONO: I do have a question of Mr. Thatcher. KERN: Okay. Hold on, Commissioner Ono, please use your microphone and let me swear Mr. Thatcher in. Could you please raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? THATCHER: Yes, I do. KERN: Very good. And, Commissioner Ono, you may go ahead. ONO: Yes. I’m not familiar with the concept of the charter school. But what would make your program, your curriculum, unique as compared to other schools? THATCHER: Okay. I think one of the things that would make our program unique is that we are very committed. From the beginning of our school, we were a school within a school for five years. We’ve been a charter school for 13 years now. We were the first charter school authorized in the State of Hawai‘i. We believe very strongly in sustainable education and an education that will enable our graduates to be able to find meaningful employment on this island. And so it’s important to us to have an opportunity for the students to be exposed to sustainable agriculture, forestry, conservation, ecotourism. These are some of the areas that were in our original charter, but the concepts were in there and we still believe in this today. ONO: Your present location that you’re seeing approval on -? THATCHER: Yes. ONO: I’m not, well, in my driving through that area, I don’t see that as a location suitable for an agricultural curriculum. Am I wrong in that? THATCHER: Well, we’re not planning a traditional agricultural curriculum. What we’re talking about is hydroponics, greenhouses, future, future-oriented agriculture. So while the land is not great land for traditional agriculture, the land is very similar to a lot of areas on this island where it is possible to develop sustainable agriculture using systems like hydroponic systems. 14 EXHIBIT A ONO: So that’s your option, there are no alternative experiences for the students, for example, a normal agriculture program? You’re just going to be introducing an alternative agriculture program? Am I to understand that correctly? THATCHER: Well, that would be a part of it. And so having a facility right there on campus makes it much easier for the students to have access to the program. ONO: The other question that I have is the long term, why the dormitory? THATCHER: The dormitory idea comes about because we have been, had the pleasure of hosting a number of different groups from other countries and from other states, and from Oahu. So we have had for the last, this will be the eighth year, we’ve had groups of visiting students from Korea. They like to come to Hawai‘i, and they like to come to our school because they get a, the kids get a chance to practice their English, to be exposed to American culture. We’ve had visiting teachers from Indonesia. One of our letters of support is from President Obama’s sister, Maya, and she has actually worked with us on projects through the East-West Center that were State Department funded projects; and she wrote a letter in support for this. Because when the visiting teachers were here from Indonesia, it was very difficult to find places for them to stay where they would be able to visit the school as much as they wanted to. So we’ve also had visitors, a group of kids from Peru last year, who want to come back again this year; and these are kids that are descendents of the Incas. And they are also very interested in sharing with us their sustainable agricultural practices. So, you know, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with what’s going on in Korea. There’s a lot of great sustainable agriculture in Korea, and in a lot of other places, forestry also. And so many of these visitors have said we really like to come to visit you but we can’t afford places to stay. We just returned, I brought a group of kids to St. Paul, Minnesota where we were visiting a school, the high school of recording arts which is another poverty level school like ours, 90 percent African American. These kids are coming to school because they’re doing something they feel is meaningful. They’re learning how to do recording studio production, video production. And to raise enough money to come here and to be able to staying in hotels is beyond their means also. ONO: I’ve got a question. Why a horse barn? I don’t understand that. THATCER: Well, -. KERN: Commissioner Ono, could you repeat that. ONO: Oh, I’m sorry. Why the horse barn? I don’t quite understand that in relation to your program. THATCHER: Well, you know, that’s part of the concept of the sustainable agriculture, is horse manure is some of the best fertilizer that you can get for using in Hawaiian soils. And so that would be part of it. I think that our elementary and our intermediate school science programs also have a component where the teachers will teach the kids about reproduction, which eventually leads to human reproduction, through the use of animals so that they can see, like any 15 EXHIBIT A kid that lives on a farm, they understand what the process is, they understand how life is carried on. ONO: So other than horses no other live animals? THATCHER: Well, the vision would be for, you know, probably chickens, some other fowl, maybe a few goats. But these would all be, these would not be free ranging. They would be, you know, in areas where they are contained. ONO: How would you, I’m sorry, if I may? KERN: Commissioner Ono. ONO: How would you compare yourself with that Maui Lahainaluna program? THATCHER: I think the difference, well, I haven’t visited that. But from what I understand of it, that’s a program where kids are actually living in the dormitories. So we had a student from here that was attending our school that went there and was living in the dormitories. We would not have our own students living in the dormitories. The dormitories only would be used for visitors. And I think that, the other difference is they are more focused on traditional agriculture, from what I know of them. But I do not know a lot about Lahainaluna’s program. ONO: Thank you. KERN: Thank you. And I would like to just make a friendly reminder to Commissioners that are here that there’s a distinction between land use, and curriculum, and what the school is actually going to do. And we are sitting here relating to land use. Good questions, nothing to do with you. I just think it’s important that sometimes, you know, a motion, curriculum, everything else overlaps on land use. I think it’s important that we maintain the land use side of it to the best of our ability. Any other questions for any representatives? Commissioner Au? AU: Thank you, Mr. Chair. How long has Connections owned this property, and when did they purchase it, this property? THATCHER: We have secured a 65-year lease on the property through the Board of Land and Natural Resources. AU: Okay. When did you start the process? THATCHER: We started the process in 2006 actually. In 2006 there was a Charter School task force that met and came up with recommendations for helping to develop charter schools. And one of the recommendations is that the Board of Land and Natural Resources make lands available to charter schools. So in 2007 we asked, requested the Department of Land and Natural Resources to give us some properties that we could look at that would be potential sites for the school. So we’ve been working on this since 2007. The actual lease was approved on, I believe it was January 13, 2011. 16 EXHIBIT A AU: So when you say we, do you have like a Board of Trustees, or what -? THATCHER: We’re working with our non-profit, a non-profit entity. That’s the CBESS part (Community Based Education Support Services), and this is the non-profit that supports our school in areas that we need support, for instance, paying for any legal counsel to represent CBESS interest. KERN: Any other questions? GONZALES: I have a question. KERN: Commissioner Gonzales. GONZALES: So you’re leasing the land from whom, from the State? THATCHER: From the State of Hawai‘i. GONZALES: Okay, thank you. KERN: I have a couple of questions. Did you guys look at any alternate locations? THATCHER: Yes. We looked at, at least seven I believe, was it Celia? I think it was seven at least that we looked at. KERN: And what was it that ultimately led to this location? THATCHER: Some were too big, some were too small, the access was difficult in some areas and this -. You know, being, being close to support organizations for an agricultural program is important to us. And so having both CTAHR and the University of Hawai‘i’s agriculture programs very close is an opportunity for our students to be exposed to these programs and to potential careers. KERN: Okay. And your student population as far as where they’re coming from? Geographically I know it’s a mixture. Can you break that down closely. THATCHER: It’s approximately 50 percent are coming from Puna, being bused in mostly; and the other 50 percent would be from the Hilo area. But we have had students as far away as Honokaa. We’ve had students, we still have students from Naalehu, Volcano, all the way out to Pahoa. KERN: Okay. I think that’s it for me. Any other questions? Seeing none, you folks may have a seat. Thank you. We will be, the next portion, segment, what we’re going to go through is the public testimony portion. Before that we’re going to take a 10-minute recess, and then we’ll get into public testimony. We have about 65 people signed up to testify, so should be good. Thank you. 17 EXHIBIT A RECESSED – The Chair called a short recess at 10:47 a.m. RECONVENED – The Chair reconvened the meeting at 11:03 a.m. KERN: We’ll reconvene at this time. So couple of things, public testimony is limited to three minutes. If there’s anybody here signed up to testify for either geothermal issues, that’s probably not going to happen for at least a few hours. We have six -, it might not even happen today. We do have about 65 people signed up to testify so that’s over three hours of testimony. We would encourage that if you are just going to read your letter that you just, you know, summarize it, let us know that you’ve submitted it, support or opposition. But it is your choice to use the three minutes, how you’d like to -. And with that, we will get started. I will be calling up four people at a time. I’ll swear all four in, and then we’ll begin in the order in which they’re called. So I’ll call up Donald Ikeda, Ming Peng, Robert Wyman and Dr. Henry Lee Loy. Yes, Madam Director? LEITHEAD TODD: While you have the right to read aloud your written testimony, if you have submitted written testimony, in the interest of trying to get through all the people who have signed up who have perhaps not submitted written, if you’ve submitted written testimony, perhaps you could reference it and try to shorten it rather than taking the whole three minutes. Because as I calculate this, if everybody goes three minutes, then we’re at 3 ¼ hours; and if there’s time in between moving people in and out, then you’re pushing to four or five. Thank you. KERN: Thank you, Madam Director. Okay, can I get all of you to raise your right hands. Do you all swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes. KERN: Very good. And so what you’ll have is, give me your name, area in which you live, and then your three minutes will begin. So we’ll start with Donald Ikeda. IKEDA: My name is Donald Ikeda. I live at 966 Kaūmana Drive, about maybe 1/3 mile from the development. Okay, thank you, Commissioners, for allowing me to give a few comments. You know, I'm not against education. And I don't, I'm not against the non-traditional and the special students, special needs students. But I believe that any entity that's going into a community should make an honest effort to be a good neighbor. You know, when you are the new guy coming into a community, like Connections School, they should get together with the neighborhood; and I think Connections Charter School has failed to do this. I would like to ask the Commissioners to listen closely to all the concerns that the community members want to tell you. And there's a lot of misrepresentations and unfriendly acts by the school and its officials and its representatives. 18 EXHIBIT A I would further ask that this Commission take time to read the applicants petition very carefully. And if you have not already done so, take the time to research and confirm each of the carefully worded assertions made by the school officials and representatives. This carefully crafted document is full of half truths and unfulfilled promises. I would like to suggest that the school and its representatives be held accountable on a regular and fundamental basis if they are allowed to proceed. I would further suggest that unless proof can be made of a fulfillment of the promises and assertions set forth by the school and its representatives no progress be allowed until the promises and assertions are fulfilled. By and large, the community is opposed to the project, and with good reason. I won’t take any more of time, but you will hear it from the community. I would like to highlight a few concerns that I have. DARROW: One minute. KERN: One minute. IKEDA: My first concern is water credits. You can check with the Board of Water Supply. They have seven water credits. It’s insufficient for their 360 students, 15 employees and 7 part- time employees. Also the traffic mitigations, right now they only have a left-turn lane into Edita, which is a two- lane street. What happened is John Thatcher had promised that he was going to look into an easement coming in from Puainako, but right now all he’s talking about is coming in through Edita. And dormitory, when first explained was occasionally foreign students, then it became foreign students and teachers, and now it’s foreign students and other people, and full-time employees. Also, the school representatives stated that -. KERN: Time. IKEDA: Okay, thank you. KERN: Thank you, Mr. Ikeda. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Ming Peng. PENG: My name is Ming Peng. I live at 1547 Mele Manu Street. I’ve lived in Mele Manu for 9 years. The proposed construction is planned on Edita Street which is the only ingress and egress of the Pacific Plantations Subdivision, which will increase traffic demands along our street and along Kaūmana. In the interest of time I have referenced that in my written testimony. We have heard the entire project is projected to be completed within 16 to 25 years. The surrounding community along Kaūmana would be condemned to endure increasing traffic, noise, utilization of resources and levels of stress for the next 16 to 25 years from construction and the school. This project will no doubt degrade the quality of life to the surrounding Kaūmana area. 19 EXHIBIT A I’d like to offer alternatives. About 50 percent, as we have heard, of the students come from rd Puna. Mr. Thatcher also stated publicly in his press conference on Oct. 23 that the Edita location provides land his students to learn on that is very similar to land in Puna. Yet according to their own EIS on Pages 15 to 16, none of the TMKs considered for the new campus locations were considered in Puna. This should be explored. You will hear many emotional and heartfelt arguments. However, this is about the construction of an institution into an area where there is overwhelming opposition from the majority of residents who will be most impacted. This is especially in an area where there are already schools along Kaūmana on a 4-mile drive, including Kaūmana Elementary, De Silva Elementary, and the Hilo schools. The institution seems to have acted on the presumption that this Commission will authorize their project: Boundaries have been cleared, fence installed, articles written in the Hilo-Tribune and plans have been made as we have already seen. We are just a community trying to advocate for our neighborhood against a larger institution. We do not have the benefit of hired representatives, professionals, or attorneys. You, the land commission are our equalizer. DARROW: One minute. PENG: Please deny this project. I’d like to add that by denying the special permit you are not stopping the building of the school, but allowing the school to search for more appropriate locations. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you very much. Robert Wyman. WYMAN: Good morning. KERN: Good morning. WYMAN: Thank you for this opportunity. KERN: Name and area in which you live, and then your three minutes begins. WYMAN: My name is Robert Wyman. I live at 1840 Kaūmana Drive, just above the Kaūmana Elementary School. I’ve lived there for the last six years. And I’ve also lived on Kaūmana Drive for the last 9 years actually, just down by the 76 Station. I ride my bike to and from work via Kaūmana Drive two to three times a week. Kaūmana Drive is a very dangerous road on which to walk or ride a bike. And I fear for every pedestrian I see moving along this road, especially my 7-year old daughter who I walk to school at Kaūmana. The condition of the road is poor in many areas and there is essentially no curbside on which to walk or ride safely. I wish Donald Ikeda best of luck in getting the sidewalks put in. 20 EXHIBIT A The traffic on this road is excessive in the morning and I am greatly concerned about the introduction of a large number of additional vehicles trying to access Edita Road or Street by Kaūmana Drive from above and below. What I have understood from the traffic study indicates to me that it was not done properly. Consider the steep approach of Kaūmana Drive from above Edita Street and the typical speed that cars move along there. And consider the cars turning left off of Kaūmana across their path. Consider the vehicles headed to Saddle Road backing up behind them. And finally consider the vehicles travelling to Edita by way of Puainako Extension. If you live on Kaūmana Drive above the cave you know that it is a “drag strip.” Someone is going to die there by a vehicle accident. The 35 mile per hour speed limit means nothing and it is an outlaw traffic condition. This is my opinion. I have never seen a car pulled over for speeding and I am disgusted by the use of this section of road. But over and above this is the safety risk it poses to the elementary school and pedestrians walking in the vicinity, and now, of course, students related to this school. DARROW: One minute. WYMAN: Adding more vehicles, traffic to this road, I believe will negatively impact this community. Is the data correct, 232 accidents on Kaūmana Drive last year and 191 so far this year? A statement from the Police that “There will be an increase in noise, crime and traffic,” well, I’m concerned about the traffic primarily in this vicinity. There should be a pause and serious consideration to the project. I respect the work of the Connections School and their commitment to the students, but I want to know when this road will get safer, slower and wider. I am very concerned that there is a gross misunderstanding of the nature of the traffic in this area on this road by persons who do not live there and that the efforts to mitigate it will not be effective. I respectfully request that the project be denied on that basis only. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you very much. Dr. Henry Lee Loy, give me your name, and area in which you live, and then your three minutes will begin, your three minutes beginning now. H. LEE LOY: Good morning, my name is Dr. Henry Lee Loy. I’m a physician. I live on Mele Manu Street. As a physician I know the value of a good education. I was born and raised in Hilo, I am a proud graduate of Hilo High and Hilo College. I champion public schools. Let’s see, how many of you students attend Charter, Connections? Raise your hands, let’s see it. Awesome. How many of you live in Kaūmana, raise your hands. I have no diatribe with the Connections Public Charter School students. My concern is safety of the neighborhood and students. Permitting this large institution to be built with only one entrance and exit is extremely dangerous. Fires, health emergencies, earthquakes, acts of terrorism could trap students, faculty and residents. The intersection is hazardous. In the morning people are rushing down Kaūmana Drive to get to work and get children to school. School children are waiting right on Kaūmana Drive to catch their bus. Connections Charter School will have 350, 380 students, 50 faculty and I would guess maintenance workers, groundskeepers, security, dorm residents, trucks for agriculture, farming, 21 EXHIBIT A forestry and livestock programs. Traffic will back up and down Kaūmana Drive as these people try to enter Edita Street. Traffic rushing downhill will not have time to stop as they come around the curve resulting in deadly rear-end accidents. Kaumana Drive cannot be widened; and placing traffic signals would cause traffic to back up. The Planning Department recommends an 8-foot wide sidewalk and left-turn lane into the school. There is a concrete channel for water parallel to Edita Street. Private property will have to be condemned to widen this area. Teenage drivers are one of the highest risk categories. They tend to overestimate their driving skills. Upper Kaūmana rains a lot. Kaūmana Drive is tortuous and unforgiving. The risk of road crashes will be immediate, substantial and sustained. Connections Charter School will bus in some students. Public school buses presently have difficulty getting in and out of Edita Street. DARROW: One minute. H. LEE LOY: Developer William Brilhante has already opened up 40 more lots. He has no plans to extend Edita Street. Throughout the morning you will hear testimony from students, faculty and supporters. But please keep in mind safety takes priority. I took a Hippocratic oath to do no harm caring for my patients. Ask yourself am I putting the public in harm’s way if I allow this project? If you have questions, doubt or share my concern for more accidents, injuries, and death and lawsuits then you must do the right thing. No doubt your decision will disappoint many but would prevent unnecessary injury and save lives. It could be one of these fine young students standing before you. Lastly, I leave you with this image of an accident that occurred just 7 weeks ago. I invite you to come back to this image after each testimony and at the end of this hearing. Something this ambitious needs the support of the whole community, but as you will hear from my neighbors they clearly do not. I leave it in your hands. Thank you for your time. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you very much. So there are a few folks signed up to testify on behalf of somebody else. I’m going to permit that, but what I’d like those people to do is really stick with what the person that they representing, what their testimony is, and not a continuation of your own. So with that I will call up four more – Dr. Henry Lee Loy on behalf of Pauline and Larry Kimura, Dana Kenny, Terence Yoshioka and Jan Yokuama, Yokoama, Yokoyama, sorry. And I will wait till everybody gets here, and I will swear them in. So we have Jan? YOKOYAMA: Yes. KERN: Okay, hi. Terence, Terence? YOSHIOKA: Yes. 22 EXHIBIT A KERN: Dana Kenny? Speak up if you’re here. PUBLIC: No. KERN: Okay. And Jeff Gomes? Very good. Can I have you three raise your right hands, please. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes. KERN: Very good. Dr. Lee Loy on behalf of Pauline. What’s her last name? Could you use your microphone. H. LEE LOY: Pauline Kealoha Lee Loy. KERN: Okay. Go ahead. H. LEE LOY: My name is Pauline Keala Kealoha Lee Loy. I regret that I am not able to testify in person as I remain in isolation at the Queens Medical Center while undergoing chemotherapy for acute leukemia. I have been an educator for the past 33 years. I commend them for their dedication. I feel that they deserve a new academic campus, however I feel that this is not a good location for the Connections Public Charter School. Kaūmana Elementary School is located just 3/10 of a mile from the proposed project and has been serving the community for over 100 years. The County of Hawai‘i Planning Department says “From a planning perspective, the request has proven to be difficult in arriving at a position we are comfortable with. The greatest difficulty we encountered was determining whether or not this is an appropriate location for a public charter school whose student body largely consists of students who do not live in this particular section of Hilo. Currently there are approximately 50% of the student body coming from the Puna district and approximately 50% coming from different locations in South Hilo. In reviewing this land use request for a new K-12 school we considered several factors. One factor is that a K-12 school should be located in close proximity to where people live and near the center of probable student population for the proposed school. A school should not be located in an area where the students live a far distance from the school and requires students to be transported via buses or vehicles. I believe contrary to the County Planning Department's perspective the location of the school would not create a better neighborhood and a more livable community, as the students will be transported a far distance via buses and vehicles, increasing traffic congestion in our neighborhood that is already well served with existing public schools. Again, as an individual dedicated to education in both public -. DARROW: One minute. 23 EXHIBIT A H. LEE LOY: And private schools for the last 33 years, I applaud the efforts of charter schools for their diligence in meeting the needs of diverse learners. Indeed 21st-century learning has gone beyond the traditional classrooms with innovation unimagined a trite decade ago. What I oppose is the proposed location of the school. From personal experience, we teach our students to develop a “sense of place" for the community in which you live. That would suggest to me that the school should be located in alignment with predominant demographics of the current student population. Respectfully, Pauline Kealoha Lee Loy, resident of Mele Manu Street. KERN: Thank you. Now, Dr. Lee Loy on behalf of Larry Kimura. Just give you name again and who you’re representing, and you may begin. H. LEE LOY: Dr. Henry Lee Loy, I’m representing Professor Larry Kimura. Aloha, Windward Planning Commission. My name is Larry Kimura, a current resident of Kaūmana, within proximity to the proposed Connections Charter School site. I am in opposition to plans and requests submitted for the Connections School in Kaūmana. I carefully selected Kaūmana over 20 years ago as an ideal residential community to live in, being somewhat near to my home in Hilo town, but most importantly recognizing a community of closeness with neighbors. I know some of the old families from the sugar plantation days and the start of Kaūmana Elementary School that still live and go to school in Kaūmana. And I believe they have contributed greatly to the neighborly lifestyle of Kaūmana. I find it difficult to acknowledge a whole new set of people, outside of Kaūmana, who propose to implant their philosophical charter of education in this setting. School should be a common part of their home communities. As far as I know most of the families of Connections are not from Kaūmana. I would think the place the families of Connections are most connected to should be the natural place for their school to be. A charter of education, administration and money should not be the deciding factors. Respectfully submitted, Larry Kimura, Kaūmana Resident. