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

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -7 January 25, 2019 additional people that are going to come here. We need these places now. We need to save them now because later is going to be too late and that ties in with the emergency funds. We are always going to have emergencies here but we are not always going to have this land. And as far as raiding the fund, you pay it back in five years okay, and then the County gets to keep the interest that that money would have been accruing in the open space fund. Thank you. CHR. ADAMS: Thank you very much. If 1 could ask Megan Lamson Leatherman please to come to the table. Please go ahead ma'am. MANDY JOHNSON - CAMPBELL: Proposal No. CA -7 and CA -13 in opposition and Proposal No. CA -9 in support. MS. JOHNSON -CAMPBELL: Aloha, thank you all for being here. My naive is Mandy Johnson -Campbell. I am here representing myself, and my family, my children, and my future grandchildren. We would like to please implore you no on CA -7 and CA -13, and yes on CA -9. I was sitting back here listening to everyone's comments and I was looking up at our seal for the County of Hawai`i behind you, it is right behind you if you want to take a look. There is... and, 1 don't see any hotels there, I don't see any mansions, I don't... it looks you know, and then at the bottom it says Ola Na Moku, the health of the islands, or the health of the districts and the health of all of those things is contingent on open space, healthy reefs, healthy people, so this is very important and it is part of all of our jobs to make sure that these places are preserved, and the places that are being proposed to be purchased with this money are places that people are deeply passionate about. I am sure you all know that and I hope that all of you have been able to go and walk these lands that have been preserved using these monies. It is amazing. The trails, being able to walk in the footsteps of ancestors that first landed here. It is amazing and it is so important. So definitely no to reducing the fund. No to moving it to the Code so it can be cut in the budget, and I am really floored that the proposal is out there to remove the clause that protects the land in perpetuity. No selling conservation land. I would also like to take issue with Mayor Kim's suggestion to just sell places off to National Parks and I can tell you as a National Parks service employee that has been furloughed for four weeks, that is not a silver bullet and it is not always the best choice, and it doesn't mean necessarily the best for our lands here. These are... I can think of a couple of different places that would really benefit from these funds that are close to my family's heart, one right in Holualoa, that is a community gathering place and very important to the people of my community and then there is another one further up North on the coast that has been home to several families for hundreds of years. Not like 100 years, like 800 years. Their names are there with the petroglyphs. The... some of the oldest on our coastline and to lose that, to have it just privatized and so people cannot go back to these places that have been their places for many generations, is not acceptable. We Page 35