2015-09-17 Leeward Exh B (SMA 15-060)

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what aloha really means, and help you understand how you can survive, if you take care of your ‘āina. If you love your ‘āina and you take care of it, it will take care of you. That is what my tūtū said. And they also said, “We ask you to do your very best and that’s all we ask.” So we ask you to help work together with the State and the County to make this project work. Thank you. KUALII: Aloha, Planning Commission. My name is Britni Kualii. I am currently an intern with Kamehameha Schools Hui Kaha Pōhaku Program that shares these spaces at Kahalu‘u Ma Kai for my education as a UH Hilo student studying environmental science, geography and anthropology. I also use Kahalu‘u Ma Kai as a spiritual space for my culture practices and observations as a kanaka maoli. I am in support of the efforts that Kamehameha Schools are facilitating to remove the remnants of the old hotel to support students, Hawaiian practitioners, and the ‘ohana of the place in education, cultural knowledge and heritage, most importantly, for our keiki and the future, as it is our kuleana to preserve this knowledge for them. I strongly believe that with the removal of the hotel in place of a cultural center will help create better spaces of learning for all, as in today’s society, especially on this coast, we see lack of cultural representation and education of how significant these places are. Kahalu‘u Ma Kai education expansion will be an example to all and how natural and cultural resources can be well preserved and conserved for use, education and Hawaiian values. The future of Kahalu‘u Ma Kai represents more opportunities for all to engage and experience, and will give opportunities to students like me to develop tools and stewardship, science and culture, as we look for more answers from our kūpuna of the place. I would like to thank Kamehameha Schools for providing places like Kahalu‘u Ma Kai for my learning experiences, and would only hope to see it expand for others to learn as well. Mahalo. PAISHON: Aloha mai Commissioners. Again, my name is Chadd Onohi Paishon. I’m the senior captain for nonprofit organization known as Na Kalai Wa‘a Moku O Keawe. Our organization has been in existence for a little over 20 years now, but it really began, and my perspective comes from the perspective of a voyaging canoe, a voyaging canoe that was built here in our community called Makali‘i. And Makali‘i has been surrounded by this community in support, and it’s been built upon relationships that have lasted from past into present, and will continue to our future. But it’s really in the sense that I sit here on behalf of our organization, again, to lend our support to Kamehameha Schools Kahalu‘u Ma Kai and their vision for this area and their hopes for the future of what this area can hold. We have brought students here to learn on specifically Hāpaiali‘i to observe the movement of the celestial bodies, to understand the connection more so of what heiau are used for, utilized for, and for the surrounding areas. But it’s no different than, in the sense of planning, than for all of our voyages that we have now. In the past at one time there was a crazy idea of creating a canoe called Hōkūle‘a, a crazy idea that this canoe was going to retrace the path of our ancestors back to Tahiti without any modern instruments, a crazy idea that these men and women that would stand aboard the deck of this canoe would be able to sail to Tahiti like our ancestors. From the one voyage, from the one crazy idea, the canoe now sits in Mauritius half way around the world. Our kūpuna were very brave people, very wise people. It’s in the same sense that their lessons for us were to be the same; wise and brave to continue to move forward in this world, understanding where we come from. It’s in the same sense that as now there is not just one voyaging canoe but 22 voyaging canoes across the Pacific. Yet the stories of voyages or heiau or ali‘i, the kuleana that we’ve all carried is not just stuffed in stories but they are constantly practiced to this day. As one of the navigators for our voyaging canoes, I urge you to support Kahalu‘u Ma Kai and their ideas and their vision. Mahalo nui. 15 EXHIBIT B