2016-07-29 BDHRA Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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INOUYE: Oh, okay. I didn’t know whether I would be out of order by doing that. DELIMA: You can talk about anything you want. INOUYE: Really? DELIMA: Yeah. You’re a citizen of our community, you took time to dress up and come to this meeting and we’re going to hear whatever you have to say. INOUYE: Alright. And I appreciate this opportunity, talking to the Chairperson, Mr. Brian DeLima, and the Vice Chairperson, Mary, and the board members, Barry, and Elmer, and Sigmund. And I appreciate this opportunity to be able to come and speak before you because, you know, I’ve lived in Reeds Bay since 1996. I purchased a sub- lease unit in our building and said that I was going to clean the building up because I was a broker on this island and I knew that means it was a sub-lease unit and it really looked like a tenement building, but it had a‒‒and I considered it a ten dollar building but with a million dollar view. Beautiful. And I said, ‘You know, it really needs cleaning up.’ And my main objective in ’96 was to do that and that’s why I assumed complete ownership of Reeds Bay in year 2002. And from then on, I’ve had a project. Then along came the senate bill that proposed that we could extend the lease, and I wish it never came up. It was a‒‒sort of a carrot in front of a horse pulling a wagon, and Reeds Bay was the wagon. We put a lot of effort thinking that we would be able to do something there, but little did I know that the plans weren’t there for us to extend our lease, same thing with Uncle Billy and Country Club. And I wish we’d have known that before I expended almost $20,000 in trying to get a lease to protect the employees and the direction we were going in. And I don’t want to take too much of your time, but I appreciate this opportunity and one thing I wanted to bring out was who’s responsible to have tourist numbers on Banyan Drive? And I think this is something that you as a planning agency must think about very seriously. Because you know, Naniloa went bankrupt one time and what was the reason for the bankrupt? They didn’t have enough occupancy in the rooms, correct? Not only that the lease was too high, when that lease went out for half a million dollars for a year, which is about $43,000 a month, my whole thought was, ‘My goodness, how are they going to fill enough rooms to pay the lease?’ Now Naniloa still has the same lease, okay. I know they have problems because they have a commitment to make in getting all their rooms ready, they’ve got some investment going in, but I’m just wondering about that. Now this brings up a question. Naniloa and Hilo Hawaiian Hotel provides what type of rooms to the public? It’s a high-end, right? They’re going after the high-end. Now, where are the economical rooms on Banyan Drive? Where are they going to be and how are we going to provide that? I went down to Kona just last we‒‒ two weeks ago to a softball tournament; I’m a softball player with the County, and I didn’t have no room but I decided to stay over because we had another game scheduled the next day because of Page 2 of 20 Banyan Drive Hawai‘i Redevelopment Agency July 28, 2016 Minutes