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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN COU PH 2023-08-15 (2022-2024) (RES 164-23) PUBLIC HEARING OF THE HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL Water System Improvement District for Iki Place, Kohanaiki Homesteads West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawaii August 15, 2023 CALL TO ORDER: A public hearing to consider the establishment of a Water System Improvement District for Iki Place, Kohanaiki Homesteads was called to order at 5:03 p.m. in the Council Chambers, Kailua-Kona, by Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Chair. ATTENDANCE: Present: Ms. Heather L. Kimball, Chair Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Vice Chair Ms. Cindy Evans, Member Ms. Michelle M. Galimba, Member Ms. Jenn Kagiwada, Member Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member PURPOSE OF THE Pursuant to Section 92-41, Hawaii Revised Statutes, and Sections 12-10 and HEARING: 12-27, Hawaii County Code, this public hearing is held in order for the County Council to hear testimony from the public prior to consideration of the establishment of a Water System Improvement District for Iki Place, Kohanaiki Homesteads, as proposed by Resolution No. 164-23. CHR. KIMBALL: Mr. Inaba, would you like to invite our guests from the Water Department to do their presentation? MR. INABA: Sure. If you could just please give us a quick overview, Mr. Quitoriano, of where we are for Resolution 164-23 and the plans and where we can expect some action in the coming months and years. Thank you. Hawaii County Council—Public Hearing, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii August 15, 2023 Water System Improvement District for Iki Place, Kohanaiki Homesteads (Note: At this time, Civil Engineer Ryan Quitoriano, Department of Water Supply, came forward to address the members of the Council.) MR. QUITORIANO: This project is pretty straightforward as far as construction. Currently, as you have in your documentation, is the preliminary engineering report which came out with a total project cost of about a million dollars. That money is currently being obligated with the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) loan and grant program. So they're ready to go as far as the funds. What is currently required as part of that program is a government bond. Once this public hearing ends, well, whatever testifiers there are, we can proceed with the project. We are ready to go out to bid. We have Palani Greenwell and Nancy Burns here today. They'll help us get the bidding documents ready, and we're kind of assuming within the next month or two to get that advertised and out to bid. MR. INABA: Thank you. Is there anything, Mr. Greenwell or Nancy, that you'd like to add to Mr. Quitoriano's kind of update on where we are? MR. GREENWELL (from audience): (Inaudible.) MR. INABA: Okey dokey. With that, then, we do have physical copies of the plans in the back. Those are the draft plans. MR. QUITORIANO: Correct. MR. INABA: So they are not significantly different from the preliminary plans, which were done as this whole process got started, but they are more in detail and allow residents of the proposed improvement district to see where their water lines would be running. And this project, overall, appears to be moving along as quickly and as efficiently as possible. So, with that, I think that's generally the updates that we have this evening, and welcome the public to continue reaching out even after this public hearing if there are further specific questions that either the Council or the Department of Water Supply or Finance can provide answers to. Mahalo. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Vice Chair Inaba. Okay. With that, we will move on to public testimony. So anybody wishing to make a public statement on the matter before us this evening may do so. You have three minutes. Mr. Clerk, can you begin calling our ? MR. HENRICKS: We don't have a formal list. I would just ask, if anybody is interested in testifying, to please come forward and state your name for the record and then provide your testimony. You'd have three minutes to do so. Page 2 Hawaii County Council–Public Hearing, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii August 15, 2023 Water System Improvement District for Iki Place, Kohanaiki Homesteads CHR. KIMBALL: All right, don't all leap up at once. Because we need to have it on the record, we'll need to have you sit in front of the mic, press the button, and then speak into the mic so we can record. Thank you. STATEMENTS The following individuals came forward to speak in support of the proposed water FROM THE system improvement district: PUBLIC: CHRISTY Hi, I'm Christy McCorstin. I live on Iki