HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0965.055 1998-2000Statement to the Hawai'i County Council
November 2, 2000
RECEIVED
Aloha, ]' f 9 oo
County, Council ,
My name is Frederic Chaffee, and I am the Director of the W.M. Keck
Observatory whose administrative headquarters, which we fondly call our
campus, is located in Waimea just west of Church Row and just across the
street from the North Hawaii Community Hospital. I am here to express my
support for Council Elarionoff's resolution requesting that the County
Planning Director reject the plan to build a 24 -hour gas station/convenience
store immediately east of our campus.
The Keck Observatory is one of the three major employers in
Waimea, and every day roughly 75 scientists, engineers and support
personnel work at our facility to support the world's two largest telescopes
atop Mauna Kea.
Ours is a quiet, contemplative enterprise, in keeping with that of our
neighbors, and helps give this end of Waimea its unique peaceful character.
Our work continues all night as well, as data from the Keck telescopes are
transmitted from Mauna Kea to laboratories on our campus where
astronomers from all over the world come to study the Universe. After their
all -night sessions, they sleep in the 10 -unit day- sleeper accommodations on
our campus. The traffic, lights and noise associated with the proposed gas
station/convenience store would thus be detrimental to the peaceful
enterprise that goes on 24 hours a day right next door.
Nearly 3 years ago, I was one of 8 panelists in a round -table
discussion sponsored by Waimea Main Street asked to share their mana'o
about Waimea's future. I was then a relatively new Waimea resident, and I
remember having said something like "You have a unique place here;
beautiful, peaceful almost too good to be true. But it strikes me as
extremely fragile. It would take only one bad planning decision, one mis-
step to start this beautiful town down a path from which it might never
recover." I stand here today with my own words ringing in my ears. A
convenience store on Church Row feels like the first step down that path of
no return.
Two weeks ago, I met in Oakland with the Board of Directors of the
Keck Observatory and persuaded them to pledge $270,000 of Observatory
funds towards the purchase of the lot in question. We have subsequently
asked Waimea community leaders to help us find matching funds within the
community so that we can purchase the lot. We have no immediate plans to qb5 05
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expand our campus, but at least if we could purchase the lot, we could assure
that something more appropriate than a gas station/convenience store is
eventually built there.
But raising such funds will take time, and unless the construction of
the gas station/convenience store is rejected or delayed, such funds, even if
located quickly, will come too late. Once the bulldozers have begun to clear
the land, there will be no turning back.
Waimea is a fragile place. What a tragedy it would be if we were to
knowingly allow it to be damaged beyond repair.
Please support Councilman's Elarionoff's resolution.
Mahalo nui loa and aloha
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