2017-10-30 Hearing Transcript - Amendments to PC Rule 9 (Joint Meeting)

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quote his response saying, "The [Joint] Commission may want to add a provision to Rule 2 in the future to clearly state that the Director may initiate amendments ...." So there is a very large legal issue here that rule change was not properly initiated; and in fact, the rule change was initiated by the Department head and not a person. This is important because procedure has to be followed correctly. We all know what happened in the TMT case with procedure not being followed correctly. What happens here is if this Planning Commission forward these rule changes, the Board of Appeals will then hear the matter on appeal, and then if they go ahead and affirm the Planning Commission, it will simply wind up in Circuit Court. So you're back to a whole legal [inaudible], so to speak, because the rules weren't being followed. And, I would further state that the rules are for the benefit of the public and for the Department, and if anybody should understand the rules, it should be the people who are writing the rules, but the rules in this case should be initiated by a member of the public and not the Department. The second reason that I'd like to talk about why this rule change should not be adopted is based upon the fact that there is no legal requirements that the County of Hawaii has to follow State law when it comes to coastal resources. It's pretty clear. Other testifiers have made that point. I don't think it's a debatable issue. I think the important thing that has to be looked at is why on the County of Hawaii do we need to keep this threshold at a 125,000. I'm no stranger to SMA permit assessments, SMAs and EAs. I processed those permits on every island in Hawaii for a movie theater business I was formerly associated with, called Wallace Theaters, on every island except Niihau, which doesn't have movie theaters. And, in that case, I had no issue in terms of the number of days it takes to get a permit. In fact, my experience with over 50 to 60 these permits on the Island of Oahu, that Hawaii County is one of the faster permitting authorities based upon the current rules, particularly compared to the County of Hawaii [sic] or Maui. But the reality here on the Big Island, when I look at all the projects, is that we don't have any infrastructure. We don't have any wide scale sewage system, public sewage system, we have of course cesspools and septic tanks. In addition, we have a lot of catchment water on the Big Island, that on the other islands they have county water. So all this infrastructure makes it that much more critical to look at planning and issues with respect to shoreline management, because those effect, affect the coastal resources, affect the ocean, which you don't have on the other islands with a larger threshold. So, it's important that we look at the County of Hawaii being fundamentally different than Oahu or Maui in terms of needing that lower threshold. And finally, the third point is that these rule changes obviously reduce the transparency on development. Today, there's nobody speaking in favor of these rule changes except the Department. I'm the sixth or seventh testifier today. There's nobody here supporting making these rules changes. What the public wants and what the public deserves is transparency, and the public also deserves input, and by raising the amount from 125 to 500 thousand dollars, you provide an opportunity for the public not to be heard on these kind of matters. So, in conclusion, for these three reasons, I believe that these rule changes should not be adopted. Thank you for your time. HENKEL: Thank you, Mr. Wallace. Any questions from Windward Commissioners? Leeward? Thank you, you may be seated. Is there anybody else signed up or that would like to EXHIBIT A 13