2018-04-12 Hearing Transcript - Hamakua CDP

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went over the proposed changes with the Committee on February 26 of this year with an attitude that there will be no further discussion. I say this because the meeting, because this meeting, April 12', was scheduled before the Committee had a chance to review the Planning Department's changes. This is an insult to the Steering Committee who put in a lot of time away from doing other things. It is also an insult to community residents who took the time to attend these meetings and take an active part in developing the CDP. Thank you. CLARKSON: Please state your name for the record. KAYE: Good evening. I'm Springer Kaye. I'm the owner of Kaye Family Farms in Honomu. `O ka mea kupono `aina ka mea kupono kanaka. What's good for the land is good for the people. I could not be happier with this plan. The community vision, map, and policies reflect and really support all the reasons that I live and raise my family and my farm in Hamakua. I really compliment Bethany, Leana, and all the other planners for their very good work. And, I was going to ask you, Commissioners, to adopt this plan as it is, except perhaps for Glenn's very good suggestion about the "shall" versus "should." We were all a little surprised by that back in February. But, thank you very much. CLARKSON: Thank you. ROBY: Aloha. I'm Francine Roby from Ahualoa. Thank you to the Steering Committee and to the Commission for this process and the high community involvement that you created as part of the process. I'm very honored to live here during this time and be part of this process as well. I think this strengthens our democracy, which is pretty important right now. The inclusion of all the stakeholders makes for the very best possible plan and, as well as the likelihood that when you implement it, that it will be successful. So, thank you for acknowledging in particular the important role of community-based groups outside of the County structures. You call them community actions in the CDP, and these are some areas that I'd like to address. And, I speak from my personal involvement in community-based groups in three areas. The first one, which kind of seemed like a glaring omission to me, is our public libraries. As a former officer of Friends of the Honoka`a Library, and this week is National Library Week, I did a search of all the text of the CDP plan to see what does it say about our libraries, and I didn't find any mention in there, except for the use to thank the meeting room space at Laupahoehoe Library and to maybe acknowledge that that's where people could go read the CDP was in the public libraries. So our roots here, you know, in Hawaii go back 1879, and our Honoka`a Public Library just celebrated its 80th anniversary last year. So, these are critical resources here in our community for access to public information, like reading the CDP, or Internet access. The libraries aren't replaced by the Internet. They're places where people go. Many of the people in the Honoka`a Library are there to get Internet access and to talk to real live people who can give them information that enhances what they find on the Internet, plus meeting spaces, childhood development, education, activities that support parents and families, and entertainment, and increasingly as places of refuge for people that otherwise have nowhere to go in the community. You find that the librarians play a lot of social service roles now that they never had to before. EXHIBIT A 15