Comm No 0024.002 - Testimony - CA-9 - staff for PONC fund and Maintenance fund

Home

Reduction of the funding assessed, and capping the total, would make the purchases of the parcels that have been proposed for protection out of the question. Your proposal would hobble the work of the volunteer PONC committee and the Finance Department with unrealistic caps of the funds that can be utilized to match with other funding agencies to purchase the parcels. Your proposal to delete the clause that protects the land from sale in perpetuity would throw into doubt any participation by the agencies with matching funds, such as the Legacy Lands Commission, the US Fish and Wildlife Service or the Trust for Public Lands. Providing funds to match under circumstances where the land could later be disposed of to fund other county activities would not make any sense. The maintenance fund is critical to the protection, support and upkeep of the lands purchased by the funds, and should not be allocated for other uses by the County Council and the Mayor. The fund should be made available to community groups and non -profits the are locally supporting, cleaning and maintaining the parcels they worked hard to obtain. The funds have been poorly administered, and are inefficiently allocated; this situation needs to improve, but making the fund subject to the whim of the council is not an improvement. We intend to support a proposal to amend the maintenance fund at your next charter commission meeting in January. The goal of Sierra Club is to strengthen the 2% Land Fund by improving the way properties are acquired and by awarding stewardship grants funded by the maintenance to help community groups to care for these lands. From 2006 to today, citizens have proposed 180 properties and only 14 have been acquired. The process has been slow and fraught with road -blocks, and we propose ways to make the process more efficient. We urge the commission not to support the proposed change (CA -7) to the Charter, and not to send it to First Reading, but instead to strengthen the provision by supporting Comm 24 CA -9. We support Comm 7.6 for the following reasons: A senior staff person shall be hired by the Department of Finance and work ONLY on the 2% Land Fund program. This staff position is in addition to the staff person who works with the Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Commission The salary shall be funded from the 2% Land Fund.This is a benefit to the Department of Finance, because it will erase one staff salary, since the salary does not come from their budget, but from the Land Fund. This proposed amendment does NOT delete the Perpetuity Protection clause: "This property (or easement) was acquired with money from the Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Preservation Fund. It shall be held in perpetuity for the use and enjoyment of the people of Hawai'i County and may not be sold, mortgaged, traded or transferred in any way." 2