Place. Please let us have water. Please. MCCORSTIN: And I'm really glad that Adam is here today because I've just spotted—he's got a (See Comm. 271.31) leak and it's quite a gusher. And Adam is about 12 inches shy of the shutoff valve, so he'll have to go up to the meter to turn it off. And this is kind of what we do on a regular basis, is check all the pipes and make sure there's no leaks. And he's the lucky one today. But please let us have water. Thanks. JARINDA Jarinda Thatcher. I own Lot 5 on Iki Place, and I've been waiting for about seven THATCHER: years to build until there is water coming down Iki Place. So that's been a little bit of a hardship. Plus, we do have, like, a neighborhood hui that sends emails, and it's probably monthly I hear about a leak. And I think about all that water being lost; that's not a very good thing. So I really urge you to push this project forward and to bring water to these 18 residents. Thanks. ELIZABETH Aloha, my name is Elizabeth Theriault. I live on Iki Place with my husband, THERIAULT: Gary Theriault, for more than 20 years now. I testified at the last hearing, so I'm (See Comm. 271.37) not going to repeat myself. I pushed that three minutes. And just to keep it short andoh, gosh. Of course, I had it on my screen, and it's a repetitiveness of what I submitted with just a little addition from what I was feeling today. So we are in support and in favor of Resolution 164-23. This proposal to establish a water system improvement district for Iki Place is paramount and long overdue to bring substandard and unsafe living conditions securely forward to the multigenerational families that coexist within our neighborhood. We've had huge leaks actually, at one point, ending in a $2,000 water bill and 350,000 gallons lost that was unbeknownst to us. We usually use 6,000 a month; very modest. So that was devastating. We weren't informed in advance that was happening because it was concealed, and it took us four days and establishing many gates to discern even where it was. So this has been going on, but increasing in the last years. And we are water protectors and water conservers, so emotionally, spiritually, it was really devastating. And just thoughts that were emphasized today, and I know it's within all of our hearts too, but it cannot be from where we live. But with dramatically changing weather patterns, we are increasingly vulnerable, additionally in cases of Page 3 Hawaii County Council—Public Hearing, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii August 15, 2023 Water System Improvement District for Iki Place, Kohanaiki Homesteads emergency and wildfires. And when I witnessed one of so many things that we all witnessed, it was happening in North Kona last week in Hawi down to the golf course in Laniakea and then also in Pahala and N5'51ehu, and then of course the most devastating, not that we can quantify anything, but on Maui. We're a little road, and we have to pull over to let our neighbors go by. And to see what happened, the loss of life and property because of the one-way road, we're very vulnerable. It feels like we're very vulnerable. And so we're very grateful for your, what feels like, positive support of the project. I thank you very much for your attention to these details, and for identifying the need and acting and going forward. Thank you so much. Aloha ke akua. DEBBIE HECHT: Aloha, Council Members. Thank you for staying after. It's getting pretty late. (See Comm. 271.35) I'm sure you all want to be home, so thank you for being here. My name is Debbie Hecht, and I've lived on Iki Place for the last 14 years. I very much support this project to bring water right to our homes. Right now, our meters are up on the Mamalahoa Highway, about a little over a quarter mile. So the pressure from the meters all the way 200 feet of elevation down to our homes explodes the PVC (polyvinyl chloride) lines. And when I moved in in 2009, I spent$3,000 to replace the old PVC line that was constantly cracking with a three-quarter inch Drisco line. But even that exploded like at the seams with all the pressure that builds up to come down that far. How many people are here from the neighborhood? Yeah, we have emails going around all the time, like, "Uh-oh, there's a water leak. Somebody, got to go up; check your meters." If we're not there or something, it's like you're constantly on call to go check your meters. And then you go up and your meter's spinning and spinning, and then you turn it off and go home and you have no water. So that's kind of a regular thing. Now, we are really looking forward to having a road. I mean, it's almost I jokingly call it a one-and-a-half road country, I mean, to live on Iki Place. I mean, I love it there and I love my neighbors, so it will be really