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Thank you very much. Terence Yoshioka. Very good, so give me your name and area in which you live, and then your three minutes will begin. YOSHIOKA: My name is Terence Yoshioka. I’m a resident of Pacific Plantations Subdivision. I live on -. PUBLIC: Mele Manu. YOSHIOKA: Mele Manu Street. Thank you. I have already provided to the Commission Members a written argument in opposition to the petition. It is entitled “Reasons for Denial”, 12 page document. I also have provided a written statement of myself which we have been entitled “Oral statement” of what I was going to say here today. It’s a summary of the arguments I had made. 24 EXHIBIT A And for the sake of further brevity and to save time, I'm just going to allow these documents to speak for itself, and I ask that they be made a part of the record of the proceedings. I just want to add to what is already stated in these documents, assurance to the students of Connections Charter School. Okay, nobody that I know is opposed to you. Nobody has said anything negative about the students. Basically I want you to understand that this is in opposition to the location of the school, that there are many, many other places where the school would not be so intrusive, so it would not be so problematic for the residents; and nothing that I know of is in opposition to you as to your curriculum or to your character. And that is the essence of it that I wanted, the message I wanted to communicate. So I am going to leave the rest of my time open to the Commissioners for questions if they have any about me. But basically what I wanted to say was that there was no basis for the establishment of an agricultural program, nothing. There was no research, no study to indicate that an agricultural program is necessary or that one will actually be implemented. And without an agricultural program everything must fail, because everything is based upon that. The size of the lot, they say that this is the only site available, not so. If you eliminated 20 acres set aside for the agricultural program then the lot, there are many other lots that would be suitable for this program. And I don't know what is unique about this particular piece of property which makes it the only site available to them. DARROW: One minute. YOSHIOKA: So with that I’ll leave the rest open for questions. KERN: Thank you. Are there any questions for testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Jan Yokoyama. YOKOYAMA: Good morning, Members of the Commission. My name is Jan Yokoyama and I live at 1300 Kaūmana Drive, close to the Connections Charter School, to the proposed Connections Charter School. I have lived in Kaūmana all my life, like the Otanis, the Fujisawas, the Hoshides, the Kitamuras, the Okutsus and Yamamotos. I am also the block coordinator of the Kaūmana Cave Neighborhood Watch. And we object to this project as the roads leading to the project, not only Edita Street but Kaūmana Drive, are not adequate for the increase in traffic. I am also concerned about the proposed dormitory to be built. It scares me and my neighbors that strangers to the community will be able to wander around our neighborhood day and night. This proposed school will adversely affect the quality of our life and not serve the needs of our community. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my concerns. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none you all may have a seat. One second. Jeffrey Gomes, good morning. JEFF GOMES: Before I start, I left a package of information. KERN: Okay. Are you going to be speaking on this? JEFF GOMES: Yes. 25 EXHIBIT A KERN: Okay. The proper protocol is for you to make 15 copies of this and submit it to us. JEFF GOMES: Can I be right back? KERN: We can have the staff make copies of that and then when that’s done I can have you come back in. If that’s okay, that way actually all the Commissioners have something to look at. JEFF GOMES: Great. KERN: That’d be great. Okay, thank you, Mr. Gomes. So once they do that, I’ll bring you back. JEFF GOMES: Shall I do the other two that I’m representing? I’m representing Loretta Crivello and Kimo Miller. KERN: Did you sign up -? JEFF GOMES: I did. I signed up for them. KERN: Oh, yes, here you are. Please do. So this would be on behalf of Kimo Miller. Just give me your name and area in which you live as the representative. JEFF GOMES: I’m Jeff Gomes. I live on Edita Street, and Kimo Miller lives on the Kaūmana Drive KERN: Okay. Your three minutes begins now. And his main concern -. NOMURA: Wait a -. LEITHEAD TODD: Have Sharon check the equipment. KERN: Okay, one second. JEFF GOMES: Reset the clock. KERN: Are we good, Sharon? NOMURA: Yes. KERN: We’re good on time, ready to go. Three minutes begins now. JEFF GOMES: I’m Jeff Gomes. I’m speaking for Kimo Miller who lives on Kaūmana Drive. And Kimo is concerned with the traffic. And he’s upset that he was not notified about any of this by his neighbor John Thatcher who lives two doors down, and he doesn’t know why. In his statement he says “Of all the people who should be notified first, it should be us. The school 26 EXHIBIT A principal who I understand lives in our area didn’t have the guts to come out and talk to us because he knows it wouldn’t be accepted. So now he’s hiding behind your system.” And I understand how Kimo feels. And so that’s what Kimo wants to really put out there and that there are alternative sites; and he also believes that the alternative sites are feasible and there’s nothing wrong with the alternative sites. Too big doesn’t sound like a good reason not use the alternative site. You don’t have to use the entire property; and that’s what Kimo wants. KERN: Very good. Now you’ll be speaking on behalf of Loretta Crivello. JEFF GOMES: Loretta Crivello is the owner of Crivello’s on Kaūmana Drive. And her concern is the caves empty out into the river behind her home and her store. And she saw the bulldozing going on, the illegal bulldozing that went on behind her property; and she’s concerned that the caves will get damaged, because she knows from living there for years that massive water comes out from that cave when the river flows. And she’s concerned that if they keep bulldozing and doing illegal work like they had been doing that it could damage the caves and damage her property and everybody else down below. And she also is concerned that it seems like they don’t care that there are organisms living in the cave. So that’s her, that’s her testimony. KERN: Okav, very good. Thank you very much. And I will call you back up when we get the paperwork for all this. Thank you. Okay, Ryan Kaneko, Robin Gomez, Shinae Hirano and Jason Turner, all come forward please. Thank you. Okay, can I get you all to raise your right hands. Do you all swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIER: I do. KERN: Okay, very good. And so I need your name, area in which you live, and then your three minutes will begin. And we’ll start with Ryan Kaneko. KANEKO: Good morning. KERN: Good morning. KANEKO: My name is Ryan Kaneko. I live at 1294 Kaūmana Drive. And, should I start? KERN: Yes, three minutes starts now. KANEKO: Okay. My main concern is with the traffic situation that will probably arise from having a school at the location as planned. According to the site map that was sent to us by Mr. Hong, the road leading into the campus is a one-lane road. Now in the morning, assuming buses, you know, because of the vehicles, students being dropped off, the cars can only go down, they have to be stopped, and let those cars come back up. When that’s happening, the traffic has to go somewhere which seems to be the short little section of Edita Street between the proposed campus and Kaūmana Drive. And in fact that’s, the only place is to go up and down Kaūmana Drive. Now as it has already been stated by several people the roadway is not the best road and it’s only going to take a little bit of rain, somebody not paying attention, not seeing the cars are stopped and, you know, you’re looking at possibly very serious accidents. With the road right 27 EXHIBIT A above Edita Street several years ago it helped but now people go faster. So it’s a really big concern with myself anyway. And I just wanted to bring that up. And I’ll give you a copy of what I was going to talk about. So that is basically what I wanted to come across with. Thank you for your time. KERN: Thank you very much. Are there any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Robin Gomez. ROBIN GOMES: Gomes. KERN: Just give me your name and area in which you live. If you don’t feel comfortable giving your address, that’s fine. You can just say, Kaūmana, Hilo, Puna, that’s fine. And name and where you live, and your three minutes will begin. ROBIN GOMES: Sure. Robin Gomes, 281 Edita Street. Basically I have testimony here. I believe everyone has a copy of this. It’s from Kyra Gomes. And I’m just going to be very brief about it. And basically she’s 10-years old and she explains about her concerns about having this school being built directly across of her. But basically how it’s being conducted right now, she’s very worried and concerned, how things are being done. And she’s also worried about the facilities that they’re proposed to be built there with her allergies. She’s afraid of that as well. But, and that’s, if you have a chance go ahead and read it. It’s in there. But basically I also wanted to add about what I’ve been hearing about what, the testimonies that have been coming up here. I, you had brought it up earlier about keeping everything with the land planning. And I think there’s a misconception by all of the kids that are here that the people of Kaūmana don’t want them or don’t want the school basically not being built there and that’s all. As to the school itself I haven’t heard anybody that is against the school and what they stand for, but basically having it being built there is not a good thing. And if you look at some of the testimonials that have been coming up previously about the school’s communication with the community, it has been lacking. And it’s only fairly recently they’ve been trying to communicate and share. One of the engineers described that they’re more than willing to work with the community with the decision to be made in saying that it’s going to be built now today. That’s not really working with the community. We should be exploring other alternatives. And that, we need, you know, as a community if they’re willing to work with us -. DARROW: One minute. ROBIN GOMES: They should be able to propose that with us as well, and we could work with other alternatives. And that’s what a lot of the community is looking for. And you’ll hear more testimony about that as well. KERN: Thank you very much. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Shinae, is it Shinae Hirano? HIRANO: Yes. 28 EXHIBIT A KERN: Name and area in which you live, and then your three minutes will begin. HIRANO: My name is Shinae Hirano. I live on Edita Street. My husband and I moved there 19 years ago, so we saw a lot of changes. It’s not, I want the students to know that we’re not against you. It’s just the location of this school because we heard that 50 percent of the students are from the Puna area. Doesn’t it make better sense to have a school that’s closer to Puna instead of the parents and students coming up the winding roadway up to Kaūmana? It makes better sense to have it closer to Panaewa. And especially the seniors, when you come up Kaūmana, especially on a rainy day, it can be hazardous. It’s very narrow, hardly any place where you can park on the side. And so I think that it would be wiser to find a better location. Hilo is a big town. There are many alternatives. They can find better locations than building a school way up Kaūmana with a narrow winding road. And it’s not the ideal location for a school. So I strongly oppose building a school up Kaūmana. There are many other better locations, more convenient for the parents and more convenient for the students. Thank you very much. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Jason Turner, name and area in which you live, and you may begin. TURNER: Thank you. Dr. Jason Turner. I’m a resident of 1209C Kaūmana Drive. My property runs up against the proposed area for development; and, specifically, the back of the property runs right up against the area that was already illegally cleared and fenced. First let me say that I am adamantly opposed to this proposed development by Connection Schools at this location in the Kaūmana Community; and I'll do my best to fully articulate those objections. I provided those in writing so I'll just try to touch on some of the high points. First, as we've heard before they are already several schools serving the Kaūmana Community, two elementary schools within two miles of the proposed site, and then Hilo Inter and Hilo High. And I think it should be noted that this community is not asking for another school. Another school is being imposed on this community. Therefore, we ask that the Commission recommend that the proposed development be moved elsewhere; ideally to a community where schools are lacking and that would better serve the students already attending Connections School. Second, as you’ve heard and probably will hear from my neighbors, Connections administrators have misled the Kaūmana Community, and I think that’s a polite word, “misled,” with regards to the fact of the proposed development. My wife and I first learned about this development, and th again it runs right up against our property, the first we heard of it was June 18 when contractors carrying machetes entered our property to tell us that a bulldozer would be coming through the next day to clear the land and a fence would be put up. When we called Connections we were put in touch with Mr. Eric Boyd who came to our property and spoke about the project and said, at that time, that they would be clearing by hand a 5-foot wide path to erect a fence. We asked why a fence was going up and he said two reason – for our protection and, second, so the community would know, and I quote, that this project “was going to happen.” The next day a D- 9 bulldozer came through, and I’ve provided pictures of all of that, the illegal dozing and illegal clearing. DARROW: One minute. 29 EXHIBIT A TURNER: For the fence to go up. And when I asked the contractor for his permit he put me in touch with Eric Boyd again who came out on site. I asked Eric for the permit. He assured me that he was on the phone with his attorney who assured him that all permits were in place. And as we all read in the paper that is being characterized completely differently to the community and to the general public. I go on in my statement about reading through their EIS, specifically pages 56 and 57, about how they’re supposed to do environmental surveys for the endangered species on the property; and that they were supposed to work around the breeding and nesting dates of these species; and they have not, nor conducted surveys pre-illegal clearing and fencing. The bottom line is that I honestly say to Connections School administrators -. KERN: Time, thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Thank you, you may have a seat. Calling up Wendy Gomes, Jeffrey Meek, Les Sakamoto and June Sakamoto. Wendy Gomes, Jeffrey Meek, Les Sakamoto and June Sakamoto? Looks like Jeffrey Meek, Jeffrey? I think he’s leaving. Let’s see if he comes back. So if I can get three of you to raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: I do. KERN: Very good. We’ll start with Wendy Gomes. Name, area in which you live, and your three minutes will begin. W. GOMES: Hi, I’m Wendy Hoshide Gome, Gomes. I live on Edita Street, adjacent to the proposed mauka portion of the campus. Every summer during the evening hours, a family past time was watching the endangered Hawaiian Hoary Bats forage for food. I have video footage of the bats, and many other residents have also seen these bats. I am a public school teacher and always proudly share with my students my experiences with these endangered animals. Sadly, extensive bulldozing and felling of trees occurred in June and July. The bat pupping season runs from May 15-August 15 and Hawaiian Hawk breeding season runs from March to September. This is the first summer in years that we haven’t seen any bats. So I go on to talk about the portions in the EIS, I’m sorry, the EA. And the recommendations of the Environmental Assessment were clearly not followed. The plans mention a Forestry/Conservation Program, but the extensive clearing of ‘ōhi‘a trees and bulldozing contradict their goals. Fence lines have been erected in numerous other locations using hand clearing to lessen the environmental impact. When it rains heavily, water gushes through our property and drains into what we believe is an entrance to the lower portion of the Kaūmana Caves. Judging by the flow of the water, it seems to run directly under the proposed school. Sometimes the volume of water is terrifying. We fear that the extensive construction planned will damage the cave system, adversely affect the drainage in the area and potentially cause flooding. 30 EXHIBIT A I am pleading with you to deny this project because I have witnessed the environmental damage illegally done in a time period of less than two months. I can only imagine what else will happen if this project is allowed to continue. Please help us protect the aina, the cave system and endangered animals. Being a teacher, I am not anti-school. I believe you have wonderful teachers, and I know a few of them. However with the overwhelming opposition from the residents up and down Kaūmana Drive -. DARROW: One minute. W. GOMES: And concerns about traffic, this is not the ideal location for this project. Your leaders have taken many missteps, which have lead to distrust and disbelief within the community. This is not a recipe for success. Schools and its surrounding community should be a partnership. Please consider one of your alternative sites for consolidating your school. Please be pono. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Jeffrey Meek, before you begin I need to get to you to raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? J. MEEK: Yes. KERN: Okay, very good. Use your microphone. Give me your name and area in which you live, and then your three minutes. J. MEEK: If you don’t mind since little Miss Meek isn’t going to testify I’ll stand up so it’s easier. My name is Jeffrey Meek. I’m a contactor in Hilo. I live in Puna. I’m also with the, member of the Order of Eastern Star Service Group that offers scholarships and hope to one day award some of these people a scholarship, these young people. And I’m really glad to see the residents here voicing their opinion; and I think this is a great forum to build more trust that’s going to be needed if this does move forward. One note I’d like to make is I am a contractor for some of the Charter Schools and it’s really amazing the amount of personal ownership that the parents have and the students have in these schools. And I see that there’s very little vandalism. The schools are well-maintained for their budgets. And our contractors really work with them to make sure those facilities are maintained. My wife is a teacher at Connections. This is her first year. She did a co-hort at Kaūmana Elementary. And now I’m just terrified and seeing how dangerous Kaūmana is, we drove that road every morning to drop her over at the Co-hort. I mean 100 years people going back and forth there -. I didn’t know how dangerous it was, but we didn’t seem to have too much trouble. As far as addressing going from Puna into town, we do, we do that every morning. James, I and Mary, and we drop off Mary off at the School; and it’s nice, it’s nice. Sometimes the urge to keep Puna people in Puna doesn’t always work out when Puna people work in Hilo. And Puna 31 EXHIBIT A people work in Hilo, bring their kids to school, pick their kids up and return to Puna. We know that because we see what the road looks like to and from Puna. I can see that, you know, there’s an urge to say, well, we’re not opposed to the school, we’re just opposed to the location. Well, I can guarantee you in Puna if we went to build the school there, we’d have some residents that had some concerns too. I think it’s a great location, I think it’s a great opportunity for the students. And I know if we’re involved in this, myself or other contractors, we’ll make sure that what we do, we do it in a fashion that we keep the community involved. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Les Sakamoto, name and area you live, and you may begin. SAKAMOTO: Les Sakamoto, I’ve lived on Mele Manu Street for the last 20 years. Location! Location! Location! No doubt you’ve already heard this from a realtor. After all, it’s their mantra. And for good reasons! Right house, wrong location and the resale value suffers. Right business, wrong location, and the enterprise fails. Right school, wrong location…well, you get the picture. Case in point…the new Connections School: Great concept, but wrong location!!! So just what constitutes a right location? The Hawai‘i County Planning Director states: “A school should be located in close proximity to where people live and near the center of probable student population. A school should not be located in an area where the students live a far distance and require to be transported via buses or vehicles.” Although the Director issued a favorable recommendation for the school, I must remind the Commissioners this was done “with reservations, subject to change based on the testimonies presented today.” In the Director’s background report it stated “The Planning Department has not received any objections…from the general public or adjacent landowners….” Well, today we are here representing those adjacent landowners and hundreds of others who could not be present, to express our overwhelming opposition toward locating that school in Kaūmana. We are not against schools, and we are certainly not against the students of Connections School. We truly want the best education for our children, for this and future generations, including those at Connections. What we are against is the location of the proposed school. Ask yourself, will the school be located in close proximity to this probable student population? The answer is no. Already half the student population comes from Puna, the fastest growing on this island. Who knows, in five years perhaps three-fourths or more of the students might come from Puna. DARROW: One minute. SAKAMOTO: Wouldn’t it make sense that the school be built in or near that community? Ask yourself, will the school serve the Kaūmana community needs? Highly doubtful. And certainly the numerous detriments far, far outweigh any perceived benefits. Besides, we already have many well established schools – Kaūmana Elementary, E. B. De Silva, Hilo Union, Hilo Intermediate, Hilo High School. Ask yourself, will the school create a sense of community with 32 EXHIBIT A its surrounding neighborhood? Again, no. Over 400 people signed the petition opposing the school’s location in Kaūmana because its adverse effects on our residents and our neighborhood and beyond cannot be satisfactorily mitigated. We believe there are alternative sites better suited for the school, some of which may have been summarily dismissed by its administrators as being too large or too small and other sites that were not even considered or fully explored. We ask you, the Windward Planning Commission to deny this special permit. And in so doing compel the leaders of Connections to seek that alternative but appropriate location for the new campus. Only then will the school be able to advance quickly and harmoniously to achieve its stated goals. KERN: Time, sorry, time, time. Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? ONO: Question. KERN: Yes, Commissioner Ono. ONO: You did mention that there were, I’m sorry. You did mention in your presentation that there was a petition with 400 signatures. J. MEEK: Yes. I believe that would be presented sometime today. ONO: Okay, thank you. MOSES: We have it. KERN: It’s in here. Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you. June Sakamoto, name and area in which you live, and you may begin. Please use your microphone.. SAKAMOTO: June Sakamoto. I live on Mele Manu Street. KERN: Okay, your three minutes begins. SAKAMOTO: I’m June Sakamoto. I live near the site of the proposed school. I am not against the school or its students but I am opposed to the school being built on Edita Street. It needs a more suitable location. A supporter of the school commented that we who oppose the building of schools may not understand the impact education has on our future. On the contrary, our neighborhood includes many professionals in the fields of education, medicine, science and technology, law and so on, and they wouldn’t have gotten to where they are without good educations. And, they have made significant contributions toward the present and future of our community. We value good education but we won’t agree to having a school built where it makes no sense and where it will have a negative impact on the quality of life and safety of the surrounding community. If you put the school on Edita Street, you will end up with a traffic hell for the neighborhood and the people up and down Kaūmana Drive. Sorry. I’m so nervous. There are safety and 33 EXHIBIT A emergency response issues to think about as well. Kaūmana Drive is a winding, narrow road with short sight distances and no shoulders in most areas. Imagine trying to get emergency services through heavy school traffic on such a road! I have experienced the frustration of school traffic in other areas of Hilo. I don’t want the same thing for the people of Kaūmana Drive. KERN: You may be brief. It helps. SAKAMOTO: In 2002, when the Mohouli extension was officially opened, the Star Bulletin quoted Bobby Jean Leithead Todd as saying “the $10 million cost was money well spent.” She said the “narrow, winding Kaūmana Drive…has the highest accident rate of any two-lane road on the island.” DARROW: One minute. SAKAMOTO: When the Puainako Extension project was being worked on it was stated the “County officials were faced with high accident rates on… Kaūmana Drive.” A 2004 Star Bulletin article about the opening of the Puainako Street extension referred to Kaūmana Drive as “narrow and winding with drop-offs into open drainage ditches along much of its length.” The Puainako Street extension was to relieve congestion and improve safety on Kaūmana Drive. My mail carrier confirmed that it made a huge difference. But if Connections is allowed to build on Edita Street, we (and the County) will once again have to deal with increased traffic congestion and safety issues on Kaūmana Drive. Our quality of life will be affected as well. The school administration and their attorney would like us, and you, to believe that the impact on the area will be minimal. I think they need to put on their glasses. KERN: Time, time. thank you. Are there any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, you all may have a seat. Thank you. Calling up Melvin Yoko, Yokota, Patsy Iwasaki, Marianne Takamiya and Mark Chun. CHUN: My wife had to leave so I was going to testify, just read her testimony. KERN: Okay. Dakota Helfrich? HELFRICH: I’m -. KERN: It’s good for you? HELFRICH: Yes. KERN: Okay, thank you. Karen Tada, Tada. Okay, so we’ll start with Melvin Yokota. Give me your name and area in which you live, and then your three minutes will begin. TORIGOE: They need to be sworn -. 