2017-05-15 Public Testimony on SMA 16-063 Contested Case

Home

which people are talking about today, immediate impacts, to the immediate area, but there are also indirect impacts. So, my husband is a school teacher, and we have families who live on catchment water and who drive an hour and half to come to school, because they are pushed south, they are pushed to places where they can afford to live. But they are inadequate. They don’t have the kind of amenities. The children need to have healthy drinking water and sanitation. And this kind of development, you have to ask who is it for? And this team, this commission, who is here to look at development for this County, who is this for? So, just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should do it. When – my children are with me, two of my youngest children – many people have come and talked about the impact to the immediate area, about the water, the cultural implications, and I’m not going to talk about those because I’m not, I’m not really prepared to. But we all know that there are more and more homeless people in this county, and there are families that are living on the edge, and they need homes. And we should be talking about not just this development, but appropriate development, appropriate development for the people of Hawai‘i, not – and, and then, we talk about appropriate redevelopment of the coastline. It’s not sustainable. The sea level is rising. The effluent is in the water. The water table is already taxed. There is a water reduction. And who is this development for? So, when you make your decision to approve this or not approve this, think about the responsibility you have to the people that live here now, please. Mahalo. JEROME KANUHA: Aloha. Hi, Simmy. Thank you for bringing me up so early. I’ve got to go pick up my grandson, because he’s my first one, yeah? I’m here representing the Kanuha family. And I listened to Aunty, whew, Aunty Lily talk, and I’m gonna talk for the guys above because they the one talking to me. I listen to everybody testify and talk about respecting the ‘āina. Here Kailua I’m so fortunate to have a beach name after my family, the Kanuha Beach, because the ahupua‘a still owned by us, we own all the way up Keōpū. My dad gave me that land, not gave me, gave me to be the respon- the kahu of that area to respect, to honor, what the ‘āina is all about. I can sit here and tell you what I did as a kid, I can tell you when I used to paddle my surfboard from Kailua to Kahalu‘u in one day. I used to – my cousins used to live in front right by Kahalu‘u, the house, the Funk’s – I used to walk on the wall. Everybody say what wall? The big, big wall, all the way out there coming front. I jump in the water, my surfboard by the rocks. That place is a special place to everybody. I understand these people are gonna build this big condominium there, but when we blame people, you blame the top people who did this, this disgrace to all of us. Kamehameha Schools, and I love them in a certain way, but despise them because my son tried to go Kamehameha School and he never go, he couldn’t go, he had tears because, I still, I remember he was trying to get in and he just wanted to go school and learn about who he was and what his family was. So, I started a foundation called Betty Kanuha Foundation. My mom at our house in Kailua where 32 people living in our house since I was 17 – right, Aunty? We eat, you come home late, you no eat. My mother was one haole. In my house she couldn’t come in the parlor because all the Hawaiians talked only in Hawaiian, she had to sit outside. She was the most powerful person, powerful person, but she always said, and my dad said, the most important thing that you can save is not the money, is the ‘āina, the land. Why we’ve got so much land in Kailua, because, you know why, we are pa‘akikī, hardhead. What happens is that all these lands that goes from Kailua down to Kahalu‘u, the corridor, is powerful lands, all of them, everything. I’ve got a piece of property right by the ocean, the little green grass with the orange cones, and people ask, “Can I come on?” and I say, “No.” It’s mine. I sit there because I enjoy the beautiful mornings, every morning, at five in the morning, drinking my coffee 14 2017-05-15 Public Testimony on SMA 16-063 Contested Case