MIN CHARTER 2018-12-14 (2018-2020)

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -6 December 14, 2018 knows, is extremely expensive. Millions of dollars you know are required for relatively small projects. The big thing though that is important is the fund doesn't exist in a vacuum. It complements state and federal funds that are available. It also complements private philanthropy in organizations on a large scale such as the Nature Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land, and these matching funds that are available and potential really leverage what can be done with these funds to give the people of Hawai`i Island the most bang for their buck. So, what a lot of these organizations want to see though, is they want to see local commitment and when they see that the County of Hawai`i has put money forward to protect land, they are going to be much more willing to commit money themselves. If they don't see local commitment and local interest, it has a harmful effect. The key to our credibility in a lot of these, with a lot of these groups -state, federal, and private money, is perpetual protection of land and it is extremely important that we, that the protections that are put on land are perpetual not temporary and not subject to being able to be over turned. No one is going to match funds if a deed or a purchase is made that could be rescinded later on and it is only reasonable to expect that a funder is not going to let the County have land that they can get rid of later on -sell off I do ask that you respect the will of the people. I do think there is a lot of irritation out there by the fact that this has been gone before the people of Hawaii three times and the people have spoken overwhelmingly in favor of this exact structure. Mayor Kim gave several examples of ways in which the County has protected land previously without the two percent funds. The people of Hawai`i knew all of that when they voted for this exact program and they voted for it knowing the prior history of what has gone on here. So I just say that we have to respect their wisdom and be willing to invest in a way that protects their interests and their vision of the future and I would ask you to think about where you want Hawaii Island to be in 50 years, what you want to look back on and see as our legacy that we have left to the people of the future and what that is going to look like and what this island is going to look like. So please I ask you, maintain the current program and... CHR. ADAMS: Please summarize. DOUG SENSENIG: and implement CA -9. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Harden, Ms. Harden. CORY HARDEN: Proposal No. CA -7 in opposition and Proposal No. CA -9 in support. MS. HARDEN: Yeah, good afternoon, Cory Harden speaking for myself. I am opposing CA -7 to water down the two percent land fund. I do support a few changes. One is capping or suspending the fund in case of recession or emergencies but only if there is really strong safeguards like having the fund at 10 million, requiring written justification from the finance department, and a two - Page 11