34 EXHIBIT A KERN: Oh, thank you. Can I get you all to raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission TESTIFIERS: Yes. KERN: Very good. Thanks for that. Name and area in which you live, and you may begin. YOKOTA: My name is Mel Yokota, I’m a 40-year resident of Hilo and have endured all of the traffic problems in Hilo for that whole time. You have my written testimony so I’ll just focus on three areas. I believe there’s going to be quite a few parents that drop their students off in the morning and then have to go back in the afternoon to pick them up. My concern is for the parents that drop off and are coming down back into Hilo to go to work. They’re going to encounter a long backup at the Ainako/ Kaūmana intersection. And those that go right from there will also encounter another long backup at the Mohouli and Komohana intersection. My experiences over there is each green light allows only about 12 to 16 cars to pass each time at best. So that will increase traffic delays, I would say, on the order of 20 to 30 minutes at each intersection. The other area, there hasn’t been any discussion about the impacts of the school in greater Hilo. If you look at this area bound by Haihai, Waiānuenue, Kilauea, Keawe Street and Komohana, this is a heavily travelled school area and has high traffic each morning. I believe the bulk of the school population will be coming in makai of the school area; and right now it’s not a problem for them to get to school. But once they start coming mauka of Komohana Street, all of the traffic is going to be added to the present heavy traffic in the metro Hilo area. So this will have a severe impact on the residents of Hilo as a whole. The last observation I have is that for the parents that already come into Hilo, those that go up and down twice to drop off and pick up their students will experience an additional hour a day of driving and increased fuel costs. By my estimate it will cost them $600 in extra fuel a year, enough to buy each student a new laptop each year. DARROW: One minute. YOKOTA: I’m done. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you very much. Patsy Iwasaki. IWASAKI: Yes. My name is Patsy Iwasaki, and I live on Edita Street, very close to where the proposed Connections Charter School will be built. Mr. Chairman and Windward Land Use Commission Members, as a faculty member with the Communication Department at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, I truly believe in the transforming power of education for myself and everyone in our community. My enthusiasm for teaching and working with the culturally, socially, and economically diverse student population at UHH inspires me to constantly look for 35 EXHIBIT A ways to improve my teaching, to make learning interesting, meaningful and academically rigorous, while incorporating practical applications and real life connections. So I whole heartedly support and applaud Connections Public Charter School for pursuing sustainable community based learning experience for its students. I understand their desire to consolidate the elementary, middle and high schools on one campus to build a unified faculty, staff and students. I even wrote an article, interviewing a number of faculty from Connections Charter School, promoting and increasing Connections Charter School, for the Hawaii Herald, Hawai‘i Herald, the publication on Oahu many years ago. However, I’m writing to you because I’m opposed to the building of the Connections Charter School campus on Edita, off of Edita Street in Kaūmana. Like others in our close-knit neighborhood, my family and I are very responsible community minded, active participants of our island home. My family and I are most directly impacted by these plans because we live on Edita Street and we would be bearing the burden of the physical, environmental and social consequences of this project which includes, and it has been repeated so I’ll just go over it. Kaūmana Drive is a very dangerous, narrow two-lane road. I’ve seen and experienced myself with, you know, waiting for a half an hour or more because of accidents day and night. Traffic, even now I have to leave my house very early on Edita Street to take my children to school -. DARROW: One minute. IWASAKI: Because of the large amount of traffic along Kaūmana Drive that backs up. Landscape/Environment, Student Safety, Neighborhood Safety, Water, Sewer concerns, not serving the community. A large percentage of the students attending Connections are not from the Kaūmana area. The school should be building a permanent campus in the community it services. Quality of life – increased traffic, accidents, traffic jams, safety of students , and safety of residents, all these concerns would significantly decrease the quality of life of residents in the area. We live on Edita Street and my family and I and our neighbors would be most directly impacted from the above list of consequences. I would kindly suggest that the school modify their plans to seek out property and build its campus in the community it services and find another site for the school. Please know that I’m not opposed to the purpose and mission of Connections Public Charter School. KERN: Time. Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. So Mr. Chun since Marianne Takamiya signed up first, you’re going to speak for her? CHUN: I’ll read her, yes. KERN: Okay, you may begin. Give me your name though, and -. 36 EXHIBIT A CHUN: My name is Mark Chun. I live at 258 Edita Street. KERN: Okay. And you’re speaking for -? CHUN: For Marianne Takamiya. KERN: Okay, very good. CHUN: Dear Planning Commission Members. My name is Marianne Takamiya. I live on Edita Street. Our home on Edita Street is our life investment. Had we known the plans of Connections to build such a campus next doors, we would not have moved here. Any school that serves students who must commute 20 miles each way made sense in the 80’s when oil prices were low. But given the reality in Hawai‘i where oil is shipped in, this project should be moved to a location closer to the students it currently serves so as to decrease unnecessary costs to the State by saving on oil and gas. Although I have searched in my heart, I cannot think of a positive impact on our neighborhood. When I asked the school principal if keikis from our neighborhood would be granted any preference to enroll in the school, he said without hesitation, “No.” Why build here, then? If the school grows, traffic undoubtedly will increase. If for some unfortunate reason the school shrinks, the buildings will not be kept up; and if funding is not realized or disappears, we will be left with an albizia ridden, half-built abandoned property next door. Unlike the senior center project just approved, this project did not grow out of the immediate community. It’s being imposed upon us. I walk with my dogs early mornings and I can see and hear the variety of birds on Mele Manu Street, which stands for Bird Song Street. Many of these birds must live on the upper parcel Connections will acquire. The school authorities say they won’t develop that parcel; but given the unprofessional and conniving way they have handled the clearing and fencing of the lower parcel and their aggressive attitude towards their future neighbors, I would not be surprised if in 10 to 20 years from now they develop the upper lot, destroying an integral part of the caves and bringing down even more of the fragile bird population of Hawai‘i. Regarding the campus itself, keeping up a farm is a 24-hour, 7-day a week job. What will happen to the animals over breaks, long weekends, and summer vacations? Even when taken care of on a regular basis, the stench of animal manure in the surrounding neighborhood is nothing to look forward to. Who can guarantee that the excrement and smells from their educational farm will not ruin our gardens? 37 EXHIBIT A Nobody, because there is no agency under which this unusual land use will have to respond to. The neighbors will have to close their windows, stop taking walks and grow distrustful towards our leaders who did not think this project through. Thank you. Marianne Takamiya. KERN: Thank you. So then you can begin your testimony. Give me your name and you may begin. CHUN: My name is Mark Chun. KERN: Okay. CHUN: I am an astronomer and teacher at the University of Hawaii. And my wife and I are parents of two wonderful kids – 9 and 11 years old. My family and I strongly oppose siting the Connections School here. We believe that the proposed Connections Charter School will have a strong negative impact on our community and will impact the quality of our lives. Putting a school here does not make sense. And I’ll highlight two reasons which have been, one which has been addressed previously. It’s Kaūmana Road Safety. As long term residents of Hilo we know that the intersection of Kaūmana and Edita and the road just mauka of this intersection has a long history of traffic accidents. Do you remember what it was like before they put the extension in? Let me remind you those were the days when the neighbors along Kaūmana Drive put up signs along the road, counting the days since the last accident (4 days, 2 days, 1 day) and the number of accidents each month (12 accidents, 13 accidents, 14 accidents a month). We need only think back a few years to remind us that this road cannot safely handle the additional traffic. Why would we willingly go back to this? Why risk the safety of residents? Why risk the safety of the children and the families going to and from the school? The location of this project is at best badly conceived and at worst a traffic hazard to all. Another safety issue that I wanted to bring up was the Kaūmana Cave safety. Just yesterday at lunch the county emergency and fire crews were called to our street to help a person trapped in the Kaūmana caves. This person was taken away in an ambulance. It is worrisome that the School plans activities, seeks out to site a school on top of caves and plan activities that take place right next to and above the caves. We know people get in trouble in the caves. Why would we willingly risk the safety of the children by siting the school here? The location of this project is at best badly conceived, and at worst a safety hazard for the children. Who benefits from siting the school at this location? DARROW: One minute. CHUN: A community does not. We have two excellent public schools in the area and we live along an already dangerous section of the road. Siting the school in Kaūmana and Edita is truly a missed opportunity for the children of the school. It’s not too late. You are the Windward Planning Commission and you can effect a positive change. Don’t leave the state, you consider the safety and good of the community in the near-term and the long-term. This is precisely the 38 EXHIBIT A view you should take now. Is this good for the community or is it better served by siting the school in a location where expansion and long-term growth can occur? Hilo is growing in other areas. The location of this project is not good planning We’re not debating the merits or the types of education that the Connections Charter School can provide. As two teachers at the University of Hawaii my wife and I value the education of all of our children. As long-term residents of Hilo that are going to be severely impacted by this project, we simply do not believe that this is the right place. For the good of the community, deny this project. For the safety of the keiki, deny this project. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Karyn Tada. TADA: Yes, thank you. KERN: Name and area in which you live, and then you may begin. TADA: Hi. I’m Karyn Tada. I live at 259 Edita Street. And I also submitted a letter. So as a teacher at, serving at Hilo High School for over 20 years I’m well aware of activities that run, to run a school. Along with the traffic, noise, and weekend activities, our area is not adequate to sustain a facility of that size and student count. I strong feel that allowing the Connections Charter School to be built will severely disrupt the dynamics of Kaūmana and Edita Street. And I’m a big supporter of education; otherwise I still wouldn’t be in it. I feel that having such a facility there, as my prior neighbors and colleagues have noted that, you know, it is a safety hazard. And, you know, putting a dorm there also allows for a transient community. I have served in many school advisorships and mentored many studies. I am aware of the wide spectrum of students at Hilo High Complex serves. I wholeheartedly believe that the Hilo High School Complex provides all, to all from every socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. My three children all have attended Kaūmana Elementary, Hilo Intermediate, and Hilo High School. All have learned the value of what it means to be a part of the community, as well as being a community contributor. The Connections School has a student body that consists of at least half of students that are outside the community, outside of the Kaūmana area. I’m not debating the merits of this type of education or what, what the Connections Charter School can provide. However, as resid -, as resid -, sorry, as residents I think we’re going to be severely impacted by this project. I don’t believe that it’s in the right place. It’s too big and does not serve the needs of our community. It’s not close to many of the community it tends to serve. Both Kaūmana and De Silva Elementary Schools are less than three miles apart from each other 0. DARROW: One more minute. TADA: And two miles from the proposed site. I feel that there were other options that were not considered that would be closer to serve the Connections students that would not have a negative environmental impact and offer more efficient use of their money spent for infrastructure and 39 EXHIBIT A operational costs. So I do not support this venture. So I request that you deny their request. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Thank you. You all may have a seat. Calling up Patti Nishimoto, Paul Paiva, Robert Gomes and Allen Novak. Can I get you four to raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: I do. Yes. KERN: Okay, very good. We’ll start with Patti Nishimoto, give me your name and area in which you live, and then your three minutes will begin. NISHIMOTO: Good morning, Mr. Kern. Good morning, Ms. Moses, Mr. Au. Good morning, Mr. Torigoe and Ms. Leithead Todd, Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Ono, and Friends. My name is Patti Nishimoto and I live in the Pacific Plantation Subdivision. I have lived there for four years, but I have lived in Kaūmana for over 40 years. My family has lived in Kaūmana for over 90 years. Four generations of my family continue to live in Kaūmana. Over the years, Kaūmana has experienced its fair share of growth. I am not opposed to further growth and development. But whatever growth that is imposed upon this community needs to be of the right kind, should meet the needs of and benefit the community. Being an educator, I am very aware of the excellent area schools that already serve our Kaūmana Community. Many are, according to the No Child Left Behind Act, “In Good Standing”. To have an additional school in such close proximity would be excessive and is unwarranted. Though I understand that a charter school is not obligated to serve a particular geographic area, there is concern that the large majority of the student body do not reside in the Kaūmana Community. The daily influx poses many concerns. How will such a school grow into an already well-established and aging community? Would it be reasonable and fair to ask the Kaūmana Community to bear the environmental, infrastructural, and social impact issues, not to mention other deleterious effects yet unknown or undetermined given the construction timetable of 16 to 25 years? Growth must be planned thoughtfully, with deep consideration for those closest to the change. Careful consideration must be given, even more so, when those closest to the change feel so strongly that the detriments outweigh the benefits. Thank you for considering my testimony as you decide the fate of our Kaumana. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. And Paul Paiva, name and area in which you live, and then you may begin. PAIVA: Hi, good morning, afternoon. My name is Paul Scotty Paiva. I live at 1169 Kaūmana Drive, which is about 100 yards makai of Edita Street. Good Morning, Commissioners: We’ve heard a lot about the school and the great work that they have done with the kids. But this is not 40 EXHIBIT A why I am here today. I am here today to ask that the school not be granted their request to build their campus in the middle of our neighborhood in upper Kaūmana. Instead of working with the neighborhood in a positive fashion they have attacked us with name- calling and media attacks. I feel offended that I have been accused of harassing the students because I have a yard sign saying “No Connections in Kaūmana”. I have dedicated over 27 years in public service working as a police officer, firefighter, paramedic, and an officer in the Coast Guard Reserve and don’t appreciate these accusations against my family and me. This has left a bitter taste in my mouth; and this is one of the many reasons why I don’t support his project in my neighborhood. Other reasons include, but not limited to: Inadequate roads, increased traffic, social anxieties, inadequate water supply, drainage and runoff. I thank you for your time today and for your continued service to our community. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Robert Gomes, name and area in which you live, and then your three minutes will begin. ROBERT GOMES: Good afternoon. Thank you to the Commission for hearing testimony today. My name is Robert Gomes. I’m a lifetime resident of Hilo, the Big Island. I’m a licensed pastor here in Hawai‘i. And the reason I say that is because I have a lot of friends and family that live up in the Kaūmana area, and this whole situation has created a lot of stress and anxiety with a lot of the unknown that they still live with. I ask the Commission to expedite your decision to disapprove this area. I’m also a fulltime worker for the County of Hawai‘i; and I want to make it clear that I don’t speak for the County. I’m the low tech level guy. I’m the guy that goes out there and does the scrapping and the cleaning, and we take care of the streets. And I can confirm and tell you that this area or road on Kaūmana Drive is already a traffic hazard. Any improvements that can be done will only help that problem that they have existing right now. This enormous facility that they plan to put here will have a dramatic impact on the traffic. Funny thing is I reside in Keaukaha and we’ve learned to live where you can’t make any more changes. You just have to live with it. The school is not there yet and there’s a lot of things that can be done to avoid things later on down the road. Where once it’s there there’s nothing you can do about it. The other issue at hand is it rains a lot in Hilo. And, I guess I can attest to that. And when it really rains it really rains. And in his particular area water moves in such a volume. We’ve been there where we’ve set up road blocks and we’ve manned barricades. And with this amount of development you’re going to either direct or try to redirect a lot of water. And we’ve learned throughout history when the water wants to move it will go where it wants to go. DARROW: One minute. ROBERT GOMES: And I can’t speak for the people there in the area but I know the people downstream will be the ones directly affected by this enormous amount of water that is being redirected because of that development of the land. As it is right now the land itself absorbs 41 EXHIBIT A most of the volume of the water that does move through there. So between the water and the traffic and the inability of the area, if anybody has driven up in that area, it’s really hard to do any type of improvements on the roads because there’s, the shoulders are narrow. We have flood control ditches in the way in people’s property and stuff. So you can say that the improvements and stuff will be done or the easements from Puainako into the area, it’s just a bad decision and a bad location. And I thank you for the time. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Allen Novak, name and area in which you live, and you may begin. A. NOVAK: Allen Novak. I’ve been a resident of Mele Manu Street for over 18 years. I’d like to preface my written testimony which I believe you all have copies of, I’d like to preface that by saying that, sharing my personal opinion, having been the co-founder of any organization called Therapeutic Horsemanship for the Handicapped in which I not only help to establish the organization but participated in the daily maintenance of our equestrian livestock -. And I want to, I’m also an animal lover. I have a master’s degree in animal behavior. I want to share with you that horses are grazing animals. There are no trails on which to exercise the horses, the terrain is unsuitable for horses, it will damage their hoofs. In the horse community there’s a saying no hoof no horse. A lame horse doesn’t have much of a future. And I believe it would be inhumane to stable horses without daily exercise. Getting to my written testimony, I wish to address the credibility of Connections Public Charter School’s administration. In Mr. Ted Hong’s letter of Oct. 10, 2012, he represents that Connections was the victim of a heinous crime on the part of On The Line Fencing when the fencing company brought bulldozers to clear within the subject property. The letter states that Connections did not know what was being done on the property and stopped the work as soon as they found out. At first I didn’t give this much thought. But then it occurred to me, after a while I began to realize that it just didn’t make sense. I live on Mele Manu Street and I must drive by the subject property to get to and from work each day, because Edita Street is the only entrance and exit from my home. I observed the bulldozer on the property daily while it was there and recall it being on the property for at least 3 minutes(sic). Also the work didn’t stop until the clearing was completed and the fence around the lower 37 acres was finished. It seemed odd to me that such a large project could go on for such a long time without anyone from Connections being aware of what was happening, especially since the School Principal lives near the property and running of the bulldozer could have been heard from his home. I called On The Line Fencing and spoke to a Mr. John Gonsalves. He assured me that prior to the work, a contract had been signed by Connections which specified that a bulldozer would be used on the property, that the work was inspected by Eric Boyd of Connections while it was in progress, and John Thatcher was aware of the bulldozing. He told me the bulldozer had been on the property at least three weeks clearing, and clearing had completed prior to them being told to stop and the fencing was completed. KERN: Thank you. Questions? 42 EXHIBIT A AU: Mr. Chair? KERN: Yes, Commissioner Au. AU: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions for you. One question is Mr. Turner lives adjacent to the property and he shares your same concern about a bulldozer and a fence. Where do you live? A. NOVAK: I live on Mele Manu Street about half way up Mele Manu Street from Edita. AU: Okay. Second question is do you know if the fence is six feet, over six feet? A. NOVAK: No, it is not. AU: Would you say five feet? A. NOVAK: Four feet. KERN: Thank you. Any other questions for the testifier? Seeing none, you all may have a seat. Thank you. Calling up Norine Okuhara, Joy McLeod, McLeod, sorry, M. Bishop, and Rowan Kelly. Can I get you all to raise your right hands, please. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes. KERN: Okay, very good. We’ll start with Norine Okuhara. Your name, area in which you live, and then you may begin. OKUHARA: Okay. My name is Norine Okuhara. And my husband, Henry and I, have lived at 1209-B Kaūmana Drive for over 40 years. And so I live right next door to Jason Turner. And Jason was working in Kona that weekend and his wife came up to my property and was, you know, naturally over excited with three men approaching her carrying machetes. That is when we found out about Connections. Okay? Prior to this I had never received any notification, none, none of the meetings, nothing. Okay, we are not against the students. We’re not against the School. We’re against the principle of the matter. And my main concern is their water rights. You’ve heard Councilman Ikeda. He talked about not having sufficient water rights. So what’s going to happen? They’ll use up all the water and I can’t use my water because they’ll be tapping into my water? Because I live right below Edita. And so I’ve gone up, I even looked at it. And, you know, the property right above me, they had bulldozed right next to the person’s chainlink fence. And, you know, I looked at it and personally I don’t scare. Because what’s to stop them from doing other underhanded things? Excuse my language but, you know, it doesn’t sit well with us, with the community. And, you know, don’t get me wrong, kids, we’re not against you folks. We’re against the way things were developed. DARROW: One minute. 