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Again, I see our island as anything like the pilot project par -excellence. When I was writing
<br />this, 1 started going and looking ---I tried to follow the wording and types of things that are
<br />being used nationally right now. From pandemic disease, illness, earthquakes, volcanic
<br />eruptions, hurricanes, landslides --in fact our County and State consider landslides a really big
<br />one --food shortages for whatever reasons, drought, surge flooding, tsunami, wildfires, air
<br />pollution, the vog--they consider vog an ongoing disaster --widespread water and soil
<br />contamination, and any other widespread disaster risk, which could even be invasive species
<br />or whatever. Again, trying to look at things, not just horizontally, like the Federal
<br />government, the State and the County, but try to look at coordination with community
<br />organizations and how does one work ---I mean if all of a sudden, right now, there was an
<br />announcement --and this was in the newspaper today --this volcano went. We would have two
<br />hours. What do you all think about right now? You have two hours before they figure the
<br />lava hits this hotel, hits the sea. One response might be, I'm going to go get my kids, they're
<br />in school. Well, that's the wrong answer in terms of reading everything. You are then tying
<br />up all the traffic to go get the kids to go to where you are going. Like Hawai`i Preparatory
<br />Academy says, you don't get your kids. We won't let you in, do not come here. We will
<br />take care of your kids. Well, if you don't know that, if you haven't thought about that as a
<br />community, or on whatever level, and that little coordination, your fist instinct is, go get your
<br />kids. So, I'm just throwing these things out, and I realize there might be other places for this
<br />kind of statement, but regardless of whether money is coming from the State, or not, I
<br />encourage you --to whatever extent you're willing to do so --to put something in the Charter.
<br />1 wanted to mention while during the break, 1 went and looked up grants. There are a whole
<br />slew that are about to come in for communities for 2010 dealing with resilience. Anyone,
<br />Big Island, applies. How can we miss with all the risks that we have. it all involves what is
<br />your risk assessment, and what are your assets. 1 just sort of looked at Waimea and what are
<br />our assets and what are our assets if this pandemic hits. They are worried that it's going to
<br />mutate and that it will be more severe, and they don't have the ventilators. Welt, Waimea
<br />has them for little Waimea, but what happens when everybody comes from Kona or
<br />someplace? One last thing on that is that there is a letter, dated September 10, 2009, from
<br />State Representative Robert Herkes to the new person, that I believe is going to be the
<br />Chairperson of the Ka`a Community Development Plan Steering Community. I didn't have
<br />time to copy this, but basically two of the key points that he is encouraging that Community
<br />Development Plan (CDP) to look at is, one, in terms of disaster preparedness --and he
<br />mentions that there was a bill proposed last year, but nothing really came of it --and
<br />encouraging them to be looking at this issue. One of the responsibilities would be to develop
<br />natural disaster impact zones on all islands. However, those measures were stalled in the
<br />State Senate and have not been able to agree with us. But anyways, encouraging them the
<br />importance of this and identifying and developing natural disaster plans, especially down
<br />there, and encouraging them to address that. He also gets into the issue of all of these
<br />developments that are quickly being moved through and getting approval, and being wary
<br />about those and looking at ---He states in his letter, "The recent announcement about the
<br />proposed development of 16,400 acres of land Ka'a, makai of the highway and adjoining
<br />Hawaiian Ocean View estates troubles me".
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