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people who we knew were there. Because, again, we knew, many people were not going to
<br />come to us; we had to go to them, and so we made that extra effort. And, it was really critical at
<br />this stage because it's these goals that come out of this process that are the foundation for the
<br />plans. We wanted to make sure that we heard from the maximum number of people at that stage
<br />so that we had high confidence in the goals and objectives that we established from there.
<br />I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with Ka`u, but it is really a unique and very special
<br />place. If you talk to anybody in Ka`u, you'll hear that right away. And, so they're very clear
<br />about what they love about this place and don't want to lose, and it really boils down to these
<br />three main things. There is a fundamentally, you know, just an extremely strong network of
<br />community, ohana, family, interwoven throughout the district. And, it's actually strange to even
<br />call them three different things because part of that is people's relationship with the environment
<br />here—the coastline, the mountains, the ag land. Life in Ka`u in many ways is interwoven with
<br />the place, the physical place. And, that exhibits itself in terms of a country or rural lifestyle
<br />which is quiet, which is friendly, which is extremely hospitable and generous, and people want to
<br />preserve that to the extent that they can.
<br />And, so, the Steering Committee poured through all that data and tried to capture it in this values
<br />and vision statement, and it, again, touches on some of those same themes—unique rural
<br />lifestyle, that connection between people and place, and a truly distinctive Hawaiian cultural
<br />heritage, probably more so in Ka`u then you'll probably find any other places in Hawaii
<br />anymore. And given all that, looking ahead, they do want to increase economic opportunity and
<br />that really was the highest priority for the community. But, they want to do it in a way that's
<br />appropriate for Ka`udiverse, resilient, and sustainable. They also want to protect and provide
<br />reasonable access mauka and makai as well as preserve Open space and have the appropriate
<br />facilities to support their recreational and subsistence use as associated with mauka and makai
<br />access. And, then finally, fundamentally recognize that they don't want to do any of that at the
<br />expense of family and community.
<br />So, again, I mentioned earlier the systematic approach. So, each of these key steps in the
<br />process, we stopped, and the Steering Committee made a fundamental decision. In this case,
<br />they adopted this values and vision statement to guide the work that would follow.
<br />So, the next thing we did was a community profile, and the way we engaged the community that
<br />time is through what we call the community summits. We first did a whole lot of research
<br />ourselves. Found out what we could about Ka`u through census data and natural resources
<br />information and information from NOAA and all kinds of different places, but then we brought
<br />that out to community and (a) asked them to confirm it and (b) we had, we had pukas. We had
<br />holes in our information so we had to get, learn more about it from people who knew the places
<br />and particular places really well to fill in those gaps.
<br />So, we did that in community summits and then captured all of that --the community knowledge
<br />and secondary knowledge in the community profile. And, then the Steering Committee took the
<br />community profile, combined it, findings from the community profile, combined it with the
<br />values and vision statement, and came up with the objectives.
<br />EXHIBIT A
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