2015-01-08 Hearing Transcript-PD INITIATED _GAMBLE_ SPP 1078 & SMA 408

Home

was a profound moment for us. We continue to believe that allowing community members to host a, to host that sale during the Merry Monarch Festival did not exceed the scope or intent of the approval we were given in operating our small inn. Our SMA application even referenced special occasions. It was, and it was a mention—it was also mentioned again, during the transcripts, I believe it was Commissioner Mosher that brought up, who’s the one that brought up the issue of weddings. Also, asked what about the special occasions, and then when they were drafting the weddings and the community and public meetings, they said you know, oh, special occasions, okay, special occasions and meetings and so forth, and in the end, you know, it washed out as public and community meetings. It was our understanding that, that was all sort of the same thing. We also believe that the activity of allowing the community members to have a sale during the Merry Monarch did not alter or change the essential character of the land and its present use. We also personally, John and I, used the event of the sale to sell some of our agricultural product, which is tropical plants, which is also a condition of our Use Permit. Our property itself provided more than adequate parking for both the sale that the community was having and attendees to the open house that we were having up at the Inn. Mr. Parisi’s driveway was not blocked by anyone attending our sale. I will concede that people do park in our driveway and ask for directions to Mr. Parisi’s property. There’s also a large shoulder along highway in front of our property that many use for parking. Even the County parks vehicles there and equipment. We don’t have any control over the use of that area. It’s not our property. During the sale, we had signage in place directing traffic for the sale in to the property itself. I had with me today a letter that was distributed to also from David Ackerman. He’s the owner from Glass from the Past which is an antiques and collectible sale in Honomū Town. Good friend of ours who wrote that in his opinion, the collectible sale had no negative impact on his business. I also have a letter that was submitted from Billy Perreira. He was one of the individuals who was selling during the sale, and it was actually Billy Perreira’s idea. He was the one who came to us and said I’d like to have this sale, would that be okay, to which we said yes. I hadn’t thought that we were going to address the issues regarding the streetlight and so forth, but Mr. Ikeda, since you brought it up, I thought I would go ahead and take a moment and address that for you. I have included a set of attachments for you guys. It begins with a copy of the letter from 2004, our response to the Use Permit question regarding the community college. Followed by that were John’s notes and detailed drawings of the streetlight that was to be put in place followed by a letter from the Department of Public Works, who at that time in 2000, was the entity that installs the streetlights for the County and the Highway Department. What the letter is, it’s a refund letter stating that we were being refunded our $1,700 that we paid for the streetlight to be put in place because there was, it was found that the County would not be able to install any streetlight as there were no poles located near the site that was requested. 7 EXHIBIT C