43 EXHIBIT A OKUHARA: And, you know, I worked at Connections one year. I enjoyed the students there. But I don’t like the way things have been proceeding. So please consider our feelings and, you know, please vote against this project. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. AU: Mr. Chair? KERN: Yes, Commissioner Au. AU: Quick question. Would you classify the bulldozing work as grubbing or were they actually altering the landscape? Or were they clearing the land or they were just grubbing? OKUHARA: They were actually clearing the land. And -. AU: Like were they moving rocks and stones and turning things over, making it flat? OKUHARA: It’s totally flat. It’s totally flat. And it looks over one acre. AU: So you wouldn’t consider it grubbing? OKUHARA: No, no. AU: You would consider it -? OKUHARA: And I should know because my husband retired from construction. KERN: Thank you. Any other questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. We’ll go to Joy McLoud (phonetic). MCLEOD: McLeod. KERN: McLeod, sorry, your name and area in which you live, and you may begin. MCLEOD: My name is Joy McLeod. I live on Hokulani Street. I am a lifelong resident of Kaūmana, a proud graduate of Kaūmana Baptist Keikiland, Ernest B. De Silva School and Hilo High. I am a true Kaūmana girl, homeowner and resident. And I believe that our community will be negatively impacted by the traffic this school intends to force onto Kaūmana Drive at least twice a day. The outdated and invalid traffic study completed in May of 2009 concluded this project will have little or no impact on traffic that cannot be mitigated. The individual who did this study doesn’t live in Kaūmana. Whereas I have driven on Kaūmana Drive for 34 years and I know the dangers this road can impose. A recently completed residential development off Hokulani offering 39 units sold 14 units in one day on November 3, 2012, and will add more cars and construction vehicles to Kaūmana Drive 44 EXHIBIT A and Hokulani. According to the Hawai‘i County Police Department, Kaūmana Drive alone has had 232 vehicular accidents in 2011 and up until October of 2012, 191. Over recent years I have learned to practice defensive driving as mostly mauka-bound drivers have been hugging the center line of Kaūmana Drive to avoid having to slow down while driving through the many bends and curves of Kaūmana Drive. I am keenly aware of driving habits as my son was hit by a car, although not on Kaūmana Drive, while crossing the street suffering critical injuries. The police determined the vehicle was speeding as my son was thrown 25 feet of the impact. This happened 22 years ago that it stays with me today. I’m concerned for all pedestrians, not just for those reside in my neighborhood. I conclude by adding that this is my first time participating in this process and I’m stepping out of my comfort zone mainly because the school has taken to use the media and other means to gain sympathy and support for this project. The issue is of safety, traffic for all residents. And I ask that the school consider an alternate site and that the Planning Commission vote against this project. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. M. Bishop, name and area in which you live, and your three minutes will begin. BISHOP: M. Bishop, a homeowner in the Kaūmana area. Board, neighbors, students, aloha. KERN: Aloha. BISHOP: I want to bring up the water issue again, 4200 gallons per day. I know you’re going to have some testimony from authorities here so they’re going to give you a better recap. The alternative for that lack of or less than one quarter of your daily requirement for the facilities and people of this school, it’s 42,000 gallons a day, that’s it, the alternative is drilling. They’re going to drill for a well. This has a cave, natural preserve, it’s indigenous lands. There are a lot of flaws with the alternative. How can we approve a facility and the operation of facilities on a daily basis, let alone projected basis for 65 years, with that short of necessary needs as water? That’s my comment. Along with that I would like to say that OHA who is a party in this process, being that DLNR and OHA are synonymous, they responded with the letter to the EA to the school, to the principal, I don’t know what his name is, that -. KERN: Mr. Thatcher, BISHOP: Mr. Thatcher, thank you, that they were pleased to see that the environment, the indigenous plants, process were, cultivation were all ongoing with the aspect of native community and propagation of indigenous service. Now Mr. Thatcher has already crossed the line of not being pono, the way the land was bulldozed, the way the fence went up, the way that people that have the operations worked out. It wasn’t good. It’s wasn’t very good. So thank you for my time. KERN: Thank you. Commissioners, any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Rowan Kelly, give me your name and area in which you live, and you may begin. 45 EXHIBIT A KELLY: My name is Rowan Kelly. And I don’t live in Kaūmana but I live on up Kawiki Homesteads Road in Hakalau. And I’m in the fifth grade. And ever since my first day at Connections Charter School, I’ve been here since third grade going now, I’ve been treated by kindness from the students and the staff and the teachers, of course. And the one I have right now is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had in my life. And my skills in language arts, math, spelling, handwriting, science and social studies have all improved ever since I’ve come to Connections. And I just want you to help us build the new Connections in Kaumana, even though I’ll be long gone by the time you finish it. But, anyway, I just want you to help us build it. And thank you very much. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, you all may have a seat. Thank you. Let me call back -. ONO: Mr. Chair? Mr. Chair? KERN: Oh, yes, Commissioner Ono. ONO: Can I ask for a three-minute recess. KERN: Yeah, five? ONO: Five. KERN: Five minutes? ONO: Yeah. KERN: Okay, five-minute recess. RECESSED – The Chair called a short recess at 12:40 P.m. RECONVENED – The Chair reconvened the meeting at 12:47 p.m. KERN: Okay, now we’re calling the Windward Planning Commission meeting back to order, continuing on with public testimony. I’m going to call up Jeff Gomes, again, we have the paperwork here. Jon Shute who had signed up said that he had to leave. Leyane Novak? L. NOVAK: Layne. KERN: Layne. Please come forward, Layne Novak. Naomi Lemieux, sorry. Okay, and Arcturus Kainalu, Yrondi, apologize for that one too. Okay, is Arcturus here? PUBLIC: He left. KERN: Okay. Gabriel Quander, Gabriel Quander, no? Seneca Helfrich? 46 EXHIBIT A PUBLIC: She had to go back. KERN: Aukoa Marsh? PUBLIC: Gone. KERN: Jordan Niro? PUBLIC: Jordan is gone. KERN: Tedd Selden? SELDEN: Right here. KERN: Okay, can I get you all to raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes. KERN: Okay, very good. We will start with Layne Novak. L. NOVAK: Oh, that’s me, Layne. KERN: Layne. L. NOVAK: Yes. My name is Layne Novak. I live on Mele Manu Street. I have a map here. We had been going door to door these past few months getting signatures and talking to people about this Connections School project. If you look at the map, and you have my testimony, you’ll see that the majority of the map is red. And I’d like to show you a big map. The dark green is the school. The red shows all the people that are opposed to that school, to the location of the school. I would have had more red but there wasn’t enough map. I ran out of map. We have over 500 signatures of which you have copies of. And I just wanted to let you know that -, you know, when Connections said that they went door to door, I didn’t get anybody coming to our house. I didn’t get anything left behind saying that said we tried to reach you. And I find it a little disconcerting that, you know, they’re making these, they’re saying these things. I’m going to deviate from my testimony. I want, I believe it was Mr. Au that asked Mr. Hong how many meetings, what were the dates of the meetings, and how many people were in attendance. And Mr. Hong did not answer that question. And I want Mr. Hong to answer that question just to make sure that you know when those meetings were and how many people attended. No. 2, I walk my dogs in the neighborhood. My husband and I, we have five dogs. They’re large dogs. We know, so we got to know the entire neighborhood. When I see a suspicious vehicle or when I see suspicious activity I call the police. The fastest the police ever came up was 15 minutes. Most of the times they take half an hour, sometimes they don’t even show up. 47 EXHIBIT A And when I called, when I asked them to call me back to let me know the status, majority of the time they don’t. DARROW: One minute. L. NOVAK: Thank you, Mr. Darrow. So with concerns of security, my security, I’m really concerned that the police aren’t going to have time to come up to my neighborhood, to my house, because they have better things to do or they have other things to do. That’s all I have to say. Thank you very much. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none -. You are signed up to speak on behalf of a few other individuals. L. NOVAK: Yes. KERN: Would you like to -? Can I have you pause on that to speak on behalf of them? I want to give the others an opportunity, and we’ll come back to that. L. NOVAK: I signed up for more people but they have already testified. NOMURA: Microphone, please. L. NOVAK: I’m sorry. I had signed up for way more people but they had already testified themselves. KERN: Okay, right. L. NOVAK: So I only have Jessica and Gail Ogawa and Shelly Cravalho-Wagner. KERN: Okay. So, in that case, why don’t you go ahead, and we’ll let you do those right now. We’ll finish this out. After this group of testifiers, we’re going to take a brief lunch break. So this is for Gail and Jessica Ogawa. Please give me your name and who you represent, or who you’re speaking for, and then you may begin. L. NOVAK: My name is Layne Novak. I am representing Jessica and Gail Ogawa who were not able to attend because they were out of state. Both of them are pretty much the same, the letters that I submitted to you. So I’m just going to read mom’s letter, Gail. My name is Gail Ogawa and I am a resident of the Pacific Plantation Subdivision in Kaūmana, Hilo. I am writing to you to express my concern regarding the proposed Charter School’s plans and respectfully ask that you done, excuse me, deny this project. My family and I have lived in this subdivision for over 15 years now and enjoy the friendly community and peaceful setting we have here. My husband and I chose this community as our home to raise our children because it is a safe and quiet environment with very little traffic. It is a community where our children could walk freely, play, and visit with their neighborhood 48 EXHIBIT A friends and not have to worry about being in danger. It is a place where we can take afternoon walks with our fellow neighbors without fear or intimidation by outside strangers loitering around, about the area. Although my children are grown now, I am concerned that the building of this school will bring these kinds of activities in our neighborhood to an end for children of the next generation, our fellow neighbors, and for my husband and I as we move into retirement. According to the Police Department, building a school in a residential area will affect the quality of life for its residents by increasing noise, crime and traffic. It would be very disappointing to see the safe, peaceful, low traffic community that my family and I moved here for disappear. I strongly feel that a residential community is not the right place to build a school of this magnitude. I believe that there are many other promising and practical land options for this project that should be explored and considered. Additionally, the roads on Edita and Kaūmana Drive are not designed to accommodate the kind of traffic and congestion a school would generate. The traffic would include parents of the students, high school seniors who will most likely be driving their own cars, buses, and all of the school’s faculty and staff. DARROW: One minute. L. NOVAK: Although the 2009 traffic study suggests minimal effects on normal traffic with the establishment of a school, this study is outdated and invalid. In 2009, the Saddle Road Improvements were just in its infancy. With these improvements, the amount of cars now traveling on Kaūmana Drive has certainly increased (and I am a witness to that), being that it is a faster way to get to the other side of the island. Adding the school’s traffic to this, it will surely have an impact on our commuting schedules and overall quality of life. Therefore, I humbly ask you, Members of the Commission, to deny this application. Sincerely, Gail Ogawa. KERN: Thank you. So one more. that’s for Shelly Cravalho-Wagner. Give me your name and who you’re representing again. L. NOVAK: Yeah, I apologize. This is one testimony I didn’t make ten copies of, so I’ll get it to you. KERN: Okay. L. NOVAK: I was in such a rush this morning. My name is Layne Novak and I am reading Mrs. Shelly Carvalho-Wagner’s testimony. She states that “Although I am unable to be present in person this week, I humbly ask that my written testimony be considered when determining if the Connections Charter School is a good fit off of Edita Street in Kaūmana. What I request that you consider is the safety and impact, not just to our Pacific Plantation Subdivision but the impact to Kaūmana Drive as a whole. 49 EXHIBIT A I lived in Kahului “dream city” growing up. In our subdivision we had approximately 80 homes with two entrances. As our community grew, there was a need for an additional public middle school. My parents were told that it would boost their property value, and because school was Monday through Friday, while everyone was at work, we would probably not see the impact. Well the school was built, roadways were expanded and Maui County even installed a traffic light to what was previously a four-way stop. Aesthetically the facility was beautiful. Our quiet neighborhood however changed forever. What increased was not property value; it was the daily traffic in and out of our neighborhood. A bunch of neighbors including my dad was out on the perimeter of our neighborhood on a daily basis painting over graffiti and cleaning up lots of litter.” You guy are going to be like that, right, with kids? No, of course not. It was personal time and money on paint and graffiti cleaners to keep their property from depreciating. We even built like our neighbors a higher wall to block students from walking on our fence and getting hurt. I ask you to ponder, what reasons did you have to purchase the property you currently reside in? You may all come up with similar answers - quiet, safe, neighborhood, close to town, value, etc. I’m sure you realize that residents in our neighborhood are hard-working and have invested their life’s salaries to live where we do. We would never have purchased a property that would have been a risk to our safety or impact our family negatively in any manner. I am not against the school being built, I am concerned about the “after the fact” planning or proposing of such a school. The impact it will have on Kaūmana Drive and impact it will have on Edita Street on our daily lives will be significant. Bottom line, I ask you to consider, is this proposal a good fit for our current infrastructure in Kaūmana? Now if you were living in our neighborhood would you feel the same way as us or would you approve this project? You need to think about being in our shoes. Thank you very much. KERN: Thank you. Jeff Gomes. JEFF GOMES: He’d like to switch with me if it’s possible because he has to leave and I can stay. If that’s okay. KERN: That’s fine. Okay. I’m going to put you further down the list then. BRILHANTE: Sorry about that. I’ve got to take my boy to Kona this afternoon. KERN: Name, area in which you live, and then your three minutes begin. BRILHANTE: Sure. My name is Chris Brilhante. I live at 60 Hoohoaloha Street in Hilo. And I’m a former resident of Pacific Plantations. I’m a realtor. I’m a son of William and Kathleen Brilhante. My father developed Pacific Plantations in the late 80’s and 90’s. I’m not here to speak for him, however I do know that he is extremely proud of the community that has developed that is Pacific Plantations. Pacific Plantations is a truly unique and special place with many owners being here from the very start of the subdivision so long ago. Many have chosen to live here for the rest of their lives. My mom owns a lot that she has kept in anticipation that some day she will move to Pacific Plantations and live out her days. Pacific Plantations is the 50 EXHIBIT A type of community that makes Hilo so special, safe, quiet, secure. It’s a throwback to the communities and subdivisions of the past when neighbors knew and interacted with each other, a real sense of aloha that has been lost in many other places. Pacific Plantations is a hidden and well protected gem that the residents really hope that you guys will protect. The only reason that I’m getting emotional is because I’ve been a realtor for 23 years. My dad has, you know, done a lot of developments in East Hawai‘i for over the course of over 30 years. He is very, very proud of his developments, and this is one of them. And I’ve been Chairman of the GAC Committee for the Hawai‘i Island Board of Realtors for many, many years and I’ve gone through a lot of testimonies. And most of the times you have a lot of people in favor or opposed to something, and then you have several, a few people that come and testify, you know, on the other side. To have this many people, this quality of people, an overwhelming area, saying that this is not the right fit, they want Connections, it’s a great thing, but not in this location, please listen to the voice of the people that live in this area. Please, please, please, okay, and preserve their way of life. That’s what they’re telling you. They want to preserve their way of life, and you guys have the ability to do that. And please listen to their concerns. Okay? That’s all. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? ONO: Yes. KERN: Commissioner Ono. ONO: Mr. Brilhante, earlier there was testimony that there were inquiries made on the possible development further down by your, I guess, your company, that they would be seeking access, use of your subdivision road so that they could have another access/exit to your subdivision development should it pass. Did any of the representatives of Connections come and see you about that? BRILHANTE: You have to get clarification on the lands surrounding Pacific Plantations. That’s actually owned by my father. Okay? I’ve been involved in the first two increments of Pacific Plantations. I’m not involved in that particular development. And so I can’t speak on that. ONO: Okay. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you. BRILHANTE: Thank you. KERN: Naomi Lemieux? RUSHLOW: John Rushlow? KERN: Did I call that name? John Shute? 51 EXHIBIT A RUSHLOW: Rushlow. KERN: You’re on here but you’re No. 67. Sorry, no, I called John Shute, but she said he had to leave. I could see how maybe that got confused. I apologize. I’ve got to call them as they’re signed up. So have a seat and we’ll get you back up here. Is there a Naomi Lemieux? PUBLIC: She left. KERN: This is Jordan Niro? SELDEN: Tedd, Tedd Selden. KERN: Tedd Selden, okay, you’re back, Selden, Tedd Selden. Very good, you’re up. Give me your name, area in which you live, and then testimony, three minutes. SELDEN: I am Tedd Selden and I live in Waiakea Heights, Hoolaulea Street, 905. Well, good th afternoon. My name Tedd Selden. I’m a 14-year old and in the 8 grade at Connections Public Charter School. I’m here to support my school for a chance to have a better education. Please let me tell you a short story about my family. Last summer my sister was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, bone cancer. To get the best treatment, our family had to leave Hawai‘i. We were gone for a year in Seattle where she got chemotherapy and had many surgeries. While we were away Connections teachers worked with my sister at the hospital school so that she could continue her education through her fight through life. The school also did fundraising to help with medical-related stuff. When our family came back to Hilo Connections opened its arms, their arms to us, and gave us a family welcome. But this is not the only time Connections has helped my family. I’m proud to say I have autism. Long ago when I was ready for kindergarten my mother -. DARROW: One minute. SELDEN: Went to the neighborhood grade school to talk to the people there. After a counselor from the school told my mother that there didn’t seem anything, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with me, even though my mother had all the papers from the Oregon Early Intervention School and letters from several doctors on the mainland who diagnosed my autism, the school didn’t care. My mother went to another school, and another one. These regular schools rejected to give me the special support that I needed at the time to get an education. But then we found Connections. Instead of a school counselor they sent me to a local psychologist who confirmed the diagnosis. I was able to get help at that school. For years I had to have a social aide with me and each one of them has taught me lessons I’ll never forget, like how to talk to people or interact with others. What I learned help me be here today. This is one of the reasons why I’m upset about the things some people in Kaumana are saying about our school. Maybe the few neighbors who say those untrusting things think that some of 52 EXHIBIT A the kids in our school come from poor families, they should be in the nice neighborhood. This gives me sadness to think that people who think bad things about my friends -. KERN: Time’s up. Thank you very much. Any questions for this testifier? Madam Director. LEITHEAD TODD: I just wanted to make a comment, and I want you and your classmates to under this, so I’m hoping that you can go back and tell them since most of them left. Ultimately any decision that’s made here will be based on land use issues, traffic issues, environmental issues, water availability issues. It is not based on the program or the quality of the education that Connections or the students that attend Connections. It’s going to be based on is this an appropriate site, does it have the necessary infrastructure to support a school here? And it’s not at all going to be based on the curriculum or the students. I really want you to understand that that’s really what is coming from the neighbors. It’s not that they think this is a bad school. It’s not that they think that it’s bad students. It’s that their primarily concerned about traffic and whether this is the appropriate place to put it. And if you were going to put it there what would you need in order to mitigate the concerns of the community. It’s not about the school and the curriculum and the students and the teachers. I really want you and your fellow classmates to understand that. Because I think everybody agrees that it is a wonderful program. I’m familiar with Connections when it was up in Mt. View and my best friend’s kids were going to school and she taught at, she was a teacher’s aide up at Mt. View. I’m familiar with its program elsewhere as it moved. We’ve worked on other permits for it. But I really want to make that point because I don’t want the students to feel that this is a community against the students and that it is about rich versus poor or prosperous. This really is about traffic. I grew up on Kaumana Drive and I’m familiar that, the traffic has improved greatly with the Puainako Extension. And I think what you’re hearing from the community is a concern that with the Connections campus there that it will return back to what it was like before and that it will exacerbate existing problems on it. And so I really want you to understand that. Because it’s a good school, it’ a good program, and I know that there are good students there. So I want you to be able to communicate that to your classmates. And thank you very much for signing up and testifying. You can see that there were adults that were shaking and nervous, and so I thought you did a wonderful presentation; and you’re a good representative of your school. KERN: We are going to now take a lunch break, a short lunch break. It should be about 30 minutes. So we’ll reconvene in about 30 minutes. Thank you all. RECESSED – The Chair called a lunch recess at 1:10 p.m. RECONVENED – The Chair reconvened the meeting at 1:40 p.m. KERN: Will the meeting come back to order. Let’s continue on with our public testimony portion of the meeting. I’ll call up Kangi, Eden Patino, Alexandre Wilhelm and Flo Kubota. Kangi? Eden Patio, Alexandre Wilhelm, Flo Kubota, Aileen Fuke, Ivan Mochida, Karen Maedo, Tom Raffipiy, Carius Kalvaitis, Brando Lorusso. Okay, we’ve got four. I’ll get all four of you 53 EXHIBIT A to please raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes. KERN: Yes. Okay, very good. So before you begin, I need your name, area in which you live, and then you may begin. We’ll start with Flo Kubota. KUBOTA: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman -. KERN: Good afternoon. KUBOTA: And Members of the Planning Commission. My name is Flo Kubota and I live in the Kaūmana area. I’m here to testify on behalf of my friend Wayne Kanemoto who is unable to be here today. He’s off island. And with your permission, if I may, I’m also like he is, a retired educator from the Department of Education. And I have experience both in the classroom as well as in administration; and I generally agree with his analysis. And with your permission, I’d like to read his testimony. To the Windward Planning Commission from Wayne Kanemoto. Subject: Connections Charter School, Kaūmana. I oppose the building of the Connections Charter School in Kaūmana. Schools are usually built in a location to serve those in their community. They play a major role in the life of a community, serving as a place to gather, a focus of support thru advocacy and finance, a safe haven for our children as well as a source of pride. Students in this community are not the priority of the school. The majority of the students of the Connections Charter School do not live in this community. And, in my view, Connections has not met or addressed these things. As a school administrator and teacher, on Oahu and to this island, school support from the community was a critical component for success. I would solicit and consider input from the community when making decisions ranging from financial priorities to curriculum directions. I have not seen Connections take effective means to engage the community. Meetings were held by the Connections to provide information and solicit questions. I did not experience contacts that addressed how Connections would benefit me and the community as a whole. As a good neighbor Connections has not gathered community support, and this may be an indicator on how they may behave in the future. DARROW: One minute. KUBOTA: Connections has not been recognized as a school of excellence, from what I have researched. Charter Schools that succeed, as with any other school, must demonstrate the ability to improve academic achievement. Connections has not met the Annual Yearly Progress and is in restructuring. 