Laserfiche WebLink
CHR. HAITSUKA: Thank you, Ms. Clarkson. Mr. Michael Reimer. Good morning, <br />Mr. Reimer. <br />MICHAEL REIMER <br />(At this time Michael Reimer, came forward to address members of the Charter Commission.) <br />MR. REIMER: Good morning, distinguished Commission members. Thank you for the <br />opportunity to testify. Today, I will talk about the Land Fund. I notice that the <br />Commission seems to have placed itself in the position of the great compromiser; hoping <br />to keep the Land Fund going, and yet trying to adhere to the Mayor's concern about a <br />balanced budget. I can extend that and say now I see you as a great budget compromiser <br />too. I don't think really that's a role that you want to move into. The Land Fund is an <br />interesting thing in that it was based on percentages. Percentages, of course, move up <br />and down with the amount of revenues present. I know that a balanced budget, in the <br />minds of any administration, would be to have available to spend at least as much money <br />this year, or more than you did in the previous years. But, as we can see now, that is not <br />always the case. I would like to make a suggestion to you on the land fund. I do not <br />believe 2% is excessive, but I wish you would be able to write this Charter amendment so <br />that it would give the voters a choice - -it would take some clever wordsmithing, but I'm <br />sure you can do it, or Ms. Hecht would be glad to help you with it - -to be able to allow the <br />voter to choose if they want to maintain the 2 %, or let it regress to 0.5 %. The voters did <br />vote on it once, I think give them another opportunity to do so. Thank you so much for <br />your time. <br />CHR. HAITSUKA: Thank you, sir. Mr. Doug Perrine. Good morning, sir. <br />DOUG PERRINE <br />(At this time Doug Perrine, came forward to address members of the Charter Commission.) <br />MR. PERRINE: Aloha. Ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to remind you that <br />when you vote on CA -15, you will be making two very important and critical choices <br />regarding the future of this island. One is the very type of government we have here. <br />Will it be an oligarchy where decisions are made by a small group of powerful people? <br />Or, will it be a democracy? This is in question already, because the last two voter <br />initiatives were, after a very short time, effectively overturned by people in power. By <br />forwarding CA -15, you will allow the people, democratically, to decide how their tax <br />dollars are spent, rather than leaving that decision to a small group of powerful people. <br />The second issue, of course, is what is going to be the future of our most precious, <br />beautiful, valuable lands on this island. I and perhaps some of the other people here <br />believe is the most beautiful piece of land in the entire world. We have seen, in the short <br />period of time that the 2% funding mechanism has been in place for the land fund, that <br />amount of money is totally inadequate to buy even the lands on the highest priority list; <br />0.5% is going to allow us to purchase almost nothing. With 2% we will get a little bit. <br />Some people will say we don't have that much money. That is ridiculous; it's 2% of the <br />