nice to have water to depend on. I sent you a bunch of pictures. I don't know if you all got them. They went to counciltestimony@hawaiicounty.gov. Okay, so you kind of see the problem too. We very much appreciate the hard work of Council Members Karen Eoff, Holeka Inaba. And Wendy Baez, their legislative aide, has been a steadfast supporter to move this project forward. Wendy, thank you. And the Department of Water Supply, to help figure out which line was broken, we could call them and somehow they always sort of rode to our rescue. Page 4 Hawaii County Council—Public Hearing, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii August 15, 2023 Water System Improvement District for Iki Place, Kohanaiki Homesteads So I personally want to thank all my neighbors who have come together to support this project. It's also brought the neighborhood together. So there is good things that come out of bad things, I guess. So mahalo. JANE THOMSON: Good evening. My name is Jane Thomson. I just wanted to let you know that I (See Comm. 271.38) wholeheartedly agree with what everybody has said, and would really appreciate this moving forward. Thank you. ADAM VAUGHN: Hello. My name is Adam Vaughn. I'm one of the newer tenants on that street. (See Comm. 271.39) When I first moved in, I fixed my leaks probably about 12 times in the first year. Luckily, I did it myself so it was not as costly but it was a lot. There was a lot. So the testimony I want to share, because I did send some in, was after I sent in that testimony, I did receive a call from the Kona water department that my water bill was high. I hadn't checked it prior to that for a few weeks, so it had slipped through the cracks, but I used 24,000 gallons and my average was about 8,000. So, that notification, I went and walked the lines and ended up finding four leaks that evening after work. Because there's so many, I have gotten into the habit of just patching them. When I first moved in, I would cut them and then seal it, like the legitimate way. But because there's so many and those patches are more cost effective, I was just patching. So I've fixed four about a week or two ago, and yeah, the only positive I could say is that I learned how to use plumbing. But yeah, it would be very helpful for me at being new to have this and to just have the road. I think that's a big part of it, too, is having—it's very rocky right by my house, specifically, and to have a road and to sustain water and not waste. So thank you. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you all for being here. Vice Chair Inaba, any closing statements before we wrap this up? MR. INABA: Just thank you all for being here this evening to share your thoughts on this project. And again, happy to talk story after this or at any time if you folks need updates. Mahalo again to the Department of Water Supply and Finance. Perhaps just giving a quick moment if there's anything from Finance that needs to be added, Director Sako? (Note: At this time, Finance Director Deanna Sako came forward to address the members of the Council.) MS. SAKO: I'm not sure how much the participants realize, but there iswe have done some math and Chris ran the numbers, and it's going to be roughly $600 a year, about$650 a year because of that USDA grant, which is really going to substantially bring down the cost. So the overall cost is $15,000 per lot that Page 5 Hawai`i County Council—Public Hearing, Kailua-Kona,Hawai`i August 15, 2023 Water System Improvement District for Iki Place, Kohanaiki Homesteads will be amortized over 35 years. So, if anyone has any questions as the process moves on, either Chris Nakano, our treasurer, or myself are happy to answer those. MR. INABA: Thank you very much, Director Sako, for joining us and providing that update. Mahalo again to you all for being here. Chair, I yield. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you, Vice Chair Inaba. With that, I will take a motion to adjourn. MR. HENRICKS: Prior to doing that, I just wanted to note that the Clerk's office will be issuing an affidavit to just show that this hearing was held and, furthermore, that we did not receive any protests from any of the owners;just to clear the path so that the next steps can be taken. CHR. KIMBALL: Thank you. And, Mr. Clerk, for the public, what is the next step following that notification of the affidavit and the—? MR. HENRICKS: There's more legislation coming forward. Water Supply has crafted a very specific time frame of events that are to come forward. So be patient. There's still more work to be done, but a lot of progress has been made. CHR. KIMBALL: Welcome to the sausage-making process. All right. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting was adjourned at 5:19 p.m. COUNTY CLERK JH/dg Page 6