54 EXHIBIT A Another concern is the sustainability of any school without a reliable financial commitment for construction and school operations. Public schools have faced a struggle for existence which has been further compounded by the economy. As an administrator at several schools, I have experienced challenges that Connections will face. Unless there is sound financial commitment the possibility of survival and prosperity is slim to none. In summary, Connections does not have my support because they are not focused on students in our community, they have not taken effective measures to gain support of our community, they have not -. KERN: Sorry, your time is up. I’m sorry. KUBOTA: Oh, thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Aileen Fuke, give me your name and area in which you live, and you may begin. FUKE: Hello -. KERN: Hi. FUKE: Mr. Chairman and the rest of the Commissioners. My name is Aileen Fuke, and I live on Mele Manu Street, a stone’s throw away from the proposed Charter School. I taught in the public schools for nearly 20 years and our residence, as I said, is only, is less than a stone’s throw away from the proposed school. Initially, I was not going to testify because I am not comfortable speaking in public and it would have also been redundant of the testimonies of our neighbors. However, there was an incident which happened between my husband and the applicant a few months ago; and then more recently, having the community accused of bulling and harassment because of its opposition to the project, I can no longer remain quiet. My husband, Sidney, is a planning consultant. He could not be here today, as he had to attend a State Land Board meeting in Honolulu. He appeared before you on behalf of the Regency South’s planned skilled nursing facility in Kaumana, which you approved a few months after all issues were addressed and members of the neighboring community expressed their support. th He coordinated a May 14 community meeting on that project before the application was filed. After the meeting, he was approached by the principal of Connections. Let me read you excerpts of a string of email – a full copy of which attached to this testimony – that describes this encounter. May 14, 2012: After the community meeting, Sid emailed his client, Greg Pyle of Regency South, the following: “Greg: Could you please share with me what exactly did the fellow from Connections Charter School tell you about me and their project? He made a lot of personal accusations then and I wondered what he told you. Thanks.” 55 EXHIBIT A Greg replied: “Hi, Sid: He didn’t say much about you other than you were ‘stirring up trouble’ against his project. He more threatened me that he has a number of people who will cause problems for our project if you do not change your tune about this. For what it’s worth, I told him that I hoped he would judge our project on its merits and that we would not be held hostage….It is unfortunate that he is resorting to such tactics….” DARROW: One minute. TH FUKE: May 15, via email, Sid informed the Planning Department of the community meeting and of this encounter. This was shared only as a pre-emptive measure to alert the Department of possible extraneous reasons that may surface against the Regency project. He then emailed his client, “If you want me to step away from the (Regency) project…in light of the ‘threat’, I do understand and have no problems with it.” And his client responded by asking him to stay on. Okay, also attached is a subsequent email between another member of Connections and Sid, apologizing for the behavior of the principal and requesting the name of the person who had concerns about their project. This email only further confirmed the incident. In my opinion, Sid and his client were clearly the victims of bullying, bullied to the point where they were willing to end his role with Regency to save the project. He is a very forgiving person and told me that “life will go on, so don’t worry about it.” True, as it may be, let me close by saying that this bullying is very shameful on the part of Connections and its principal and sets a very bad example for the school. I hope you consider denying this project. Thank you very much. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Ivan Mochida, name and -. MOCHIDA: Mr. Chairman and Fellow Commissioners, my name is Ivan Mochida and I am building my home on Edita Street near the proposed school. I am a small contractor and have been involved in building on properties that also require approvals by the Commission and Council. Thus, I am familiar with the importance of working with the neighboring community. If I had known that the school was going to be built there, I would not build my home. I was hoping to live and retire in a peaceful residential community. With the school, however, all of this would be lost. The noise impact would be great. The traffic impact would be huge. The quality of life that I sought would be gone forever. In turn, this diminished quality would reflect in the reduced value of our properties. It is certainly not fair to ram a land use with such a huge impact into a small residential community. Don’t get me wrong. I am not against anything happening on this property. I believe that there are many uses that require Planning Commission approval that I would be supportive of. Some 56 EXHIBIT A of these uses include a nursing home, small medical facilities, or even childcare facility. The impacts of those kinds of use would be benign. Like my neighbors, we believe that schools are needed. We just believe that because of its huge impact, the site would be in the wrong location. It would be no different than having a Costco or KTA supermarket at this site. Good use, wrong location. Please help us by asking the applicant to find another location and by denying this request. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Brandon Lorusso? LORUSSO: Yes. KERN: Give me your name and area in which you live, and you may begin. LORRUSO: My name is Brandon Lorusso and I live in Pāpa’aloa, which is a great distance from here; and I attend Connections Public Charter School. And I go to the High School at Nani Mau Gardens and also employed by the School. I, from Pāpa’aloa to the center of downtown is roughly 23 miles, and from there the trip through downtown and across Railroad Road up to Nani Mau Gardens is about maybe another 5, 6 miles. So I travel close to 30 miles a day to get to the school, because I believe it’s a great school. It offers me and my classmates great opportunities not only academically but they’ve also employed me so I could own my own car; and for that I’m very grateful. I, it might sound like I come from a far distance from the other direction, also being that I live about a one and a half miles from Laupāhoehoe High School which also turned Charter. But there are people who travel farther from me in that direction as well – my sister’s best friends travel from Honokaa to go to this school. Now travelling that distance is very dangerous. Just being, living on an island is dangerous. Whenever it’s raining our roads flood all throughout the entire island, and there are rockfall hazards, especially where I’m going through cause there’s a gulch. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been driving home at night after working for many hours and with my highlights touching a rock and then I’d have to slow down greatly and pull around it to get out of the way. Now the arguments against traffic, if there is an easement, wouldn’t it reduce traffic? And, also traffic increasing, this traffic is going to be increasing all over the island. We have a greatly increasing population in many areas, also Puna, so traffic will be heavy everywhere. So either we can address it or we complain about it. That’s all I have to say. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. You all may have a seat. Eden Patino, Jeff Gomes, Brenda Camacho, and Kimberly Meyers. I’ll get you all to raise your right hands. Do you all swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes. 57 EXHIBIT A KERN: Okay, very good. And we’ll start with Eden Patnio. Give me your name and area in which you live, and you may begin. PATINO: Good afternoon. My name is Eden Patinio and I’m from the Kaūmana area. I actually live on Chong Street. Let me read my letter. Dear Windward Planning Commissioners. Today is a very special day. It is my son, Santiago Patinio’s birthday and it has been an incredible eight years watching my son grow from birth until now. I am a proud Connections Public Charter School parent to two beautiful boys, Santiago and Joaquin. Santiago is currently in Mr. Manley’s second grade class and Joaquin is five years old and in Mrs. Taylor’s kindergarten class. I am a stay-at-home mom who is currently active in the Connections Parent/Teachers/Student ohana and a volunteer member for the Down town Improvement Association. I am affiliated with the March of Dimes, Hawaii Chapter, and an advocate for education for our students. I used to work at Kamehameha Middle School, Hawai‘i campus, and decided to make a sacrifice to stay at home to raise my children and to give them the best quality of life possible. I remember eight years ago that we needed to think about what school should Santiago attend. I’m an event planner by nature and so, even before Santiago could talk, my husband, Mario Patino, and I both started to visit schools in the local area. We wanted to find the best school for Santiago. And, as new parents, we knew that ideally we would have loved to send him to a private school; but this was not feasible for us financially. We did not like what we were hearing about the elementary schools and their class sizes being large. Then, we heard about Connections at the Kress Building and decided to check things out to find out that there was a wait list already. I remember visiting the office and Santiago was still at Keiki Steps. He was two years old. It was only 2006 and the office already had a waiting list for the kindergarten class of 2010. We decided to take the application since it gave our family options for his education. Why was there a waiting list? Santiago was only two. You would have thought that he would be the first one in his class to be in. It turns out that the current students already attending had siblings -. DARROW: One minute. PATINO: And those siblings already had their enrollment paperwork. Another reason, Connections has different teaching methods. My husband being an educator at Kamehameha Schools, he’s a National Board Certified Teacher and he liked the innovative teaching methods (DASH, Measure Up and STEAM.). STEAM is now the science technology, engineering, arts and music. Connections was providing this to our students. We had visited the school and liked the teachers and the small classroom sizes. So we knew that in this private setting they would be individual attention. Our concerns with the location, one of the things was it’s a tsunami zoned area. What would happen if a natural disaster would occur? That is always in the back of my mind every time I 58 EXHIBIT A drop my sons off to school. Connections is a wonderful school but it really isn’t a safe haven, especially during natural disasters. Another we had question we had was what about physical education -. DARROW: Time. KERN: Time, thank you. PATINO: Okay, thank you. KERN: Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Jeff Gomes, name and area in which you live, and you may begin. JEFF GOMES: My name is Jeff Gomes. I live on Edita Street. You know, the only reason we can figure that John Thatcher wants the school where it is is because it’s across the street from his house and he wants his horse barn on his property so he can have his horses nearby. Nothing wrong with loving horses, but it’s not the place for it. He has been asked repeatedly by Dr. Fred Stone not to have any animals on the upper end or, parcels on the property because the sewage from the animals will kill the organisms that live inside the cave; and John knows this. And he’s claiming to be environmental but he’s not. He still wants to have his horse barn, he wants to have goats, chickens, pigs, cows, he wants to have all these animals on there; and he’s not concerned about what goes on inside the cave. And he knows that the sewage is going to kill the organisms inside the cave. At the community meetings that I attended, John Thatcher told us that they’re going to hand clear, they’re only going to hand clear, they’re environmental. They’re going to hand clear for the fencing, they’re going to hand clear for the buildings, the kids are going to come up and help. First thing they do is they bring up a bulldozer. And they hire, you know, look at what they hired? I handed you the handouts. They hired drug dealers and they hired burglars, you know. And I cannot believe that the families involved with Connections would allow this behavior. How they, how would they be okay with that? Look at the local school board minutes. I handed it to you, it’s in there. They’re supposed to do background checks. So they hired these guys. And I felt like they did that to intimidate us and just to bully us. Cause what we’re going to do, right? They’re not breaking the law. They’re just bulldozing, fencing. But then he fired the guys after they complete the job. They complete the entire job, they bulldozed, they put in the fence, they fired them. DARROW: One minute. th JEFF GOMES: October 8, while men are at work, John Thatcher sends Eric Boyd to walk through our neighborhood alongside his white pickup truck with a driver and the passenger door open for his quick get away as he attempts to harass our women and children in our neighborhood by taking pictures of them to send a clear message to me and my family “We know where you live.” I called the police and the responding officer tells me Eric Boyd claims he’s taking pictures of our signs to use at today’s hearing. Please ask him to produce these signs. 59 EXHIBIT A I want to see the pictures to prove that that’s what he was doing. Because I believe he came to our neighborhood to terrorize us. That was a cowardly move, and by an administrator. Please, please, don’t let them do it. Don’t let them do it. He has got a pattern of lying and making up things that didn’t happen. Don’t let them do this. They’re going to get carried away and they’re not going to follow rules. KERN: Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? GOZALES: I have a question. KERN: Commissioner Gonzales. GONZALES: You made a reference to a Dr. Stone? JEFF GOMES: Dr. Fred Stone. GONZALES: Yes, Dr. Fred Stone. Is he here today, by chance? JEFF GOMES: No, he’s not. GONZALES: Okay, what kind of a doctor is Dr. Stone? JEFF GOMES: He is a, he works at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo and he is a speleologist, the guys who study caves. GONZALES: Very good. All right, thank you. KERN: Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you. Brenda Camacho? CAMACHO: Hi. KERN: Name and area in which you live, and you may begin. CAMACHO: Good afternoon, Chairman Kern and Members of the Windward Planning Commission. My name is Brenda Camacho and I live on Mele Manu Street. As a pediatrician, I know the importance of an education, and the educational opportunities offered at the Connections Charter School are not being questioned here today. However, I do agree with the many concerns over the adverse traffic, adverse environmental, and safety impacts that will occur with this project in Kaumana. In my opinion this proposed school campus is too large for the infrastructure of this community. As many have already spoken about the traffic and safety concerns, there is another large concern which really hasn’t been looked at yet or tapped upon, and that’s the lack of adequate water for the students, for their school, for their staff. Based on the information contained in the application, the project will require 26,000 gallons of water per day. The existing County water 60 EXHIBIT A system will be able to supply about 4200 gallons per day; and this is roughly about 16 percent of what’s actually required for the school. So how are they going to obtain the 22,000 gallons that they need per day? Well, what they propose is that Connections will implement a water catchment system to obtain the 22,000 gallons per day. Well, that’s an incredible amount of water. Now Hilo does receive a lot of rain. We get about 130 inches of rain per year. And at an average, which is about a third of an inch per day, the school would need to have, roughly calculating, about 102,000 square feet of roof surface in order to collect this water. And they have to collect every single drop, every single day. Now another option to this would be to build a new water system, and going through the steps a County Council approved improvement district where the majority of the neighbors would have to agree to help fund a larger water system and actually end up paying for it also. DARROW: One minute. CAMACHO: A new well with a sizeable holding tank, a sophisticated pumping system to deliver the water would cost in excess of about 2.5 million dollars. And at this time, there is no community support for the school and I’m sure no support for increasing our own water bills to fund this project. Connections Charter School does deserve to have a facility and we all agree upon that; however, Kaūmana, the infrastructure of Kaūmana is grossly inadequate in terms of its roadways and water supply to support such a campus. I humbly ask for your consideration of these issues and to deny this application. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Kimberly Meyers, name and area in which you live, and you may begin. MEYERS: My name is Kimberly Meyers. I live on Kamana Street. I am born and raised from th Hilo, 5 generation. I graduated from the University of Alaska. Half of that time I spent in Europe. Growth is imminent. And it’s really surprising that I remember growing up that there was a proposal for Hilo streets to be fixed, to be bigger, to support our growth. Hilo people do not want growth. They do not want Hilo to become like Honolulu. Growth is imminent. People move in Hilo all the time. I’m not from Puna, I’ve never lived in Puna. I am from Hilo. My children started out at St. Joseph School. There is a reason why they go to Connections. I am very familiar with the public school system, and there is a reason why Connections has a wait list. My father is Dr. Joseph Bratton, a very well respected psychologist that has worked within the school systems. My uncle is Dr. Carvalho. And I take it personally when the people at Kaūmana are bullying my children and tell me that my children and their friends that I have known for over four years are delinquents. And my son is also a green belt in Mr. Canda’s Tae Kwon Do. He is a very well respected in the community and he lives in upper Kaūmana. I am also, have experience with horses for 20 years. You cannot get a greener animal than a horse or the manure. And they do not smell. So this is personally taken whether they mean it or not. And as far as traffic, they had years, years, if not decades, to fix upper Kaūmana. And I know Mr. Thatcher, I know Mr. Boyd, they’re not bullies, they’re not criminals. They work very hard 61 EXHIBIT A with the children to give them opportunities. And let me tell you, I know a lot of these kids. I also teach dance there and I teach dance at De Silva as well; and the children at Connections are not delinquents, they work very hard. None of them are bullied; and all of them are given the opportunity to grow. And these are our children, the children of Hawai‘i. These are your future. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. You all may have a seat. Let me call up Piper Selden, Patrick Kaawa’aloa. KAHAWAIOLA’A: Kahawaiola’a. KERN: Kahawaiola’a. Desiree Hoewaa-Fontanilla and John Rushlow. I apologize, Patrick. Your name is still challenging for me. I’m working on it. KAHAWAIOLA’A: Kahawaiola’a. KERN: Kahawaiola’a. Okay, so we’ll start by having you all raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes. KERN: Okay, very good. We’ll start with Piper Selden. Give me your name, area in which you live, and then you may begin. SELDEN: My name is Piper Seldon, I live in Waikaea Uka here in Hilo. My friend Tedd testified earlier. KERN: Go ahead. SELDEN: I would like to advocate for a campus for Connections. Many of the testimonies have been silenced because the kids and their families had to go back to school and work. Not all Kaūmana area residents are against Connections. I’m the mother of two children who attend the school and were here. But I’m not merely a parent, I’m also a doctoral student and teacher at UH. In addition, for the past 8 years I have taught conservation and waste reduction classes for the County of Hawai‘i. P.S., animal waste is not sewage, it is manure and can be composted. It’s an important distinction. I mention these things to you today because I have a deep respect for the important work that happens at Connections Public Charter School. The faculty and staff are progressive and their teaching methods, with a focus on sound academic and environmental stewardship. It surprised me to hear that some had portrayed the administration of Connections as being disrespectful to the land. I’m also shocked to hear testimony of heresy storing of emails that our principal, a kind of man of integrity, would bully anyone. He was instrumental in bringing an anti-bullying program to the school, as a matter of fact. Please know that this is not an accurate representation of the school, it’s faculty or the vision of the school that it inspires or lives up to. 62 EXHIBIT A Man does not grow like population does, despite the efforts of our island’s volcanic activity. And I can’t think of many roads anywhere in Hilo or Puna for that matter with terrific road access. Traffic problems are pervasive everywhere. The new school will be in someone’s back yard. Yes, a portion of the students come from Puna, but a good portion live here in Hilo. So many of, you know, many of us, others have testified that school services should be near where the students are located. Well, I live here in Hilo area near Kaūmana. We are your neighbors and your community, so I’m not sure what the presenter meant earlier when she was talking about the right kind of students. What do we do? Continue to crowd our students into already crowded schools? Nine years ago when my husband and I hoped for something else, my son was denied services for special needs at the two public schools that feed into Waiakea in Hilo. That’s why we found Connections, because a fair and appropriate education for some students is not being met by existing public schools. My husband and I drove to the new kind school, progressive school, with focus on the environmental issues, where our kids would receive education to inspire critical thinking, to mix with children from other cultures and ways of living, and eventually to become productive members of society for our island, for all communities. In this new century we need innovation, but not at the expense of heart. Connections fosters both. