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

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -6 December 14, 2018 something that, is something that is worth preserving. It is just as simple as that. Yeah, it is going to cost some money. I would without much hesitation say that it certainly if you talk to the visitor industry about it, they are not going to say anything bad about it. Our biggest attraction is a huge open space and now is a much larger hole in the ground, Kilauea. When Kilauea was not open we lost nine percent of our visitors. Some numbers of hundreds of millions of dollars did not come in our direction according to the analysis of Howard Dicus on good old NPR. A period of time, we have been working again 30 years, there is a piece of property we are into the third generation of the owners and it is now coming up on the market. They are willing to sell. They knew that earlier generations were not. They contacted us. We didn't contact them. You will be hearing about it. But it is an asset that is out there in Puna, we have lost some others yes, but there are others to be gained. The professionalism is certainly an issue and in the, certainly in the early days when we first started out on the level of professionalism, the period it took to educate the people who were put in the position is how they would manage, get things done, phone calls not returned, offices not opened, these all impact the success that you are going to have and the willingness of people to do business with you. There has to be consistency. And consistency of course is what government is supposed to do best. And having these lands in public trust gives everyone the assurance that when I show up with my grandkids they are going to be there. Thank you for your time. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. I would like to invite Debbie Hecht and Ms. Wille up to the table please. DEBBIE HECHT: Proposal No. CA -7 in opposition and Proposal No. CA -9 in support. MS. HECHT: Good afternoon Commissioners. My name is Debbie Hecht and I have been the campaign coordinator for the two percent land fund since 2005. That is almost 15 years we have been revisiting the land fund and each time it was on the ballot 63% of people voted in favor. I will be commenting on two issues today, opposing CA -7 which guts the fund and 1 support the new proposed CA -9. Thank you for Commissioner Galimba to bring it forward. The Save Our Lands Citizen's Committee is working on an amendment to strengthen the maintenance fund for your February meeting. CA -7 reduces the two percent land fund to three quarters percent which would be about 1.5 million dollars per year, and caps the fund. It moves the maintenance fund which provides money to community groups in the County to maintain these lands. It is proposed to put the maintenance fund into the County Code where the Mayor and Council can stop deposits to the fund just like Mayor Kenoi did as his first piece of legislation in 2006. Did you know that the land fund only really receives 1.5 percent of the total income stream of the County of Hawaii. I have run my own business for 40 years and I can cut one percent of my budget in five minutes. Let us remember that in 2006 when Billy Kenoi did inherit Mayor Kim's budget, there were over Page 16