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CHR. HAITSUKA: First up, we have Ms. Bett Bidleman BETT BIDLEMAN (At this time Bett Bidleman came forward to address members of the Charter Commission.) CHR. HAITSUKA: Good afternoon, Ms. Bidleman, you may proceed. MS. BIDLEMAN: Good afternoon, and thank you for having a hearing in Puna so people can come and testify. My name is Bett Bidlemn, and I'm a member of Friends of Puna's Future. I am on their board, and I am speaking on behalf of them. We are providing informal testimony today, we will send you written testimony next week, and we will appear again at your October 9, 2009 hearing in Hilo, to provide more details. To tell you a little bit about Friends of Puna's Future, we organized to support Puna in strengthening its voice in deciding its future, through public advocacy and through consensus gathering. The three issues that I would like to bring up- - -I'll tell you what the issues are, and then just generally give you a rationale why Friends of Puna's Future are interested in these. The first one regards CA -9, and that's the proposal that you have to require proceedings that are open to the public for public decision making, such as the County Council, or the Planning Commission, or the Charter Commission, that they be posted, and also posted electronically. We support that, and we hope that one comes through. What we are asking is that you add live broadcasting of these meetings, and also having videos on demand. This issue was already brought up by Margaret Wille, so we are just expressing our support for that. The second issue that we are here to support is we are requesting that the Community Development Plans, after enactment, become a part of the Charter. To further strengthen the Community Development Plans (CDP) we request a clear directive on the authority, or role of the action committees, in implementing the CDPs, similar to roles outlined regarding the Planning Commission, the Police Commission, or other Commissions, to give them the same footing. The third issue that we are here to support has actually already been brought to you by Debbie Hecht; that is how we heard about it. She is proposing that what the voters already passed, that was basically overturned by our Council, was the creation of the 2% Land Fund, where 2% of our property taxes were deposited each year. In Debbie's proposal, she talks about attracting matching funds, using this money to attract matching funds to save island land. We will provide you with greater detail of our support for that later, but basically we are supporting a proposal that has already been brought before you. On the first one, about the live broadcasting, Friends of Puna's Future would not even exist without the internet. We couldn't do what we do, if we couldn't communicate with our members that way, and if we couldn't lobby this way. I'm sure you are familiar with Puna's roads. It is very difficult for people to move around in this area. The internet is a way to keep some people off the roads, so we really support greater transparency and accountability of government by electronically posting, so people are aware of meetings being held, and taking it a step a further, and broadcasting them. I knew about these meetings, but I had not 2