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Patrick, name and area in which you live, and then your three minutes will begin. KAHAWAIOLA’A: My name is Patrick Kahawaiola’a. I’m a native Hawaiian as defined under the Act. I live in Panaewa on the Hawaiian Home Farm Lots. I have ohana on Mele Manu. That’s the reason I’m being here. But I think the subject matter here today before this Planning Commission is land use. So it has nothing to do with people. It’s about land use. And I just needed to find out to be sure, because if there is an argument later on what the decision of this Commission is, I just needed to get clarification in my mind that this Commission meeting is held under the rules of Chapter 91. So if it is under Chapter 91 I don’t have a problem because I can always contest it at a later date. So I just need that clarification, if this body right now, what we’re constituting based on having it recorded is under Chapter 91. KERN: Why don’t we get that answered after. Looks, the Planning Director will do that. But continue on so that you can use your three minutes. KAHAWAIOLA’A: Sure, okay. And so this has to be because the mandatory rule making procedures of Chapter 91 makes for public input. The document that I’m looking at is the County of Hawai‘i’s Planning Department Revised Recommendations. In the first paragraph, and there’s no signature on the end but I’m going to assume because it’s from the Director that it’s from our Director Ms. Leithead Todd, that in the first paragraph it says “Since this recommendation is made without the benefit of public testimony the Director reserves the right to modify and/or alter this recommendation based upon additional information presented at a public hearing,” which we are today. So this, this is where, the fundamental thing I see is wrong is that there is a conflict in if and when there was public testimony. Has this Commission seen that testimony? Because I think Mr. Au asked that earlier. Were there committee meetings, who 63 EXHIBIT A attended, names? So if those things are presented then I think it’s proper for this body to move on what’s being asked for a special permit. DARROW: One minute. KAHAWAIOLA’A: So with that said, it’s the DOE’s processing that right now charter schools are under. I have two charter schools in the community I represent, Ke Ana La’ahana and Kanu O Ka ‘Aina. My grandson attends another charter school, just probably for the reasons that parents mentioned. Under the DOE process it’s, it’s pretty dismal. So charter schools have a little bit more flexibility. However, charter schools are still governed under the DOE so it is still about district exemptions, who can attend it, how far you’ve got to go. So those things need to also be made aware. But today I just wanted to be clear, as far as my ohana is concerned they’re on Mele Manu, it’s not about the children, it’s not about the people that expressed that. There are people that, who should have been following processes. And that process is going to be followed. So I think this body needs to look at -. KERN: Thank you, Patrick. Madam Director, you want to address the question? LEITHEAD TODD: Patrick, because this is an application for a special permit of land greater than 15 acres, the process is, is that the Planning Commission either makes a denial, or recommendation for denial and then the application dies here. Or if they recommend approval it goes to the State Land Use Commission. And the State land Use Commission is where there’s an opportunity for the contested case. Because it’s a two-step process. The Planning Commission can basically kill an application through a denial of it but, and which can be appealed to the Circuit Court. Or they can make a recommendation for approval, which will then go up to State Land Use Commission, at which point then you have an opportunity for contested case. And, obviously, depending on the outcome, there’s an opportunity to appeal from that decision to the court system. As for the specific language that talks about public hearing, it’s usually this public hearing where I have an opportunity to hear input, additional information; and then at the conclusion of that public testimony, if I feel it’s appropriate then I can make additional recommendations or additional comments on the application to the Planning Commission. KAHAWAIOLA’A: Very good. Thank you for that clarification. KERN: And I have one question or you, Patrick. Could you pass the mike back over. I’ve wanted to clarify – are you for or against? KAHAWAIOLA’A: I would probably be against based on the language that is in here. Because if the proper process was not followed then we have a problem, because knowing that the Director has reservations. And that is, and I guess the key would be reservations without public testimony. KERN: Okay, thank you. Desiree Fontanilla, name and area in which you live, and your three minutes will begin. 64 EXHIBIT A HOEWAA-FONTANILLA: Aloha, my name is Desiree Hoewaa-Fontanilla and I live in Volcano. I have four children that attend Connections and two children that attend Ka Umeke Kaeo, so I’m in the Charter School districts. I believe in charter schools, especially Connections. I’m from the island of Maui. And coming here I did my homework before I came here on what schools are best for my children; and no public school had done any justice for me. I have ten children altogether, six that go to school at this time, two more coming up to Ka Umeke next year. Now when we were talking here, I’ve been here all day, just like everybody else, and I noticed there’s a lot of stuff going on about we’re not here about the children. True, this is about land, and I understand that. So why can’t we come to a compromise to where the school and the community can find a different way that we can work hand in hand together, instead of everyone fighting each other here. Cause it seems like a really big issue that everybody is talking about all kinds of stuff that has already -- If anybody that have come up here has ever researched anything about Connections School, they don’t have any problems with criminal acts and all these kids that you’re talking about doing all these things. People are shaken up here and crying about their 100 years that they’ve been living in Kaūmana, and it seems like they’re really scared that these kids are going to move into here and these criminals -. I don’t understand that. I don’t know what’s going on here. But bullying and everything, can people just stop and just look around? It’s about education, not just for Connections children but maybe one day Kaūmana kids would want to go to that school also. DARROW: One minute. HOEWAA-FONTANILLA: But all this land came from somewhere and it obviously came from the State. And if the State gave the land to Connections, they knew Connections is one charter school; and this is what they’re going to use their land for, to teach the kids. So why would the State give the land to Connections if they knew that this was going to happen? Obviously no matter where you go there’s going to be someone who has questions and is going to say I oppose, I oppose. That’s life. Traffic, everything is going to happen, no matter what part of this island you’re going to be in. But bottom line, we all live on the Big Island and it’s an awesome place to live. I thank you every day for being here, and I’m very thankful for that. But can we just stop and look around and put our heads together and say hey, can we find a better way that these kids can be part of this, that we can work together, can we find an easement, can we find a different way? KERN: Thank you very much. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. John Rushlow, Rushlow? RUSHLOW: Rushlow. KERN: Rushlow, name and area in, area you live and then your three minutes will begin. 65 EXHIBIT A RUSHLOW: John Rushlow. I live on Kaūmana Drive. My property is just adjoining to the proposal site of the school. I’m here today to oppose the school. And for the matter is not because of the school or the children itself but by the way things have been brought out from the beginning up until now. I’m a landowner. I’ve lived there for 50 years. Like a few other people I was not made aware at any time about the school being built, about the fencing coming in, about the bulldozing going in. I sat and waited and watched the bulldozer come in, I watched the bulldozer pour out hydraulic oil into the stream. I was told that there’s nothing I can do; if anything call the Connections School. I called there, I left messages, never got any phone call, nothing back. I seen trees, ‘ōhi‘a trees. I was told by the fencing people that the trees was to be bulldozed one blade wide. If you go up there and look now you’ll see that it’s about three bulldozers wide. The trees, I seen trucks come in and out, trees being harvested to be sold. And, you know, that makes me think the representatives that set this up, who are they, where were they to look over this, what was going on? Why wasn’t the community, you know, talked to and asked what was their input, how do they feel about it? I was not asked. Only time I heard anything about this school or anything being done was in the newspaper after the fact when they say, oh, the lawyers, you know, contact the lawyer if you have any questions. And I think that is all wrong, you know. So that leaves a funny taste in my mouth, you know, make me think they cannot be trusted. The representatives of the school cannot be trusted, that’s how I feel about it. So that’s why I’m here today to oppose the school being built. And that’s my say. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. You all may have a seat. Calling up Kerri Marks, Carol Gray, and I’m going through the list of people that I called prior that were not here. This will be the last call – Kangi, Alexandre Wilhelm, Karen Madeo? MAEDO: Maedo. KERN: Maedo. Thank you. Okay, can I get you all to raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes. KERN: Okay, very good. We will start, let me go back up. Alexandre Wilhelm? WILHELM: Yes, sir. KERN: Will you take the microphone and give me your name, area in which you live, and then your three minutes will begin. WILHELM: My name is Alexander Wilhelm. I live on Kamana Street here in Hilo. I’m just here to touch on some of the facts that are, well, obviously, very incorrect about the school and the sites. For one, the little design that you saw of the school, I can’t really show you but the one that you saw with the one drive, it is obviously a prototype. They’re still early in the developments. So there always are going to be changes to that. Like they’ll probably add a back entrance and more parking lot, for instance. 66 EXHIBIT A Also, I’d like to touch on the fact that the caves – Hawai‘i is basically the number one tsunami place, and tsunamis come from earthquakes, and we are basically on a very active volcano. So there’s always earthquakes. You can’t feel now, but if you’re underground you can definitely feel. If you would think that this cave stood there for hundreds of years with all these powerful earthquakes, it would still be there after the bulldozing, which is definitely as powerful as even the minor earthquake. And what organism would be in the, this is my question, would be in the cave? Moss, centipedes? I’m not aware that there would be any bats in the cave. So -. And as you know it is getting to winter and most aerial mammals will not be coming out as often as you would see since there are not many birds out. There are building up their nests to sleep longer and have a very slight hibernation. And also I’d like to say that Mr. Thatcher and Mr. Boyd tried their best to go door to door and tell everyone. You can never get to everyone every single person. It’s basically impossible. So I’d like to say that. And when some people said that Mr. Boyd would, thank you, would go and take pictures harassing their families, that would be incorrect. As you saw in the video there, he took pictures of the signs only to prove and just show in this hearing. That’s all I have to say. Thank you for your time. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Karen Maedo, and I apologize I called too, first, starting from the top of my list again so maybe we’ll all -, name, area in which you live and then you may begin. MAEDO: My name is Karen Maedo and I am testifying for Sidney, Sidney Fuke, who is unable to be here today. I am sorry for not being able to personally testify on this matter due to another commitment on Oahu. Although I am one of many impacted neighbors, as a planning consultant and one who makes frequent appearances before this body, I was hesitant to publicly share my thoughts with you. However as the relationship between the applicant and many of the neighboring residents deteriorated to a very low and ugly point, I felt compelled to offer a few thoughts for your consideration. You have or will hear testimony regarding the adverse impacts this project will have on the surrounding area. These are testimonies not directed against the concept of education or this school per se or its students but - because of its adverse impacts - the appropriateness of this site. Some of these concerns, and I will just reiterate: The traffic, the water, the waste water, the quality of life issues. Permit me to kind of concentrate on Sid’s “Good Use, Wrong Location”: This is community consensus. There is community consensus; and you’ve heard all day that in concept schools are good. The overarching question, however, has been whether this is the appropriate location. The consensus is that the requested use is too big. It’s trying to squeeze its way into an existing built up residential community and creating adverse infrastructure and social impacts along the way. The petition against the school at this site is clearly evident that the community is loudly saying all day that this is not an appropriate site. It has not been point out, if it has not been point out, however please note that the recently constructed schools on Hawai‘i Island (not counting the smaller charter schools) have been two public schools – Kea’au in Puna and Kealakehe in Kona – and one private – Kamehameha, also in Kea’au - their locations are all on the outskirts and not in the heart of their respective communities with good 67 EXHIBIT A vehicular access. The communities there can even eventually choose to build around it and not the reverse, as it would be here. The report examined only State lands in Hilo. It did not look at lands in the Puna District. And even at that, it dismissed many State properties as being too large, without even considering their potential for being subdivided. In conclusion, if approved, I sense that the required support from the community that help make a neighboring school successful would be absent. If denied, the applicant will have to continue its search for another site. And should that be the situation, I would be willing to volunteer some of my professional time to help them to evaluate the appropriateness of a potential site -. KERN: Thank you. MAEDO: Thank you. KERN: Any questions for, any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you very much. Kerri Marks, name, area in which you live, and you may begin. MARKS: Good afternoon everyone. I’m Kerri Marks. I live at, on Pakalana Street in Kaūmana city. I only found out about this whole thing because as I drive up and down the hill to my home and I saw signs in the yard. So I started looking for it, and I saw the press release that Mr. Hong was going to be speaking down at the Kress. So I went to that to try and get more information. And, and when it was over Mr. Hong asked me who I was and I said I live, I’m a neighbor, I live up the hill. And he says, “Oh, you’re the opposition.” So I know I’m going to focus on land use in a minute but I just think it’s really stunning from the stories that I’ve heard today. And that’s my only, I only, I’ve got to say I’ve only known about this for a week. That’s my only interaction with them, but it was negative. And to his credit the principal came over and tried to rectify it. Cause I said, you know, I’m not the opposition, I’m a neighbor, I’m a neighbor. Wouldn’t they want -? I have here children at Kaūmana Elementary School. I graduated a Valedictorian from Hilo High School. These are good schools in this area. E.B. De Silva School and Kaūmana Elementary School are probably the two best schools we have in Hilo town. Okay? So that’s why you don’t see a lot of neighbors here testifying about how this would be an awesome addition to our neighborhood. That’s all we see, is negative impacts so far. Okay. And so on to the land use which is another serious consideration. If you could divert the entrance to the Puainako Extension, I think that would alleviate a lot of people’s major concerns about the traffic situation. That being said, I travel a lot between Kaūmana City and the Puna area. I attend a lot of meetings down there, I have friends down there. And the way I get there, the way to go is the 68 EXHIBIT A Puainako Extension to Waiakea Uka. That’s where you go. Puainako Street itself is a nightmare and I know -. DARROW: One minute. MARKS: One minute. I know they’re working on fixing that but that’s a few years out. In the meantime, we drive over, over. That’s where people go, up and down between Kaūmana and there. So you do need to consider those traffic considerations at Waiakea Uka and how they’re going to get through town and to there. Other than that, horses produce the manure, and that would be the hard part to gather up. If it’s a hydroponic sustainable system, what do they need manure for? Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. Carol Gray, name, area in which you live, and you may begin. GRAY: My name is Carol Gary, and I’m one of those dreaded Puna people. I’m also a teacher at Connections; and over half of our students actually do come from the Hilo area. And I had not planned to testify today but we had many children who patiently waited while people who couldn’t be bothered to come had third parties deliver their testimony. And our children stayed in. And their parents need them to go home, so we had to leave, have them leave. Charter Schools in Hawai‘i have not been well served by Hawai‘i Land Use Law. Siting has been a huge issue. The first school I worked at was at Waters of Life where it was in a tent because of the difficulty in finding locations. Many of the charter schools draw their children from all over, and that is the nature of it. And so I ask you when you think about that community that you need to think beyond the neighborhood of Kaūmana. They keep saying the community is against us, the community is against us. You are not the Kaūmana Planning Commission. You are the Windward Planning Commission. You serve the needs of East Hawai‘i. The children of East Hawai‘i need locations for charter schools. We exist. I teach in a classroom with walls that only go up six feet tall because of it’s a repurposed department store building. Our other, our high school location is in a former hair salon and spa with very tiny rooms. We have been patiently getting through this process so we can have a real school. It will, it will serve a wide community. And I’m sorry the people, that there were mistakes made and the process of communication with the community was maybe not handled the way it should have been. And I apologize for that from the depths of my heart. But the reality is we’re educators, not project planners. When this project is okayed, we will have professionals to deal with that kind of thing and, hopefully, will no longer make the kind of mistakes that maybe were made in the past. But I ask you to think about the needs of the wider community that you serve, because you are the Windward Planning Commission, and think about the future of the children of East Hawai‘i. Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? PUBLIC: I have. 69 EXHIBIT A KERN: Commissioners, questions? That does happen from time to time. Okay seeing none, you all may have a seat. Thank you very much. Is there a Tom Raffipiy? And is there anybody else out there that would like to testify that has not testified so far? This is the last call. You’ve already -? RAFFIPIY: I submitted. KERN: It has been submitted. Anybody else that’s here to testify? Okay, seeing none -. Hi. Thank you. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? RAFFIPIY: Yes, sir. KERN: Very good. Please use the microphone. And give me your name, area in which you live, and you may begin. RAFFIPIY: Tom Raffipiy, I live in Puna. Puna people are not that bad. We’re good people. We like to live with people in peace and be friends with everybody. I’ve heard this morning about, you know, social problems that we’re going to bring, that we’re going to be loitering around, graffiti. And I think that one young man over here that was, that sat over here, I think he spoke probably against that kind of stuff where, in accusations that they do graffiti and stuff. You go down to Connections, you never see graffiti outside. They’re good kids. I’ve been here so many times. And I have two daughters going to that school. We live in Puna and we commute, wake up 5 o’clock every morning, Monday through Friday, to get down to the school. We just gotta adjust our lives. All right? The concept plan at this time, still it can be changed. And I invite the Kaūmana Community to be part of this process so that we can figure out how we can live together and work together to educate these kids. Not too long ago we had the tsunami over here and, you know, it scared my kids about this. I think it’s just like Russian Roulette we’re playing with. You know, we’re lucky that we have advance warning. But you may have one that we don’t have advance warning, like the one in Samoa in 2009. I was part of the rescue. Although I was not directly, I was in the co-ed, the central disaster area where we direct the people in the field. But the emotion right now for trying to deal with my soldiers, right now the emotional damage is, you know, when they have to rescue young people and old people that they were not aware because it was during school time, they were taking kids to school -. Just like here, even in Samoa, that’s how it is, right around the coastline. DARROW: One minute. RAFFIPIY: Thank you. And right now, so we’re still dealing with the, with all the emotions. I’ve been to every corner of this globe. Here we are trying to get a place to go to school. I’ve seen kids where they get, they stay in thatched roof, they stay in cardboard, they stay just to get education. Our kids like to get educated in a better facility than the constricted building down there where they cannot do anything but just stay in that building, do recess in the building, you know. 70 EXHIBIT A So please vote to build that school up there in Kaumana. That’s the only place at this time that we can find to have our kids to be educated. Thank you very much for your time. KERN: Thank you. Any questions for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you. You may have a seat. That concludes the public testimony portion of the meeting. Ted, you want to come up? HONG: Well, I would assume that the Commissioners have some questions and we wanted to rebut some of the misconceptions -. . NOMURA: Microphone, please. HONG: Oh, I’m sorry. I assume that the Commissioners had questions and we wanted to certainly fill in the blanks regarding -. KERN: Have a seat, and we’ll see if there are any questions. Do, yes? HONG: I just, in case the Commissioners want to know, I mean, we have our professionals here and they’re willing to enlighten or dispel some of the misconceptions regarding traffic, the water issue. I certainly want to address the illegal bulldozing, the cave issues, communication and the location issues. We can briefly touch on that to, I think, give the Commissioners a better perspective or at least a fuller perspective of what’s going on. KERN: Madam Director? LEITHEAD TODD: Well, I did have one question that kind of looked up at me. In the packet that you provided you have a listing of surrounding properties by TMK and mailing address. HONG: That’s correct. LEITHEAD TODD: So I’m referring that that, I couldn’t quickly locate it, but I’m assuming that you did a mass mailout? HONG: That’s correct. LEITHEAD TODD: And I saw a number of the people who testified who said that they had no notice; and yet I saw their names on the mass mailout. When was this mailed out? HONG: Every time we had a meeting we used that list to mail out notices of that meeting. For rdndth example the June 3 meeting, the September 2 meeting, 2011, the April 27 meeting of 2011, excuse me, 2012. We used that mailing list. Every mailing that we made, and I don’t have a list of them, because we mailed the notification of this meeting, and an amended notification of this meeting. We used that list. And I don’t have them all handy because the person who would know that from my Office, Sue Lee Loy, is right now at the happiest place on earth with her family, Disney Land. 71 EXHIBIT A Anyway, I just wanted to touch on the June 3, 2011 meeting, there were 15 people. Ms. Yokoyama, Mr. Chun, the Iwasakis, the Sakamotos were there. September 2, 2011 which was my mistake in terms of a, when I answered Mr. Au’s question earlier, it was meeting of September 2, 2011, there were 35 people there, a number of which testified today. April 27, 2012, 22 people were there, a number of which who testified today, I think including Mr. Fuke and his wife. The other thing I wanted to say is that we did walk door to door. The instructions were in walking door to door, if it said No Trespassing, No Solicitation, if there was a gate up, if there was a dog, because we’re talking about students they were instructed not to go in. But we did go to every house that was on Mele Manu and Edita that we could that was open and available. So, and I know that personally cause I was there. That’s the communication issue. We also note that there’s a petition of 306 names that we’d like to submit to the Planning Commission in support of our petition. Let me also quickly, there’s an October 29, 2012 letter to the Planning Director regarding the list of property owner that we sent all our notices to. And I just want to address the bulldozing. You know, we apologize for the bulldozing. It was illegal, we agree with that. We hired a contractor to do a job. We were notified by somebody in the community that these guys were bulldozing much greater than we anticipated or contracted for. They hired a sub. And I have Mr. Eric Boyd here who is willing to testify. He got out in front of the bulldozer and stopped these guys; and we did stop these guys. We filed a criminal complaint which is in the materials that we submitted. We filed a complaint against the contractor with the DCCA to show that we were responsible. We admitted that this is what happened, but we didn’t know about it. They were stealing ‘ōhi‘a logs from the property, which they shouldn’t, that we filed a police report about. We were the victim of a crime. Was it illegal? Yes. When we started it the Department of Public Works said we didn’t need a grubbing permit because of the amount of land that we were going to be covering. Based on the scar that was left upon this land, they now cited us for not having a grubbing permit. And at no point in time, even when we were before the Board, the Land Board a couple of week ago, we freely admitted – these guys did it, they didn’t have permission. We’re not here to make any excuse. We’re here to take the responsibility for that. The fined us about $500 something dollars, plus the administrative fees. And we’re going to pay it out of the operational budget of the school. So was this bulldozing illegal? Yes, it was. Did we know about it? No, we didn’t. And when we found out about it, we stopped it. And the suggestion that we stopped it only after the project was done is misleading at best. We were actually engaged in litigation as Mr. Torigoe sitting there, he, we’re sending stink lawyer letters back to their lawyers. I mean it’s going back and forth. We haven’t even paid them the full amount of the contract because of this dispute. I just want to touch on quickly the location issue. When we’re talking about the land use issues, one of the concerns I have, and I think the Commission needs to address this, is because the Office of State Planning has found that our proposed use is appropriate on this land, the 72 EXHIBIT A Department of Land and Natural Resources has found that our proposed use is appropriate for this property and this area, the Board of Land and Natural Resources has agreed that this is an appropriate use on this property, with an East Hawai‘i representative. Regarding the location, people were concerned about school, about bringing students from other areas in. The question I have is what about Kamehameha Schools out in Keaau? They service students from Waimea, all the way to Kau. They bring their students in to the campus. You want to bring up a location issue where schools should be only