1999-09-08 Charter Commission Minutes

Home

HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSIONPage 7 of 45 RAY: This would be the time if you would like to. IRVINE: What about Section 5-4.3 PLANNING COMMISSIONS. It said to include the following language as one of the duties as the Commission which is similar to the Charter of the County of Maui, and that is "Act as the authority in all matters relating to the Coastal Zone Management Law." Is that what you were talking about right at the beginning? TANAKA: No, but thank you for bringing that up. We are right now going through a dilemma. It’s somewhat resolved but there were two SMA permits that have been - Well, we’re about to be vacated by Judge Ibarra, on the Kona side, and we know that at least one of them, and possibly two, as the Chairman had mentioned earlier before the meeting, that they will be remanded back to the Commission, and the main argument by the judge is that we do not have an advisory body regarding Coastal Zone Management. Virginia is going to elaborate more on that, but I think this is an issue that needs to be addressed. We have some short term resolutions that we need to figure out, and I’ll have Virginia address that. But we also need to look at the long term. Who is going to be the body that addresses the Coastal Zone Management Laws? As the Planning Commission, and the experience that I have had, we hear all of the information. When you have a contested case, the parties will bring in expert witnesses and so we have some good people testifying, giving us solid information. Under Judge Ibarra’s initial ruling, to have a separate body advise to us would be somewhat of a redundancy, we think, and possibly a waste of time and monies, so this proposal would make sense in that the Commission is having all the public hearings anyway, and if we felt that we did not have any information, we could subpeona or bring in different agencies such as the Office of State Planning and have their people come in to testify to provide input on the CZM that maybe were not addressed during the public hearing process. Virginia can elaborate a little more on that . This is a very fresh issue that we’re all trying to deal with right now. RAY: Do you want to go through any more specifics in regard to these recommendations? IRVINE: No, I think that was the one. RAY: I think he touched on adequately the terms and staggering, coming up with some dates that are more practical, and I think that’s basically it of substance. Any more questions? All right, thank you very much, Leonard. TANAKA: Thank you. RAY: That concludes our Statements from the Public. We’ll move to Agenda item VII. Unfinished Business, and we’re going to continue with the Planning discussion. So if the Planning Director, Virginia Goldstein, could come forward, and I don’t know if you want to bring anybody else forward. GOLDSTEIN: Good afternoon and thank you for allowing us the time to present some of the issues that have come before us. I have with me Russell Kokubun who is the Deputy Planning Director, and also staff Rodney Nakano and Alice Kawaha, who may be able to provide different kinds of perspectives. Rodney Nakano is the staff with the Board of Appeals. They have submitted separate testimony to you, and Alice is also with our staff to the Planning Commission and so she has a different kind of perspective, so there may be some questions that come from you that they might be able to help with. We have just handed out to you a Working Paper For Discussion and this paper brings out at least three different issues, four different issues with splitting of the file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 9-8-99.html7/1/2011