2017-01-05 Hearing Transcript - Jan Malasek GAF Claim

Home

KAY: Good morning members of the Commission. Happy New Year to you. All right, as was stated before, this is a review of a previous claim against the Geothermal Asset Fund. Requestor being Jan Malasek. I just wanted to give you kind of a brief overall idea of where the property is located. On the left hand side image here kind of zoomed out, identifies here toward the bottom is Leilani Estates. And, we've got Pahoa Town here. This area in the red batching in the middle is the Puna Geothermal Venture permit area, and the subject parcel is located in Leilani Estates as indicated by the red star. On the right hand side, we're zoomed in a little bit more, subject parcel being highlighted here in red. For reference, Leilani Estates is running generally north pardon me. Leilani Avenue is running generally north -south through the slide and Pohoiki Road is generally running east -west. So, just a brief chronology of and background as was provided in the Background Report. June 4th of 2004, Mr. Malasek filed a claim with the Planning Commission seeking $27,494 in compensation for the loss of income from orchard and farming operations over a 7 -year period due to Puna Geothermal Venture activities. On December 30th of 2004, a claims adjuster recommended that the Claimant's claim be accepted and to consider compensation within the $19,000 and $26,000 range. On July 28th of 2005, the Planning Director in his Recommendation report recommended denial of the claim for lack of evidence or documentation to support the claim and because compensation for future earnings was not a compensable claim under the Geothermal Asset Fund rules. August 5th of 2005, the Planning Commission voted on a motion to award the Claimant compensation in the amount of $25,361. The motion failed with two votes to four, and the Commission continued the matter to its September 2, 2005, meeting. On September 2nd, 2005, pursuant to its rules, the Planning Commission awarded the Claimant compensation in the amount of $7,246. It should be noted that no appeal of the Commission's decision was sought by the Claimant. In 2014, the Claimant wrote a letter to the Planning Department requesting that we revisit the claim and that's why we're here today. So, in terms of your discussion and action, the request involves a review of a claim made in 2004, which was assessed against rules in place at that time. At that time, it was Rule No. 14 regarding the Geothermal Asset Fund which allows the Commission to authorize the payment of money for the Geothermal Asset, from the Geothermal Asset Fund to claimants whom the Commission finds has been adversely impacted by activities authorized or unauthorized by Geothermal Resource Permit No. 2. EXHIBIT D 2