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some of these things that people are talking about; however, I want them to understand that you can
<br />apply for a special use permit, and these things become right on the agricultural land. So that’s why
<br />some of these things are going on, and I don’t think some people understood that.
<br />
<br />We started in 2006. We came up with Bill 148, which is our existing agricultural tourism ordinance
<br />right now. To the best of my knowledge there are about eleven of those permits out here. So there
<br />are people that are trying to do agricultural tourism on a legal upstanding basis based on those rules
<br />and guidelines that is plan approval, and like I said, people can do these various thing with that.
<br />Now, we’ve gone down, and it was a great idea that not everybody fit into this large picture of Bill
<br />148, and we are trying to create something for minor agricultural tourism. And another background
<br />information is that all of this is allowed as long as you say it’s educational, you know; so any of
<br />these tours that are out there, all we have to do is say we are doing educational tours, and we can do
<br />all of this stuff. So there are things, there is the right to farm, that’s 24 hours a day we can make as
<br />much noise as we want. The current County ordinance with noise is from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m..
<br />I have put up with that next door to my residential house in the White Sands Subdivision since the
<br />day before Thanksgiving, and that includes Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, where I have
<br />a guy remodeling a house, and he doesn’t care about the rest of us, so we in residence also have to
<br />put up with that.
<br />
<br />As far as comments regarding septic tanks, ADA and things like that, that is controlled by the feds,
<br />the federal government, and right now there are laws that say that if you have so much use, you
<br />have to change over your cesspool to a septic tank, and that is required based on the number of
<br />people that come into your property everyday. So those things, I think, are already covered by the
<br />federal rules, and so I’m not sure why those are being brought up on the County level. So just so
<br />eliminate that part. And then like I said, the right to farm is 24 hours a day. Trucks on farms make
<br />more noise than a small car coming into a farm. It is a policy of those of us who deal with
<br />agricultural tourism that we always notify the neighbors; so whether that’s in there or not as a
<br />specific, we don’t have a problem with that, those people that I work with. As far as sales from the
<br />farm, retail sales have always been allowed from the farm as long as you just had a roadside stand
<br />and you did not process those products to a value-added product. And that knowledge for me was
<br />given to me by Chris Yuen who was the previous planning director, and we went through what is an
<br />allowable roadside stand, and it is literally a stand like this with no roof on it, and if I want to put
<br />that down on the side of my road, I can sell fruit off of my trees at retail. Where this came in with
<br />value-added is that we are limiting what value-added products could be sold and what proportion of
<br />those could be sold versus the farm product direct; so whether we were selling the bananas or
<br />whether we were selling banana bread. And that’s where we came from on these percentages as to
<br />what should be and what shouldn’t be.
<br />
<br />As far as the noise and the dirt and things like that, that’s farming. You farm without water, now
<br />you are going to have dirt, you are going to have dust, we are going to have noise, you know. It’s
<br />what it is. It would be nice if we all had peace and quiet, but, like I said, your next door neighbor
<br />can go get a special use permit and do a lot of more things than what’s allowed in this Bill 25.
<br />
<br />Uh, quickly, I know we are running out of time. As far as the insects and things like that, if you
<br />want to prevent those, you do that yourself. I have taken an agricultural tourism tour out at
<br />NELHA, and I’ve had to wipe my shoes down with a solution and we were not allowed in there
<br />beforehand. So if want to control that, you can control that.
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<br />EXHIBIT B
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