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

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -6 December 14, 2018 standing for and why. Go ask Kohanaiki, the board, who was at the first and told them hey that property is for sale you know, buy it for the people of Hawai`i. On commitment, an accusation that we are trying to delay funding of expenditures in regards to use that money by law, that can be used only for that by law, nothing else not for maintenance, not for anything else but for purchase of property, but still of suspect of trying to maneuver. I promise the people of Hawai`i even though I made a public statement why I thought that policy was not a good one in regard to budgetary consideration of good times and hard times and that is obviously on record, I have changed from that to where I am today, but that is not the point here on accusations. We established a policy and you know that if you just look at it. We established a policy because initially it was that the Mayor will have review and opportunity for change or recommendation. The policy was made that the Mayor will not have any authority over those funds. The commission of the people will make the review and the recommendation, it will pass through the Mayor originally for review and recommendations and approval, but I made a policy it goes straight to my office and then straight to the County Council for approval and come back and we pass it through to the State and that's it. We kept that promise, so any thought that this administration—any thought that this administration tampered with it or approached the commission, review the records, not one time in all of those years did I ever approach the commission to persuade them to do this or influence them on this or that. They didn't even receive a letter or a phone call from me and that is what I promised the people and that is what I promised the commission. Ask any one of them. The only time and I will admit it, that I caused a delay was during this tern. It was passed by the commission and it was a recommendation of buying that piece of property in Kapoho. I know that place like the back of my hand and I thought the value that established by the assessor was too high to use government money. So I sent it to say that I would like to have the value reassessed because I thought it was too much because most of the land I thought was covered by water most of the time anyway and that should not be added value, but it came back and it stated that the value was accurate. I didn't respond again, I passed it through. But that was the only time I caused a delay. In regards to now, yes I do support the cap all things like that to make sure they have cap on limited funds. Yes, I do support the reduction of the two percent. How much? That's for the people to decide and what you recommend because I think two percent is just too much on our limited funds. You're citizens doing a volunteer job. Of all people that wrote me letters of criticism, Kit was one of them of too many high taxes. Any politician or any person would tell you the hardest thing to do of any kind is to raise property tax. Property tax is limited. Right now it accounts for roughly 75% of our total revenues. If anyone thinks that it is of light and not much of a discussion on what to do with limited revenues and with growing expenses, it is not easy, so our job is to look at the avenue of the revenues and the budget, to establish what is priority etc. etc. and this is why I state to you what my position is now. The two percent is too high. Yes, the Page 7