MIN CHARTER 2019-01-25 (2018-2020)

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -7 January 25, 2019 mean Hamana Ventura is assigned to that but when I talk to him he is out getting cattle from Puna during the disaster, he's doing inventories for Public Works, I mean we need one person to really concentrate on the stewardship grants, on the acquisitions, the matching funds, and the administration of this fund. So, these funds have been in effect since 2006. Only 14 properties have been acquired. Another one should be acquired. Waikapuna in March and then that will be, you know that is just one more, so you have heard about dedicated money for land acquisition for other counties and it doesn't apply really. I think two other people have addressed conservation zoning does not protect land at all. I mean just think about all the hotels along the West coast here. They were all in conservation. So the perpetuity clause again you know, so all these people have fought so hard and like bulldogged this process through the County and then all of a sudden somebody can step up and say "Oh sure, let's sell O`oma back to the developer, he will do a better job at caring for it." Or, "let's sell Kahuku or let's you know, sell it to the National Park, or let's do this." And then all of a sudden we lose our matching funds. You slap the poor people that have worked so hard and poured their life, you know, their heart into these acquisitions. That just, I can't even imagine anybody, especially Mayor Kim would suggest that. And then he also said we can't take care of all of this land. We should sell some to the National Parks. We have a maintenance fund. CHR. ADAMS: Ms. Hecht if you could summarize please. MS. HECHT: Twill. Thank you. So please, please help us strengthen the land fund. Listen to all of us that are here. Listen to all the people that went and their mana`o that went into rewriting and the ah, Charter Amendment number nine. Thank you very much. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Next will be Mr. Cachola and if I could ask Ms. Withington to please come up as well. Go ahead sir. FRED CACHOLA: Proposal No. CA -7 and CA -13 in opposition and Proposal No. CA -9 in support. MR. CACHOLA: Aloha Chairman Adams, members of the Commission, I am Fred Cachola and I am very proud and privileged to speak as a kama'aina, as a Hawaiian from Kohala. Indeed, I would like to introduce another perspective of why I oppose CA -7, oppose CA -13, and support CA -9 from the Hawaiian perspective. These ancient lands were zoned by my ancestors thousands of years ago. They were zoned for specific purposes, for specific reasons. Some of those zonings were very sacred, were very special. Hawaiians call them wahi pana. Some of them gave spiritual strength and inspiration to who they were. These were people living on tiny specks of land, surrounded by thousands of miles of ocean. The whole universe was this tiny specks of land. That is all they knew and they knew very, very well that every bit of that land is what would make them survive and not just survive, that if they did it well, that they would thrive, and they did. They thrived. When Captain Cook came here he was amazed that there Page 18