limited to a geographical area or st certain district? I challenge that. I don’t think that’s appropriate here in the 21 Century. I think it already happens in a different way. And that’s what Connections and charter schools are all about; and that’s why we represent them. One of the major issues that came up today was traffic. I’d like to, because his flight, call on Phil Rowell to address that particular issue. KERN: Before you begin, can I get you to raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? ROWELL: Yes. KERN: Okay, very good. ROWELL: To start up my name is Phillip Rowell and I’m the principal of Phillip Rowell & Associates; and I prepared the traffic impact study. Just for the record, I’ve been doing traffic for 40 years, not a novice. For the last 30 years I’ve been practicing in Hawai‘i. And I am a professional registered engineer in California and Hawai‘i, specializing in traffic. And for the last 28, 30 years, this is all I have done, is traffic impact studies. So, just so you know. I prepared the traffic impact analysis report. And the final version of the report is dated June 28, 2010. And I say that because someone kept referencing the traffic study done in 2009. So I don’t know if they had the latest version or not. Okay. The general approach to a traffic impact study, for everyone’s information, is first of all we establish conditions, existing conditions. We go out, we do traffic counts, we get a lot information, we look at all the roadways. Then we make an estimate of how much traffic the proposed project is going to generate, and then we superimpose that on the background, and then we do a level of service analysis. The level of service analysis grades how an intersection is going to operate, A through F. A obviously is the top. It’s various roadways, short delays, short queues, traffic flows well. Level of Service F is the opposite end. You can expect long delays, long queues. And the accepted level of service is Level of Service D. Everywhere I have worked that has been the minimum acceptable level of service. Based on the trip generation analysis, yes, we’re going to increase the traffic along Edita, no question about that. The trip generation analysis that I used is based on the ITE Standards, it’s based on the number of students that are going to be at the school, it’s based on the square footage, and you factor all these things in. Unfortunately this ITE Standard does not consider carpools, vanpools, busing. It’s based on traffic data on the mainland. And my experience in 73 EXHIBIT A Hawai‘i is that Hawai‘i we generally get lower trip estimates. In other words, if I take the ITE Data and I go out later on and do an actual count I will probably get something slightly less, yeah. I mention that because even if, when we added on all the project traffic that we estimate that is going to use Edita Street, we still get the intersection to operate with an acceptable level; and I’m talking about Level of Service B, not D, which is the accepted standard. Even with that, we made some what I felt was some pretty good, strong recommendations. One that even though we are having a Level of Service A and B along Edita Street, I recommended that we put in the left turn pocket into the project so that we, the people going through would not have to stop. Otherwise, if we don’t put the left turn pocket in there, they would have to stop. We also recommended, or I recommended that we do an interim traffic study at three points during the project before it is completed, at the end of Phases 3, 4 and 6. The purpose of those interim assessments was to confirm the trip generation, confirm the trip assignments at the intersections, to make, consider interchanges in the traffic conditions that, background. So I mention that because I’ve done another study about, toward town on Kaūmana; and over the last five years the morning peak hour traffic has dropped 7 percent. So these statements about traffic is increasing, increasing, increasing, that’s not, I can’t confirm that. And I’ve been doing a lot of traffic counts lately. We also recommended the traffic management plan which I think is very important because it gives us a chance to monitor the traffic at intervals every school year, to confirm that things are still operating right, make adjustments as needed and insure that we meet some of the conditions that one of the Departments put on the report, project is to make sure we have no backups onto Edita Street, that we do not have any long backups at Edita/Kaūmana, make sure we address those issues before they become a problem. The fact that this project is going to be spread out over 25 years give us that much chance to make those interim improvements periodically. And it also gives us a chance to, you know, if we get any negative feedbacks, interaction with the community, the police department, I’m sure the community is going to let us know if there are any problems. We can do our best to try to attempt to address them and make changes that we need. I want to mention one other thing about the issue of this number of accidents. I do not have access to accident records from the Police Department. I cannot get them. We usually respond to those comments from the police department over their comment letter. And in those cases, we do in some community school, we set up a preconsultation meeting with the police department so we can get their -. So this issue of the accidents kind of surprised me because we didn’t hear anything about that before. But I will say that typically if an intersection operates at a high level of service or a roadway operates at a high level of service, it’s a safe road because it means people are not being delayed or they’re driving kind of the way they want to, they don’t have to pass. But has, that level of service goes down, the volumes go up, we can expect accidents to be increased. But since we have Level of Service A and B, the impact analysis would imply that it’s relatively safe. But that’s certainly something that if we go through; and when we review these updates, we’ll certainly reassess that again. KERN: Thank you. I just want to make a quick point here that we have this room, we have to vacate this room by 4 o’clock. We’re creeping into that. So what I’d like to do, if it’s 74 EXHIBIT A acceptable, is if any of the Commissioners have any questions specific for that that we’ll do that, and then we can -. I think what you did there was great there, that we could pause that; and then if there’s any direct questions we can address that. If not, we can move forward. Do any of the Commissioners have any questions for the consultant at this point? Okay. Seeing none, thank you. Do you want to summarize Ted or you’re good? HONG: Well, actually Dakota is going to come and summarize for us. But the other point I wanted to make is that the, before the Board of Land and Natural Resources, Chairman Aila said that, you know, in terms of our project and the community there seems to be a divide; and he was very concerned about that. And we agree to the point that we’ve asked Sidney Fuke in a letter to be the project manager on this project cause we want to reassure the community that what we’re doing is correct, especially with that. And if he wasn’t willing to do that then we asked him in our letter to consider being part of the design committee from the community, if we’re fortunate enough to get to that point. So we’re trying at all points to reach out to the community. And we’re not going to stop those efforts. And I know this, I do want to publicly apologize for my maybe bad sense of humor. I did say that to that woman about oh, you’re from the opposition or scouting the opposition team or something like that. That was a joke and I apologize. And I should realize that my sense of humor is not really appreciated by everybody. But that was me, so I apologize then. HELFRICH: This is really short. I know everybody wants to go home. Many of the students who wish to give testimony had to go back t school, leaving us at a bit of disadvantage. To clarify, not all the students were here because they feel that people oppose them or bully them. We’re not so naive. We’re kept informed about this project and we are here to help to assure that the campus is approved. Students from charter schools come from all over. If we say that if you don’t belong to the community you shouldn’t be there, we won’t belong anywhere. Connections is a diverse community in itself. But, again, that’s not a reason to be condemned. The accusations to the applicant are sounding more and more personal. Mr. Jeffrey Gomes’s statement today got seriously out of hand, in my opinion. If the On the Line Fencing Company is nothing but drug dealers and burglars, why are they even a company? And all the community members that say they were unaware of this, do they not watch or read the news? Also, Connections has followed through with all the proper procedures. They have established that there have been multiple attempts to connect with the community. So where was the opposition when this project began years go? Also, not to mention, I was under the impression that the land was Ag land, so why is there a denial that there have been agricultural studies on land? On top of that, this land will eventually be developed by some organization or another, so why not allow that organization to be a school? How is rejecting our proposal and seeking an alternative location working with us? It sounds as though no matter what compromises we make they just don’t want us there at all. I’ve heard very legitimate reasons for opposing the Kaūmana campus today but, again, all the reasons I heard can be resolved with further collaboration between both parties. And all this being said, thank for listening to me. It’s an honor to meet all of you. And I congratulate you to making, what was it called? 75 EXHIBIT A KERN: Council, thank you. Any questions for Dakota or Mr. Hong, Commissioners? Seeing none, you may have a seat. Thank you. HELFRICH: Thank you. KERN: I’d like to get a -. Oh, Madam Director. LEITHEAD TODD: Mr. Hong, as the representative of the applicant, would you be opposed to further community meetings to try and address the traffic and look at whether there’s an alternative and a possibility of a connection to Puainako Extension and try to see whether that could be worked out? HONG: We’re still doing that; and I know Mr. Ono had asked the question whether I talked to Chris Brilhante about that, and I did not. I spoke to his father. I spoke to his father twice – in person once in my office, once in his office. His position is that in terms of connecting through the Puainako Extension he’s willing to discuss it further. He hasn’t said no, he hasn’t said yes; but he says he wants to discuss it further, cause I think his granddaughter or niece or something like that went to Connections and appreciates what Connections had provided her. So are we willing to reach out to the community? I think we have to; and we want to do that. I live in that community, you live in that community. So do we want to have future meetings? Absolutely. I don’t think any of us want to continue this kind of hostility where we see bumper stickers posted on the doorways of Connections School down at the Kress Building. AU: Mr. Chair? KERN: Commissioner Au. AU: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question to you as a representative of the applicant, are you willing to accept a condition by having a primary access to Puainako? HONG: Well, our legal access right now is through Edita. If you place that condition on us that would essentially doom the project, I don’t know, I mean it really depends on our relationship and what Mr. Brilhante is willing to do. If you, so, you know, in terms of what we’re trying to do, this is where our legal access is, on Edita. But we want to continue given the concerns of the community. And I said this at the April 2012 meeting to the community members, we will continue to try and negotiate with Mr. Brilhante about opening that up. LEITHEAD TODD: Mr. Brilhante has a subdivision application in my office for that property and the preliminary plans that he submitted show an access to Puainako Extension. So I suggest that perhaps what’s appropriate is to get you and Mr. Brilhante together in my office to look at his future plans for his property and discuss the viability of an access off of Puainako Extension. That does not address some of the concerns over water and some of the concerns that have, you know, additionally been raised, which would still have to be addressed. But at least we could pursue that and that might give a better picture of what is or is not possible, and then have that discussion with the community, rather than basing a decision on what’s in front of us today and see whether -. Because I really feel like without the possibility of an access off of Puainako that 76 EXHIBIT A it’s very difficult to proceed with the project, even if you’re talking about a, you know, 16 to 25 years buildout. And the reason is that you also have to assume over that 16 to 25 years that you have additional infill, that you have additional houses that come up off of Kaūmana Drive. And so you’ve got to address, you know, some of that. My other concern is I want to clarify on the traffic impact analysis, was that conducted during the period of time when school was in session at Hilo High and Hilo Intermediate and Kaūmana and Ernest B. De Silva. Because if it was not conducted during the period of time when schools were in session then that could seriously impact -. And I’m trying to recall, and I had the impression that it might not have been. HONG: It was. LEITHEAD TODD: It was during the school year? HONG: Yes. Because that’s a question that always comes up, if the school is in session. LEITHEAD TODD: Okay. KERN: Any other questions from Fellow Commissioners? Commissioner Ono. ONO: Yes. I’m just wondering, with the direction of the discussion with Mr. Hong, would you be acceptable to a deferment of the decision or recommendation by this committee? Because the questions that were asked about Brilhante, for example, may have an influence upon our recommendation. But right now I’m very uncomfortable with the, with the question marks over the presentation. HONG: Well, one of the swords that’s hanging over Connections had, is that the lease at Nani Mau Gardens is going to expire, and that’s why, not like next year but in the future, and we want to get this project moving along. I think that we’ve gone beyond what is required in terms of reaching out to the community. I think these issues are pretty well known. Do I want a decision now? I don’t know that if we discuss this with Mr. Brilhante, if things will change. So what if Mr. Brilhante says no? I’m just looking at things off the top of my head. If he says no, then what does that mean to the Planning Commission? Does that mean that you guys are going to deny our application? Just for a favorable recommendation to the Land Board -? I think there are appropriate checks and balances in the process currently that should we get a favorable recommendation here would alleviate, hopefully, some of those concerns in the future regarding traffic issues. I think that the recommendations, the amended recommendations, from the Planning Director are appropriate. I think they have appropriate checks and balances. But if, you know, you feel that you need additional time to try and hold this negotiation and maybe act as a mediator or certainly as a catalyst to getting a firmer commitment from Mr. Brilhante, we welcome that. I don’t know necessarily that we need to delay this vote. And the reason why I say that is because certainly we would like to move forward. And if Mr. Brilhante at any point in time tells us that, yeah, we’ll give you an access or an easement through Puainako, we’re going to jump at that. 77 EXHIBIT A KERN: Thank you. Commissioner Gonzales. GONZALES: You know, I just want to say, too, I have to, I’m kind of leaning with what Commissioner Ono is saying here. If you’re forcing us to vote today, you might want to think about maybe postponing this and then, you know -. I’m not going to vote on maybe Mr. Brilhante will or will not give us permission, you know. So I guess if we don’t vote today or if we do vote today and we vote no, it’s dead, right, it’s over? So -. KERN: Yeah, and we should be handling this most during our discussion on how we’re feeling and what I understand, because coming from the -. GONZALES: But, yeah, I’m in agreement with Commissioner Ono that we may want to think about this. HONG: I just checked with my client and he has no, he agrees that, oh, my client would be Mr. Thatcher. But Mr. Thatcher says they don’t have a problem with postponing this to the next meeting. The only concern I have is now you’re going to have actually a different Planning Commission, only in the sense that Mr. Kern will be gone; and so we’re basically going to have to come back to you at square one. I’m hoping we don’t, but -. LEITHEAD TODD: Under our rules, what we do is we provide a transcript and all the materials to the new Commissioner. And as we have done in the past when we’ve had a change in Commissioners, they read all the materials and they have been able to do their jobs well. HONG: Okay. So with that being said then I don’t, I think that we don’t object to postponing this to the next Planning Commission meeting, so we can have a meeting as the Planning Director suggested with Mr. Brilhante. KERN: Thank you. Can I get a motion for executive session to get some legal advice? AU: Mr. Chair, I move to go into executive session. KERN: Any second? GONZALES: Second. KERN: All those in favor aye? TORIGOE: For the purpose of legal advice? KERN: Just for the record, it’s for the purpose of legal advice. Aye? COMMISSIONERS: Aye. 78 EXHIBIT A KERN: Any opposed? Okay, thank you. Everyone has got to leave the room for a minute, sorry. And then we’ll call you back in. We’re just going to consult with our attorney here for a second. It shouldn’t take very long. Thank you. EXECUTIVE SESSION – The Commission went into executive session at 3:21 p.m. and came out of executive session at 3:36 p.m. by a motion made by Commissioner Au, seconded by Commissioner Moses, and unanimously carried by a voice vote of all Commissioners in attendance. KERN: Okay, call the Windward Planning Commission meeting back to order. Thank you. Can I get the representative from Department of Water Supply to please come forward if they’re in the room, as well as the representative from Traffic. And can I get you both to raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? THIEL: Yes, I do. MCCALL: Yes. KERN: Good, very good. Let’s start with Traffic. Could you please your microphone. Commissioner Au? AU: Okay, my question to you is based off of the applicant’s traffic analysis, what is your opinion on what their findings are? THIEL: My name is Ron Thiel, Chief of the Traffic Division. I’ve had experience in traffic since 1994 and have done similar TIA’s that you are looking at here. So I understand where they’re coming from, I understand what he has done. He’s used all the same techniques that I would and procedures that I would to come up with recommendations and conclusions. The result I would say represent what’s actually out there. A lot of the problems that a lot of people have with traffic -. People like to see a Level of Service A where you have less than 10 seconds of waiting at any point, at any time. And we design roads to be as efficient as possible and will go up to a minute delay before we say that road shouldn’t be, should be mitigated for better traffic. And this report here shows that we’re well in the higher levels of service; and it represents what I would say would be an accurate representation of the conditions. KERN: So you’re saying that there will not be a major traffic impact on those two roads? THIEL: To put it in perspective, this report says that there’s approximately 3500 cars per day on that road, taken back in 2009. The information I got in 2010 the volume was 2500 cars a day, doesn’t mean that it necessarily went, goes down. You know, every time you take a count it comes up a little bit different. But we’re looking at somewhere between 2,000 to 4,000 cars per day. You’re adding 100, 150 cars a day. So in perspective you’re not really adding a lot more cars. You’re adding at the peak hour, which is a different way of looking at it but still same representation as far as presenting the scope. So it always, any development has an impact on the community; and it is generally perceived as being, going to be worse than what it actually is And when the development starts the first month or two you’ll see a higher impact than you will 79 EXHIBIT A with going, when the project smooths out afterwards and the traffic smooths out and things get down to normal. So the impact always seems to be worst right at the beginning. But we’re looking at a whole, you know, overall basis. And one of the comments I heard or, I think I heard anyway, was but there’s going to be more development in the area, there’s going to be more traffic. My pursuit in this area is to try to get as many connectors roads from Kaūmana to Puainako as possible to start reducing the through traffic in the area. We’re looking at this over in the Kona side of the Palani Street and that’s the same thing here. All these older roads, we need to get the through traffic off of -. So there’s a move afoot to try to reduce the overall traffic in the future, rather than seeing it increase in roads like this. KERN: Any more questions? Commissioner Ono? ONO: I’m not sure about my calculation over here. But whenever we talk about road improvements as developing a whole new road system like the Pauinako Extension and Mohouli Extension it’s a number of years before the time we would hear about it until the time of its development. When you’re referring to connecting, having roads on Kaūmana Drive onto -, what’s your projection in terms of your completion? THEIL: Probably similar to the buildout of this project. The project I think is a 26-year buildout. ONO: That’s right. THIEL: I would say 10 to 20 years before you would see a lot. But, you know, there’s a subdivision right now that it looks like we may get a connection through, very, very soon, which means three to five years or something. ONO: Maybe by -? THEIL: Well, I don’t know what the project is. It’s hard to second guess the developer but I would say maybe within five years you’re going to see a connection or earlier. ONO: Thank you. KERN: Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Theil? GONZALES: Question. KERN: Commissioner Gonzales. GONZALES: When we’re talking about 2500 to 3500 cars a day and you said probably going to add another 150, is that on Kaūmana Drive? Is that what we’re talking about? Cause, you know, there’s not 3500 cars a day on Edita Street. So when we’re talking about -? 80 EXHIBIT A THIEL: Kaūmana. GONZALES: Kaūmana Drive? THEIL: Yeah, that’s the main concern I heard today, was the roadway traffic on Kaūmana. GONZALES: Okay. So with the school we’re projecting to add another 150 cars? THEIL: Well, this says 100, I think it’s 108 cars, the first page -. GONZALES: All right, we can even call it 100. So that’s, the way it exists now that’s 100 cars cars more on Edita Street too, right? THIEL: That’s the first hour, that’s the peak hour. We can only look at the peak hours as being that day in the morning as being the worst conditions, that’s during, during the peak hour. So the overall is probably 200, maybe 200 cars a day compared to the 2500. So it would be 1 percent. GONZALES: Okay, and all these numbers are Kaūmana Drive we’re talking about? THEIL: Yes. GONZALES: Thank you. KERN: And any other questions for Mr. Thiel? TORIGOE: Yes. KERN: Ivan? TORIGOE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Thiel, I just wanted to ask a couple of questions about, I guess, whether you’ve looked at the conditions that were proposed regarding traffic and whether those were sufficient to meet any concerns that you have? THIEL: From what I gather, you’re talking about the green sheet? TORIGOE: Yeah, correct. THIEL: It looks like they’ve covered everything that we asked for. My, my thing that I’m trying to ask for now, that hasn’t been there in past, is asking for a traffic management plan. And in this report the traffic engineer added that to his recommendation of doing a traffic management plan, because he and I talked about this before. And I said I really want to encourage this. And what this does is it gives us the ability to come in and talk to the developer at any time, basically kind of like an annual basis, but we still can talk to him at any time if we start seeing problems out on the road. Cause we don’t want traffic backing up on the main road; and that happens a lot with the apparent pickup and drop off facilities. And that one, a side of No. 11, that’s what I think is most important; and it’s in there, and everything else. I think there 81 EXHIBIT A are four different items and they’re all apparently what we had asked for originally, meaning the Traffic Division asking for. TORIGOE: And do you feel that those conditions are going to be enforceable? THIEL: I put in a traffic management plan with the Parker School up in Waimea, the first one in the state, and I’ve been working with them and they’ve been cooperating. So I have only the track record of one; but it’s a good track record. TORIGOE: Okay. And I have not looked at the study in detail but does it consider safety issues that go beyond the immediate intersection of Edita and Kaūmana Drive? THIEL: I don’t believe so. I think it looks at the intersections of the road, you know, Edita and Kaūmana, it looks at that intersection. You’re talking about up and down Kaūmana? TORIGOE: Correct. I’m just wondering if from the Public Works’s standpoint that would be, it would be wise beyond that intersection. THIEL: It doesn’t address that. And you’re asking it if we want to require it? TORIGOE: Well, if you think that would be appropriate or wise to do that? I’m just asking because I don’t know. THIEL: I’m thinking the old road, my mind is going up and down that road right now to try to figure out what we would ask for. You know, it’s pretty much a standard road all the way through. I mean it’s an existing road, it’s a very old road. It’s pretty, it’s pretty uniformed, you know, winding road. KERN: Thank you. Commissioner Au. AU: I think Commissioner Ono was first. KERN: Oh, Commissioner Ono. ONO: I’m sorry. I have another question on Edita, on the road itself. The way it’s constructed today, would you say that the increase of traffic between 200 and 250, because I’m assuming that the school will be asking for services as well, to the residents of that street, would you say that their quality of life, it will be impacted somewhat, but negatively to a point because of the traffic increase? THIEL: Well, that portion is a newer built road, you know, in front of this facility; and we have certain standards that we require that the developer build to that is for the ultimate use of the road. I would say that it would handle any impact that they would place on it. ONO: I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear that. Did you say it’s already developed or will need to be developed? 