2017-07-06 Hearing Transcript - COH DPW USE 17-069

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TERRY: My name is Ron Terry. I'm the environmental consultant for the project. I've been working for the County on this for several years, and we've had an environmental assessment. It was attached as part of the application. And, I think, in terms of my testimony, I have very little to say unless you have questions, but I wanted to make sure that the folks that are going to be using this equipment to benefit our entire County could explain, you know, why they generated this project and how important it is to them. So, I'll seed my time to them. HENKEL: Thank you, Ron. Okay, and the Director recommended approval with conditions. Have, have you folks seen the conditions and are okay with them? Okay, yes sir, you can go next. O'CONNOR: James O'Connor, Major of Technical Services in the Hawaii Police Department. The radio system is already up and running. With the addition of the Fire Station 20 tower, it gives a lot better coverage in the Ocean View area as well as the South Kona area. Having been a captain down there, I know there's certain areas where there are no radio coverage previously which creates safety hazards for all first responders as well as for the public in general. It also allows, this tower will allow some redundancy, so if we do lose another tower in the `Ohi`a Mill area, South Kona, that the tower will be able to pick up that area, and we won't lose any radio coverage. Thank you. HENKEL: Good morning, John. DRUMMOND: John Drummond, Hawaii County Civil Defense, and I'd just like to emphasize what Major O'Connor brought up. It's, we've got areas in the South Kona and the Ka`u District with very poor radio coverage, and that's been a longstanding problem. We're trying to correct that with this tower. HENKEL: Thank you. And, the Fire Department? TODD: Battalion Chief Kazuo Todd. I run auxiliary services and directly oversee dispatch, and also work somewhat on the radio project that this is being put up as part of. So, some of the background history is we had to go to narrowband as opposed to wideband in terms of our radio transmissions. The FCC made some rules where basically, they wanted to cut up the bands a little bit to be able to have more people using them. Part of the issue is we also went to digital to compensate for the fact that we wouldn't have as much bandwidth to send our messages, and the radio reception would actually be decreased in terms of the quality. This tower is one of a, I believe, a couple that we're going to try to put up to compensate for the fact that we had to switch to narrowband. And, it is vital and crucial that it gets approved and put up. Our responders respond in less than ideal conditions often times radio -wise, and if they were to call for help or need assistance on a case because of manpower issues or, you know, something going wrong at the scene, we need that radio communication to work properly. And, because of EXHIBIT B 4