2015-03-19 Leeward Exh B (Amend SPP 378)

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will all collecting Unemployment, and the State will lose business revenue and taxes. So please, please let us stay there and provide what we provide for the community. Thank you. CASE: Good morning. My name is William Case. I live at 67-1243 Māmalahoa Highway. I don’t want to repeat what Susan did. I am also the co-owner of Five Mountain Fitness. I’m a Native Hawaiian, born and raised in Waimea, lived there my whole life. It has been a blessing for me to be able to give back to my community by helping people in their fitness needs, by involving myself and ourselves at Five Mountain Fitness with all these programs. I’m now the current coach at Parker School for powerlifting team, and it has been an amazing journey working with those kids, cannot even describe it, I never thought I’d be in the position to do that in my life. And if we are not allowed to stay there, all of this would go away; all of what we do for the community would just go away. And that would be a very, very sad day. I really, please, hope that we’ll be allowed to stay there, be allowed to keep our doors open, be allowed to work and give back to the community like we’ve been doing. It’s everything I wanted. Thank you. BUCHAL: Good morning. My name is Mike Buchal. I live at 62-2034 Mahua Street. I have a small agricultural operation called Bid Island Berry Farms. I fully support the amendment of Lalamilo Partners’ special use permit to include all of the diverse activities on the property. Continued operation at site with these diverse activities benefits agricultural development in Hawai‘i County. I’m a tenant of Mr. Edney’s. I lease three greenhouse spaces for developing blueberry, pohā and raspberry production. Although I’m new to terrestrial agriculture, I have extensive background in food production and business development. Between 1998 and 2007 I developed a ten-acre commercial seaweed and abalone farm at Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai‘i Authority, or NELHA. In 2014 I concluded a four-year term on the NELHA Board of Directors as the Governor’s appointee. For those of you unfamiliar with NELHA, it’s an 870-acre State-run economic development park at Keāhole. One of NELHA’s key functions and successes is that that acts as a business incubator. When I saw Mr. Edney’s property, it reminded me of the business model at NELHA. I sought a lease from Mr. Edney specifically because of many activities occurring on the property. The diversified activities on the site are good for me as an agricultural producer and good for a larger community for two reasons: 1) Development of value-added products from agricultural production is a priority of the Hawai‘i Department of Agriculture and USDA; as an agricultural producer, on-site access to a commercial kitchen and tenants producing honey, ice cream, butter, baked goods, provides excellent opportunities to explore developing value-added products; on-site access to refrigeration is an asset for cooling storage of my perishable product; the co-located assets of Mr. Edney’s property aid my small business and benefit the local economy; 2) Mr. Edney provides a necessary economic service within the community that allows prospective agricultural producers to locate and try new things; at NELHA the master plan includes a small portion of retail, commercial anchor businesses to provide cash flow and infrastructure; this allows leasing of property, higher risk projects and lower revenue projects to grow and diversify the economy. Mr. Edney is largely following the same development model. The gym and other activities consume a small footprint, provide cash flow, and it allows Mr. Edney flexibility when negotiating lease terms on the rest of the acreage to small agricultural ventures. Mr. Edney’s approaches benefit me and other agricultural producers on site, and therefore, he has benefitted Hawai‘i County. It will be a detriment to dismantle this small-scale economic development area. I have two other comments. First, some of the tenants of Mr. Edney’s property may have no alternative location. Limited availability and high-cost of locations for some types of tenants is an obstacle to them locating in our community, and it should be considered in favor of amending Mr. Edney’s special use permit. Two, irrational for opposition to the gym by Mr. Edney’s neighbors is 7 EXHIBIT B