CHC 1979-05-22 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

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CHAIRMAN SAKATA: When you do testify before us , please restrict your Comments or your testimonies to the structural aspect of the charter that you want to be improvised in the charter. Please do not talk on personalities. We are not interested in personalities. We are interested in what the changes you people are interested in pertaining to the charter. Not on personalities. We would like to call on Mr. Confessor Riveira as our next speaker. • MR. RIVEIRA: Good evening, my name is Confessor Riveira. I represent the Farmers ' Lokahi Alliance. I have a few concerns that I would like to bring out tonight. One of the concerns is dealing with the job opportunities of minorities. An independent Affirmative Action Office should be set up from the one we have now to deal with the problems of under-represented minorities. That • i_s very important because as it stands now, a lot of people are not given a chance in life. That means job opportunities. We talk about the pursuit of happiness , the job is one of the things that every citizen should have a right to pursue. Because with jobs comes housing and so on. • Besides that, I know that throughout, not only in Kona but the Island of Hawaii , and in fact throughout the state, we have a great number of people on the welfare. We need programs to really uplift those people and get them back on their feet to become taxpaying citizens again. If we can get things going in that area, I am sure that you will uplift people ' s lives to make them better citizens and better human beings. So, that is very important that we have this office set up independently of the present system that we have now. Since I am a farmer and as you know, a few years ago we had a lot of problems because of the drought in Kona, one of the problems is water ' resources . We need more water • to deal with the ag problems , for agricultural use presently. Two or three years ago we lost. . .for three years we lost entire crops of avacado, bananas, all kinds:- of crops. We suffered in Kona and small farmers are suffering and still are. • We would like to have programs dealing with shipping and receiving. We are marketing. Programs that can really uplift in the fishing industry. We have acquaculture as one. As you all know, we are suffering from the energy crisis. Now, if we can get these things now, I 'm sure that - everybody here, expressing here tonight, everyone of us eat. Let me tell you folks something, it takes the farmers to ` `-', produce the food. So more emphasis should be made for the small farmers , particularly, throughout the State of Hawaii. So we would like to see more help in that area. • -29-