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

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Hawaii County Charter Commission -6 December 14, 2018 and from 2006 to today citizens have proposed 180 properties and we have only funded 14. It is very slow, very inefficient and we are proposing to make changes that will make it better, not worse. So now I would like to go on to supporting Communication No. 24 which is CA -9 and we support that for the following reasons. A senior staff person should be hired by the department of finance to work only on the two percent fiend and this staff person is in addition to the staff person who works with the PONC Committee. The salary shall be funded from the two percent land fund and it is a benefit to the department of finance because it will erase one staff salary since the salary does not come from their budget now, or but from the land fund instead. I wanted to point out that this is one of the taxes that is not regressive: You look at the gas tax that was recently passed and that gas tax was regressive. It punishes the people at the lowest end of the income scale to fund the roads, but this tax is not regressive. This tax takes away from the people who have largely sufficient money in order to cover the assessed property value that they are, uh, for property that they own. So this does not actually impact the County. In fact, the funds that are unexpended are not harmful in any way. They actually improve our ability to get good bonds, good bonding rating and that is another thing that the County actually needs, so having a balance in the account is not a harmful thing. So the proposed amendment which is CA -9 does not delete the perpetuity protection clause. This property or easement was acquired with money from Public Access and it should be held in perpetuity for use and enjoyment for the people of Hawai`i and it should not be sold, mortgaged, or traded in any way. I will close with that. Thank you very much. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Mr. Olson. JON OLSON: Thank you members of the commission. CHR. ADAMS: Again, you are speaking on... JON OLSON: Communication No. 21 -Proposal No. CA -7, Proposal No.CA-8, and Proposal No. CA -9, commenting. MR. OLSON: I am speaking on CA -7, CA -8, and CA -9, Communications 21, 23, and 24. Obviously 21 and 24 are joined at the hip. I have had the privilege and bane of trying to get a piece of property funded over a thirty year period, starting way before there was such a mechanism. The first thing that strikes me about this whole process is the fact that we keep comparing ourselves with the other islands. Well, guess what folks, we are nine times larger than any other island in the Archipelago so just by virtue of geography we have a larger problem to deal with and we have more assets to deal with, if you choose to look at them as assets and they are. They are assets to our visitor industry, they are assets to our community. This is not just throwing money down the pipe to see what happens. These things have been identified by the community and all elements of the community is Page 15