82 EXHIBIT A THIEL: No. It has been built to current standards which addresses full development of the area. Our road standards are for the full development of the area, as far as it, the asphalt and the backfill and the substructure and things like that. And it has already been built to that when I gathered, when I looked at it. (The Chair at this time informed the public that the items regarding the Geothermal Asset Fund and Rule 12 on today’s agenda will be deferred to the next Windward Planning Commission th meeting on December 6.) KERN: Commissioner Au. AU: Thank you, Mr. Chair. What are your thoughts about a stoplight? Just try make it brief and just, you know -. What’s your thought about a stoplight? . THIEL: My thoughts about what? AU: About putting a stoplight there and if it’s appropriate, and what is the procedures and just kind of discuss about possibly putting a stoplight on Edita Steet. THIEL: You’re talking about a signal? AU: Yes. THIEL: Signalized intersection? AU: Yes. THIEL: At Edita and Kaumana, that intersection? AU: Yes. THIEL: We have certain requirements that we address called warrants. And we look at the amount of traffic in all the directions, peak hour, period of 4-hour period and 8-hour period of the day. And these volumes that see here now aren’t meeting any of those requirements. And if you put a signal in that doesn’t meet those requirements, a lot of times it causes an adverse condition and it increases, actually increases accidents if you’re trying to reduce the accidents, or increases the frustrations. So we wouldn’t be putting in a signal at this time. AU: Okay. Thank you KERN: Any other questions for Mr. Thiel? Seeing none at this time, why won’t you hang out there for a minute if you would; and we’ll move on to talk about water. Any questions? Commissioner Au. 83 EXHIBIT A AU: Yes. You know through a lot of different testimony, you know, we keep hearing about water. But, you know, I’d like to hear from a professional. You know, what their usage is, what their estimated usage is going to be. I understand based off of the revised conditions that we can provide them 4200 gallons. Can you just tell me a little about, you know, what’s going on and, you know, I guess -. It would trigger a second question – is, you know, they’re going to have water catchment? And some testifiers said that, you know, based off of water catchment and the uses of what they need they probably won’t get that. MCCALL: Okay, I’m Tim McCall, and a civil engineer with the Department of Water Supply. And, yeah, you are correct. The amount of water available to that parcel is 4,200 gallons a day. We have been in discussions about what their proposed water uses are going to be that they’re proposing to use, have a hybrid sort of system utilizing catchment and potable water. We haven’t actually received -. What we asked for was a detailed water usage calculations from a licensed engineer showing, you know, what their actual proposed water uses are, particularly between potable water and nonpotable water. Basically what we’ve said is, you know, we’ve told them that there is this 4200 gallons per day maximum limit that will also require a backflow prevention device put on the actual water meter to prevent any backflow to our system. And then also that the plumbing system between the potable water and nonpotable water are not interconnected. And so that’s basically what our requirements for them today. But so far we haven’t received those detailed water usage calculations so I can’t comment as to whether, you know, estimated demand is beyond that 4,200 gallons a day. KERN: So you wouldn’t be able to accurately say if there’s, that there would be enough water based on having catchment and with the availability of that County water there because you don’t have the information? MCCALL: Yeah, we haven’t, we haven’t gotten that calculation yet. Our water system standards, you know, cause the guidelines say, you know, for school you should estimate, you know, 60 gallons a day per student. But that’s based on your, a much broader range of water uses where basically everything on the campus is used for water, including like baseball, you know, sports deals and things like that which can use a lot of water. So that’s why when we said, you know, we’re willing to take a look at more detailed water usage calculations, you know, separating, you know, what the actual potable water demands can be for like drinking water faucets and, you know, any kind of cafeteria or anything like that, yeah. KERN: Commissioner Au? AU: So this was requested of the applicant? MCCALL: Yes. AU: And applicant hadn’t come back. And could I bring the applicant to the table and find out what’s going on with that? 84 EXHIBIT A KERN: Please answer. Mr. Hong, come forward, please. AU: Thank you, Mr. Hong. HONG: The two people that, well, Dennis Hirota is our engineer who’s handling the water issue, he had to leave because of the plane. And Ceilia Shen who is our planner, senior planner, who had talked to Mr. Hirota about that and had the information left also because she had to catch a plane. So we have those calculations. We’ve done that. And the point that we need to -. KERN: How come, how come we don’t have them? Or do we and I just hadn’t seen them? HONG: I don’t know that we, I don’t know, I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know if they submitted it or not submitted it. I guess we didn’t submit it and I’ll follow up with that. But the point I wanted to make is this is a phased in school and we’re not talking about putting 400 students the week after next on the property. So in terms of the revised recommendations, paragraph 3, oh, number 3, it does set that limit of 4,200 gallons per day and that if we need to use more then we have to come back to the Water Department regarding what our plan is going to be. So, again, we’re looking at this as a phased-in type of construction instead of, you know, just building it out completely and then everybody being on the property and not having enough water. KERN: Madam Director? LEITHEAD TODD: Yeah, basically I’m not sure if members of the public have that condition in front of them. And basically the condition as amended says that “Should the applicant utilize more than the maximum daily usage of potable water, the 4200, from the existing County 8-inch waterline, they will be required to secure or construct an additional source of potable water or limit the amount of students to the amount of potable water available.” So in, and the Commission has the opportunity to amend that. So the Commission, if they were, you know, for the sake of argument, let’s say the Commission was going to recommend a favorable approval of this, they could put a condition in there that says it has to limit the amount of students to the amount of potable water, which would put a cap of 70 students, until such time as they were able to get more water from Water Supply or provide other water. The Commission has that type of latitude. KERN: Any other questions for Mr. McCall? Commissioner Ono. ONO: Assuming that the student enrollment will be maximum that they’re anticipating and should the use of water exceed whatever they’re hoping to project, what -? I’m sure you have to install a whole new piping system. Am I correct on that? MCMCALL: Yes, that’s correct. ONO: The system that’s in place now, that’s with the projection that there are other homes that are going to be built in the area, too? 85 EXHIBIT A MCCALL: Yeah. The water availability of the 4,200 gallons a day is for that whole service area. ONO: Whole area MCCALL: Yeah, it’s based on the capacity of our well that serves that area and how much it’d be able to produce. ONO: So should the water usage exceed the capacity of the well, does it mean we have to build, dig another one? MCCALL: If their usage were to exceed what they’re estimating on, you know, we do have provisions in our rules and regulations that we can put in, the reducing devices on their service connection. And we’d also had, you know, past experiences where, you know, the project has used more water than their calculations showed. And we have worked with those types of projects with the owners that operate through the system to come up with means to reduce their usage. KERN: Okay, maybe I’m mis -. What, I guess, I’m concerned about is that we’re not going to, well, more for me, I’m not only looking at the school development, I’m also looking at the other area, people that want to build their homes. So that I’m not sure that the well, I mean the water capacity or all requests is considering the possible development of residential areas around the use of the water. MCCALL: Uh huh, and we do look at that when we determine what the water availability is in the area. We take a look at what the current water usage is, what the safe capacity of the well is and produces, and we allocate that based on the zoning of the area for development, yeah. KERN: And I could ask, when there’s a drought, how do you deal with that? Do you guys have a policy of reducing usage? MCCALL: In, especially in areas where our sources are dependent on extreme water sources like in Waimea, we have had times where we had to issue water conservation notices. KERN: I guess is this an area of concern of drought? Has there ever been? MCCALL: No. Up there it’s from a deep well source so it’s generally not affected by any kind of drought conditions. KERN: Thank you. Any other questions from any of our fellow members here? No? Okay, seeing none, gentlemen, you may have a -. Oh, Commissioner Au. AU: Is there anybody here from Waste Management? Madam Director? LEITHEAD TODD: The question? 86 EXHIBIT A AU: Well, some of the things that we have here, some of the documents show caves and waste and I saw a lot of like pollution and, you know, stuff in the caves. I don’t know, I just was thinking maybe Waste Management would have something to say. LEITHEAD TODD: For items like cave management, that would not be the County’s Waste Water Division. That would be the State Department of Health. Waste Management, Waste Water would only address if there was a sewage treatment line that was going to hook up to the County system; and the Solid Waste Division would only address rubbish and where the rubbish is taken to. But as to pollution in caves or, you know, things in the caves, that’s more a Department of Health or DLNR. Mr. Nash I see is coming up. KERN: Mr. Nash, could you please raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? NASH: Yes. KERN: Very good. Say what your name is and who you represent. NASH: My name is Paul Nash. I’m with Atlas Engineering. You all were talking about waste water from the school development, that’s right? KERN: That’s Commissioner Au. Yes? AU: Yes. And, well -. NASH: Okay, I just wanted to make sure because I was -. I heard the word and I thought, oh, wait. AU: My specific question is, you know, I was reading there’s going to be, it’s a septic system. Is that true or are we going to have cesspools there? NASH: You would have the septic systems as opposed to cesspools. Now there are, they’re also looking into other eco treatments that -. I know they built one over in Kona. There’s a company that has started trying to implement some of these. And it’s sort of a, in conjunction with their philosophy of sustainability. But a traditional way that would be allowed in Hawai‘i would be using septic systems. KERN: Thank you. Any other questions? Commissioner Ono. ONO: I need your help on this. My understanding is that with certain acreage you don’t need a septic tank. You could go ahead with a cesspool. Would this be also in effect with this program? NASH: No, that would not be in effect. It’s, you know, it’s not quite as simple as --. You have certain acres and you can use a cesspool. If you have more than 20 people who have access to it, you cannot use a cesspool. 87 EXHIBIT A KERN: Madam Director. LEITHEAD TODD: I just wanted to clarify -. You maybe remember that they’re frequently called gang cesspools. And so all of our County Parks used to have what were gang cesspools, which is a large cesspool and the bathrooms went into a cesspool. The EPA changed the rules and gang cesspools were no longer allowed. So if you have two houses served by one cesspool, that’s a gang cesspool. If you have more than 20 people flushing the toilet that becomes a gang cesspool. So all schools can no longer have a cesspool. So every school on the island that was previously served by a cesspool had to convert. Anything new, whether it’s commercial, educational, if you want to build a house and an ohana unit, you have to have either a septic system or separate cesspools. You could not have one. But in the case of something like a school, it would have to be some type of septic system, packaged treatment system. It would have to be something that would be acceptable to the Department of Health for the treatment of the volume of waste generated by the facility. KERN: Commissioner Au, did you have another question? AU: Ready to make a motion. KERN: Okay. Any other questions? Seeing one, you gentlemen may have a seat. Thank you very much. Commissioner Au. AU: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move to send a favorable recommendation to the State Land Use Commission regarding applicant Connections New Century Public Charter School (SPP 12-138). KERN: Is there a second? Seeing none, motion fails. Anybody else would like to make a motion? AU: Actually could I, I forgot to add in to my motion, to add in the condition to limit the number of students, for the allowed 4,200 gallons, to add in that condition is what I meant. KERN: Does that not exist? AU: So it would an additional condition to limit it until they, to limit it until they can, just so what our, what Madam Director was saying. KERN: Okay. Is there a second? GONZALES: Second. For the sake of discussion I’ll second the motion. KERN: Okay. Discussion? AU: Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to put a motion on the floor so us as Commissioners we could discuss it. Okay, I know we all have mixed feelings. But one thing I do want to point out is, you know, through all this testimony it seems to me there’s some kind of miscommunication 88 EXHIBIT A here. You know, and I understand that our job, this body, we need to vote on land issues. Okay, so let’s keep that in mind as we move on. You know, I made this motion because I wanted to start off the discussion. Aside from the land use thing, you know, I have to say something about the applicant. You know, somewhere across the line they haven’t been communicating well with the community. And, you know, leaders, you know, I’ve said it before, every organization is only as strong as their leaders. And I’m not saying that Mr. Thatcher is not a good leader. I’m just saying that maybe he didn’t cross his t’s or dot his i’s. Okay, so, you know, there’s somehow, there is some kind of miscommunication here. So I shall defer into that as we start a discussion. KERN: Thank you. Any other discussion? Commissioner Moses, you’re -? No? MOSES: Well, I’ll wait to hear what Commissioner Ono and Commissioner Gonzales have to say. KERN: Okay. ONO: In line with that, Mr. Hong did mention that there’s a report from his water specialist or whatever. But basically what I wanted to do was think about deferring our recommendation until after the report is formalized with this committee, and then take action thereafter. Right now I’m not very comfortable with any recommendation of, recommending approval. KERN: Commissioner Gonzales? GONZALES: Yes. I also have some very serious reservations about the water issue, for one. Right off the bat, there’s not enough water. And I guess we’re all waiting for a report or there should be a report somewhere to tell us where you’re going to get this water and how much you think you’re going to use. That’s one of my reservations. And, also, with the traffic, and I understand all these numbers and everything for Kaūmana Drive. But 200 cars in and out of Edita Street every day, that’s a lot of traffic. I mean to me that’s, there’s your safety hazard, there’s your, you know, there’s your traffic problem. Sure Kaūmana Drive can take another 150 cars, but, you know, what about Edita Street? Those are my concerns. KERN: Commissioner Moses? MOSES: Okay, with that said after listening to the testimony presentation that has been given today, which I appreciate those who took the time to spend all day here, I want to commend the students who came and spoke from their hearts about their school and how much they value it. But personally I believe that it is a critical component for any development to have its community support of it. And clearly we have listened to the consensus of the community being in opposition currently as it stands. Although the proper use of this land is being deemed yes from the Office of State Land Use and the Land of Natural Resources, my concern would still be the impact that it has on the community, the benefits that the community directly receives from 89 EXHIBIT A this development and, of course, again, it’s the support given by this community for this particular development. I would, again, like to hear, and I know that I’ve seen it in my readings of the letters that we have received is that has an alternate location been sought after that is more conducive to this proposed development? These are my concerns; and I have reservations. And if we were to take the vote today as it stands, I will not be in favor of this special permit application based upon my feelings. KERN: Commissioner Au? AU: Commissioner Moses, I feel the same way as you do. Again, you know, I made the motion cause I wanted to hear what my Fellow Commissioners had to say. You know, the public has a big, big impact of what this project is going to end up being. Okay, whether the school is built or whether it’s not, if something else is built there, the community has to want it. And the community is going to be driving by it every day. So if the community is not happy then it’s not a good thing. You know, but from a Land Use Commission, I mean, sorry, from a land use standpoint it’s very appropriate. It’s very appropriate. They go, they went through the proper channels, they did what they needed to do, what they’re required of doing; and, you know, so they have a right to get what they want. So, you know, we’re in a dilemma. But we, there’s a lot of different things that we’re looking at. Okay, community is a big thing and so is the applicant. The applicant has a right to do that. KERN: Madam Director. LEITHEAD TODD: I think what I’m hearing is that Commission is concerned that the community’s concerns over traffic and water use have not adequately been addressed, which are components of whether this is an appropriate land use on the property. If I’m hearing the discussion correctly. KERN: That’s what it looks like to me too. And that’s basically the same concerns that I have. I think Charter Schools are great. I think Connections is a great charter school. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. But the location is perplexing. Honestly, it’s Kaūmana. It’s not -. I mean like where you guys are at in Panaewa, its more central. It seems to make more sense. It’s challenging up there. I mean you guys have really done your work to try to get your ducks in the row, but it’s Kaūmana Drive. I used to live up there and that road is so small and winding; and it just doesn’t seem to have that feel to me. But that doesn’t mean that -. You know, potentially having the road connect up to Puainako, that begins to maybe change the conversation a little bit. So I’m not comfortable on it right now either. So, Commissioner Au. AU: Mr. Chair, I’d like to withdraw my motion. KERN: You okay with that? Second? 90 EXHIBIT A GONAZALES: Yeah. I seconded that. KERN: Is there any objection from any of the Commissioners? Seeing none. Okay, Commissioner Au? AU: I’m prepared to make another motion. KERN: Go ahead. AU: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move to defer this application and require the applicant to have the answers that were, that are required, and I’ll go over them right now, by next meeting, th December 6 so we can make a decision. I want them to address the water issue from what they’re required to, of the Water Department. And that’s it? KERN: And, I’ll wait till there’s a second on that. Is there a second? ONO: Yeah, I -. KERN: Are you seconding? Yes? ONO: No, yes, I’ll second. I wanted to amend it. KERN: So you seconded it? Yes? ONO: Okay, I’ll second it. KERN: Okay. Go ahead. ONO: I also wanted to have at least one neighborhood meeting with the people on Edita Street so that there can be some form of communication between where you’re at and what the residents of that area would be willing to concede, compromise on. AU: In order for me to agree to that, what would be the proper procedure for a public hearing? KERN: So, it’s not, no. I think what Commissioner Ono is asking for is the applicant to meet, have a community meeting with them to talk about it, not to do with us. AU: And have -? KERN: Try to work things out, not for us. AU: Okay, well, I’d like to add to that and have some representatives from the Planning Department be there, maybe to help out with that? Or if I request that will that trigger a like 30- day notice or-? DARROW: We’re going to check on that, Commissioner Au. 91 EXHIBIT A AU: Well, you know, my point is if we’re requesting a meeting, they’ve already had these meetings. You know, it would just be a pissing match. So we would want our -. KERN: I think it should be incumbent upon the applicant. If they want to have a meeting and try to get further consensus among the community that should be on them, I mean, in my opinion. I feel that there should be an amendment to the motion that says that they should talk to, look at the possibility of extending to Puainako Extension. That to me is a lot more potentially mitigating. GONZALES: Mr. Chairman? KERN: Yes, Commissioner Gonzales. GONZALES: Is that something Commission Ono can add to his, I mean, to his list, besides just the water? Can we have that discussion with Mr. Brilhante before we get back together? Is that -? KERN: I don’t know if we can but they could. And we could request him to come but he doesn’t have to show up. GONZALES: Okay, well, at least for me if there’s another access in and out of there, at least it’s something we can, we can build on. KERN: Commissioner Ono? ONO: Just out of curiosity, what’s the amended motion now? KERN: Right now, well, you know, Commissioner Au has to agree to it. But right now the motion is to defer with the Water Department calculations potentially if it’s accepted, with the conversation about the extension to Puainako Extension. And yours for a community meeting is still floating. ONO: But you are suggesting that mine is just a suggestion and not an amended motion? KERN: And that’s up to you -. ONO: No, that’s fine. KERN: I mean if that’s what you want to go for. ONO: I just wanted the opportunity so that the two parties can get together, at least try to iron out things. Because I’ve heard where the applicant was not communicated enough, that he didn’t go around the neighborhood. And I heard the applicant said, no, we did; and if the door, if the gate was closed and if there’s a dog there we’re not going to go in. So these may have been the 92 EXHIBIT A individuals that were not contacted and saying they were never contacted. So I just wanted to develop some kind of a means of communication again, try again kind of an attitude or approach. KERN: So you want to make that in the motion? Do you want to make that suggestion? ONO: It was just a suggestion, just a suggestion. KERN: And so if it’s acceptable to the motion that’s being made, would you amend it to request that there’s further discussion about the extension or connection to Puainako? AU: Yes, yes. So three, there would be three items. KERN: Two. AU: Two items. KERN: No community meeting required. They can do it on their own. AU: Okay. KERN: Water calculations, connection to Puainako. AU: So a discussion with Mr. Brilhante. So, Number 1, a discussion with Mr. Brilhante regarding the possible connector road to Puainako and second, water calculations that the applicant is required to give to the Water, the Department of Water. KERN: Right. thth AU: And all by our next meeting, December 7, 6? KERN: Correct. AU: So we can come to a decision on this. KERN: And that’s acceptable to Commissioner Ono who seconded it? ONO: Yes. KERN: Okay. Any other discussion? AU: Discussion would be to encourage the applicant to definitely have a meeting with the th community; and I hope that goes well, community; and, you know, come see us December 6. KERN: Commissioner Ono? ONO: Also, reminder that, please, the water report has to be formalized. Thank you. 93 EXHIBIT A KERN: Any other discussion? Seeing none, let’s take the vote. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The motion before us is to defer this until our next Windward Planning Commission meeting which will be held December 6, 2012 and that the applicant formalize water calculations to address water issues and have a meeting with the applicant and the owner of the adjacent property, Mr. Brilhante, regarding the possibility of a Puainako Street Extension. Does that sound correct? KERN: Yes. DARROW: With that we’ll take the roll call. Commissioner -. KERN: Madam Director? LEITHEAD TODD: Not a Puainako Street Extension, extension to. DARROW: Okay. LEITHEAD TODD: You know, Puainako. DARROW: So a connector. LEITHEAD TODD: Yeah, connector to Puainako. DARROW: Thank you. With that I’ll take the roll call. Commissioner Au? AU: Aye DARROW: Commissioner Ono? ONO: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Gonzales? GONZALES: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Moses? MOSES: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chairman? KERN: Aye. DARROW: The motion passes five to zero. 94 EXHIBIT A The discussion ended at 4:22 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Nomura, Secretary 95 EXHIBIT A