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From: angelcasey04
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2025 8:13 AM
To: Council Testimony
Subject: support of Communication 159.41 to amend Bill No. 32, Draft 2
Aloha, I am Cassandra Barela, a resident of Waikoloa village and I'm testifying in support of
Communication 159.41 to amend Bill No. 32, Draft 2. I fully support this amendment for funding the
initial engineering of Waikoloa's second arterial road.
Almost every day I drive down & up Waikoloa road and seeing all the highly flammable fountain grass of
both sides of the road scares me! Once on a very windy day when they were repaving the road, I watched
a near miss occur when one of the workers was smoking a cigarette near some dry grass. Wildfires in
Waikoloa have become more frequent and more intense as climate warming has made summer drought
conditions and red flag wind conditions more extreme. During the 2023 Lahaina fire, three wildfires
burned 40,000 acres within sight of Waikoloa Village. By mere chance, the hurricane winds carried the
conflagrations away from the Village. During the evacuation ordered by the Mayor in response to the
2021 fire, residents experienced hour-long delays in traffic seeking to exit the Village on Waikoloa Road
and the Hulu emergency road. Had the fire burned into the Village, people trapped in traffic could have
died in their cars. How horrible would it be for another devastating event like the Lahaina fire to occur
when we've known the dangers AND the solution for over a decade but nothing has been remedied!
Please please please get us a second arterial access highway to save lives!!
Sincerely,
"Casey" Cassandra Barela
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