2015-01-08 Hearing Transcript-GAF Puna Pono Alliance

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here for this. We can’t marginalize Hawaiians, no more, no more. That’s, that’s in the past. th That’s in the 18 century thinking in my mind. So, thank you for listening. MIYASATO: Commissioners, any questions? Thank you. PETRICCI: Aloha planner, commissioners. My name is Robert Petricci. I live at 13-430 Pohoiki Road in Puna. I was also a member of the Adler Health Study Group for the Mayor and so, we didn’t have any Hawaiians on the, on the commission and that bothered me, particularly after some of the Hawaiians came to the group at one of our hearings and asked us about that. And, that’s when we started to discuss it in detail, and I was disappointed that we weren’t able to rectify that at that point. The County claims adjuster, I think, seems to be saying that there’s no evidence of harm to the Native Hawaiian culture or psychology therefore, the County shouldn’t fund the study. And, I would think that Puna Pono—particularly after the Hawaiians were excluded from the Health Study Group—that we found that pretty disturbing actually. Disappointing really. We think that there, you know, if you alter the beliefs and theology of a people, that they’re probably are going be, or most certainly going to be some type of psychological and health impacts to that, and it’s, it’s a—we should look at it. If we’re gonna look at all of the other issues, you know, I don’t think that we should push aside the, the health concerns of the Native Hawaiian practitioners or cultural beliefs so easily as the claims adjuster appears to have done in this particular case. We have studies for birds, bees, fish, reefs, but no study for Native Hawaiian impacts from altering their belief system and their culture. I don’t think after all of the years and all the things that have happened that it’s asking too much for that. In fact, you know I think it would be discriminatory to not fund this study. Thank you. MIYASATO: Commissioners, any questions? HEAUKULANI: Yeah, I had a question. I don’t want to mispronounce your name cause that happens to me often. Petricci? PETRICCI: Petricci [Secretary’s note: “ci” pronounced “chi.”]. Petricci is okay. HEAUKULANI: Petricci, yeah all right, that’s okay. I noticed from your personal statement from the study group that you mentioned that you had written up a recommendation that was for the most part ignored? PETRICCI: Yeah, it was voted down. I couldn’t, I could only get one or—I think Tom and Laura were probably, maybe one other person, supported that, but I was outvoted on the recommendation, yeah. HEAUKULANI: What was your recommendation? PETRICCI: That we do, we do, do the study for the cultura— 11 EXHIBIT D