Comm No 0005.01 - GMAC Legislative HIstory - Sept 14 2018

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Transcript of Bill 260 from the June 19, 2012, Council meeting: » Bill 260 initiates an amendment to the Hawaii County Charter, 2010, by amending Articles 6, Chapter 9, by creating a new section relating to a game management advisory commission. Creates a game management advisory commission consisting of nine members who shall be appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council. This commission shall advise county, state, and federal agencies on matters relating to the preservation of subsistence hunting and fishing as well as protecting traditional and cultural gathering rights and also it sets forth other criteria. Introduced by Mr. Yagong, first reading June 6th, 2012. » Thank you. Vice Chair Pilago. » Thank you, Chair Yagong. Motion to approve Bill 260 at second of three readings. » Second. » Second, second by Ms. Ford. Discussion? Here in Kona, go ahead, Ms. Ford. » Thank you. I'm going to make some just generic comments about this. First of all I support this resolu...this bill. I support it. We do need a game management advisory commission and I want to for the public's benefit, I want to explain why it's going to have hunters, fishermen, and gatherers on this commission and not scientists. The scientists are supposed to be represented by DLNR. There are scientists that work for DLNR and that provide input to DLNR. And just for the record, I'm not against science. I was a biology major for a long time. And I'm also, I'll comment on the fact that I'm an environmentalist, a conservationist, and preservationist. So I take some exception to some of the things that have been said today. But with all of that the one thing that has not really been addressed here is that our mountains, all five mountains, anything below the mountain peaks, has to be a multifunctional situation. And by that I mean they have to serve, all of our land has to serve many people with different agendas. We cannot just say only the hunters or only the environmentalists. We have to share this island. With that said, and I do believe in fencing some areas and that there are areas that are inappropriate to have animals. However in this particular bill, 260, the game management advisory commission, our hunters have been left out of the process. My family hunts. Both sides of my family, both sides, my husband's family, have been hunters for a generation. I grew up eating venison in case some of you missed my last discussion. I believe in hunting and I believe that the hunters know more about hunting than anybody else. And I think that it's part of the culture here, the native culture. And also the nonnative culture. So I will support this game commission. I expect this commission to provide rules and suggestions to DLNR on how we ought to do this a whole lot better than we've been doing it. And I think these men and women will be able to do that. Whether or not DLNR is willing to listen to our commission is another issue and it's pretty sad that we're going through this. Let me just say that one of the testifiers commented on Bill 260 and 261 that Mr. Bill Aila (sp?) of, the head of DLNR, contacted the mayor in some fashion. I don't know if it was email or telephone or physically or satellite or ESP, I have no idea what the thing was. And I wanted to find out if that was correct, that the state was actually contacting our mayor and asking the mayor per the testimony to veto these bills. Because I find that offensive. I got, I had my staff get in touch with Bobby Command. He said he can't find anyone in the mayor's office to make a statement. The mayor is in a meeting and not available. And there is no one available to confirm the statement that was made. I had my 15