2017-06-27 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – June 27, 2017 they take care of the property – they guard against poachers and things like – they had a lot of koa up there – they didn’t want it getting logged illegally – they made sure that – they protected us until they sold the whole 550 acres out from all of the tenants on the property – when they basically closed up shop and left the island, so... Yeah, I’m quite willing to defend, you know, against noise ‘cause there are ways to do that – but that’s a fight you have to be ready for when you put a range in and it’s easier if you have neighbors that are OK with it up front. WJC: But, obviously, we can’t please everybody. JO: No. But it’s the same fight we had at Puuanahulu. And we had three sound tests that proved that noise was not going to be an issue – we would need to make one change in the direction of fire on one of the shotgun ranges and we would stay below the lowest noise threshold in the quietest place in the Waikoloa community – still they raised holy heck over there at the state legislature to try to keep us from getting funding for the EIS – so and that’s where we are with that. TL: Where’s the bill... WJC: Who is “they?” JO: Waikoloa Resort Association and the Hawaii Tourism Authority – one of the leaders of that was a Hilton executive that lives near Koko Head Range and he was adamant in his opposition and he got a lot of the vendors for the island – some of the unions for the island to sign the petition to try to prevent us from going in – and that was part of the political capital they used to stall our efforts there, so... TL: There was a bill – last year that was in front of the state legislature to preclude – if there was a gun range there – it couldn’t be shut down for noise later on. Do you know what happened to that bill? JO: It didn’t go anywhere. I don’t know what committee it died in – if it got to a committee – the committee chairs are all powerful in the state legislature so if the chair is not in favor of it, it probably won’t see the light of day, so, but I don’t know what specific committee? TL: We’ve run into that, thankfully Representative Onishi was able to make it happen to get our commission going. JO: Our funding bill actually got through the House – it went through several committee hearings. We had some very good support from our island legislators to get it there – it got crossed over into the senate and went to committee and died a silent death there. 18