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

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -6 December 14, 2018 300 funded, but unfilled jobs. He suspended deposits to the fund for two years, and he cut the jobs to help fund the budget. The new legislation proposed by Commissioner Galimba will strengthen the two percent land fund by paying for a full-time staff person out of the two percent monies, who will work only on the land and maintenance fund. This will save the finance department one salary. There are a couple of language changes in the proposed legislation and I gave you a sheet with pink highlight. Sorry for the pink highlight and we wanted to say dedicated only to the administration in the provisions of this section and that this staff position and is addition to the staff provided for the Public Access and Open Space Commission. So, what you are considering today as CA -7 deletes the clause, I call it the perpetuity clause. It protects the land in perpetuity. This would also delete the potential matching funds which is really the greatest gift of the land fund. The land fund has used... 30% of the purchase prices have come from Legacy Lands and U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and why would generous donors keep helping with matching funds if these lands could be sold and the money put in the general fund? Soon after you were seated as Commissioners, Mayor Kim said he wanted to sell some of these lands because they wouldn't be cared for. That's just not true. The maintenance fund cares for these properties and government entities traditionally have memorandums of understanding to care for jointly managed lands. For example, the Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail management plan has cooperated with the County to use the two percent land funds to purchase parts of the Ala Kahakai Trail, the King's Trail around the island near Honu`apo and soon Waikapuna with a non-profit that will care for them, the Ala Kahakai Trail Association. They plan to use stewardship funds. This is a public private partnership. Right now there is approximately 16 million in the fund and this is because there is no full-time staff person to shepherd the land fund, the two percent land fund program. It is a long, lengthy program which I believe you have heard about and it takes at least a year to get it all done. And that is if you have a willing seller. But we still have 180 properties that were proposed and only 14 acquired. We propose that the department of finance will hire a full-time senior staff person to administer and manage the fund. And I gave you the proposed changes to clarify that they work only, only, only on the two percent land fund program. Comparing Hawai`i's two percent land fund program to Honolulu and Maui and Kaua`i is like comparing apples to orange, to kumquats. Our island has 4,000 square miles of land to Oahu's 600 square miles, less open space, and they have a much larger tax base for their half percent. That is appropriate for that island. Maui County's rate is one percent. Maui is just over 700 square miles and very densely populated. Kaua`i is roughly 500 square miles. Our shoreline access and lands, have been threatened by resort development where parking is now limited at Kuki`o, the Mauna Lani, the Kohanaiki and `O`oma, not at `O`oma, but at the resorts, 30 cars per day. Imagine if someone did that in Hilo at Richardsons. Page 17