2014-09-10 Board of Ethics Minutes

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HAWAI‘I COUNTY BOARD OF ETHICS MINUTES – REGULAR SESSION Wednesday, September 10, 2014 10:00 a.m. to 10:47 a.m. Hawai‘i County Building 25 Aupuni Street Room 1501 Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720 Members and Staff Present: Bernard Balsis, Chair Ku Kahakalau, Vice Chair Douglass Adams, Member Arnie Henricks, Member Renee N.C. Schoen, Deputy Corporation Counsel Renee K. Lawrence, Secretary 1. CALL TO ORDER Mr. Balsis called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. 2. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS Cynthia MacDonald signed up to testify on agenda item 4a, Petition No. 2014-09. Ms. MacDonald: My name is Cynthia MacDonald and I’m a resident of Hawaiian Acres subdivision. They were planning to have a market, a farmers market. Unfortunately, the County has never followed up with any of the permitting processes so the building is not permitted. Our fire station is torn apart, there are a lot of issues that needed to be settled prior to them doing a variance to have the market. So Ms. Tita had filed a complaint. We attended the Windward Planning Commission hearings. These people were just really out of line. Not only did they take testimony prior to even giving her standing, because she did have an attorney, that’s Jamie Yamaguchi \[sic\]. So the first several hearings were just about whether or not Mrs. Yamaguchi \[sic\] could have any kind of standing. It wasn’t anything about Mrs. Tita or the issue. Once it got down to the issue they had already made a decision is what I feel, but they took testimony before they gave her standing. So we were both a little confused about what is going on here. Mr. Henkel was exceptionally out of line. He was very rude during his hearing, and he was saying that she had taken up enough time with the community, and that they need to push this permit through. But there are all these other things that need to be fixed before this variance goes through. So I don’t know where the County was 1