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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022_01_18 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes Game Management Advisory Commission County of Hawai’i Draft Minutes Meeting Date: January 18, 2022 Time: 6:00 – 8:00 pm Place: Mayor’s Hilo Office Conference Room 1. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL (6:00 pm) AA: Good evening. Welcome to January 18’s GMAC meeting. Barbara is not here tonight – she’s on a vacation so I will be doing roll call at this time.  District 1 – Stanley Mendes – excused  District 2 – Kean Umeda – in person  District 3 – Thon Leomana Turalde - Zoom  District 4 – Brian Ley – in person  District 5 – Abraham Antonio – in person  District 6 – Grayson Hashida – excused  District 7 – Vacant  District 8 – Cortney Okumura - Zoom  District 9 – George Donev – Zoom Quorum established with six in attendance. Need at least five. Staff: Dalilah Schlueter, Deputy Corporation Counsel, Zoom Barett Otani, Executive Assistant to Mayor Roth, in-person 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: November 16 and December 14, 2021 Action: C. Okumura motioned to approve the November 16, 2021 minutes. Seconded by K. Umeda. Motion passed unanimously by voice vote. Action: K. Umeda motioned to approve the December 14, 2021 minutes. Seconded by G. Donev. Motion carried unanimously by voice vote. 3. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS AA. At this time is there any statements from the public on tonight’s agenda items? 1 4. PRESENTATIONS: a. Peter Simmons, Land Management and Forestry consultant for the Hawai’i Forest Industry Association will speak on the process of converting Conservation lands into recreational and commercial forestry purposes. AA: First presentation Mr. Peter Simmons, Land Management Forestry Consultant for Hawaii Forestry Industry Association. So Mr. Simmons, would you like to give us a brief introduction on yourself since you missed out last time and you can begin your presentation… PS: Aloha everyone, I’m Peter Simmons and thanks for having me again. My land management experience is all in Hawaii. I managed McCandless Ranch for about 5 years or so and that’s a 66,000-acre ranch in South Kona, and during that period I oversaw the hunting program which was – I think was Steve Arrington and then brother Nobriga later on in my time – were running the hunting – mostly big game, I mean show game, you know, looking for trophy but it was good income for the ranch. One thing I didn’t start but I thought it was good thing they did there was whenever a sheep was taken – we always took a blood sample and sent it in for – to look for parasites. It wasn’t very expensive at that time and it just seemed like a good thing to do if you’re managing your animals. We had – was it the Kirk Russell Fall Classic – him and Goldie Hahn and a bunch of celebrities came to Hawaii and they cowboys at the ranch did a particularly did a great job with all the celebrities and built a hale for them down at Kūkiʻo. Got paid good money for it and then came home – we got all of the materials – so it was good. Ah, I moved on to Kamehameha Schools – I was given the opportunity to look over the – all the ranch lands, all the forest lands, I guess the mountain tops and then later on large orchards and then later on I became the District Manager, I’m sorry, what did we call – Director. Bob Lindsey was my boss most of the time at Kamehameha Schools and I credit him with all the things we did together. He was an awesome leader and a great guy to have as a mentor, even though he was a little younger than me. I retired from Kamehameha about 11 years ago – just personally I’ve always been in the outdoors in some way whether it was, you know, doing forestry stuff or hunting or just being out there. But one thing I wanted to bring up and this is part of the history too but, and this is the – Duane Keaanaaina – I don’t know if any of you folks knew Duane, but Duane passed away over Christmas, I didn’t know that until last time I was here – terrific guy – great hunting advocate – great hunter – but he and I started the Big Kahauloa Hunting Club over in Kona above the Honaunau Forest. It was his idea – he came in – I used to manage that land as part of the McCandless Ranch lease – it was about 23,000 acres and so if you imagine what – where Honaunau Forest is and you just imagine the landscape above that – that was the area. He came in with the idea of creating a hunting club and I had been doing some research on hunting clubs and though it would be good idea to try 2 and I guess with his passing I corrected my thoughts about it – I talked to Robbie Hind a couple of days ago – Robbie was an early member there – and asked him how’s it going cause I hadn’t checked in in a while and he said it’s been really great – they got sixty local families all engaged in hunting but mostly I think they go, according to Robbie, they go up and they teach the kids about what it’s like to be outdoors, what it’s like to be up on that mountain – it’s bow hunting only – they just felt like it wouldn’t have been fair to the sheep and they didn’t have enough sheep coming through to have rifles involved. But mainly here’s a 23,000-acre lease made by Kamehameha Schools, actually, I think it was a license – and there are some differences here – sorry – it may have been a license to start but a 23,000-acre area entrusted to – at that time – 50 local families and the weight was on all of us to see if this would actually produce good results on the land. Well, what do you mean by good results, you know, the education part is really important, it didn’t turn into a – it just turned into a really good wholesome family hunting club and there’s no reason there can’t be more of them. Later on – DS: Is everybody having audio issues? I can hear everyone except what’s happening in the Mayor’s Office. Looks like they’re working on it… BO: OK. You should be able to hear now. Checking… Good? Hello? AA: Yeah, yeah, you get four thumbs up. PS: Again, this is Peter Simmons and I was telling you a little history. I was never very good with computers so… So that’s the best part of it – but I was the guy that was responsible for buying the Hamakua Sugar Company out of bankruptcy. I’ve been involved with Forestry with Tommy Crabb and others who – just as a volunteer – and I learned a great deal from Tommy. He was with the C. Brewer Bioenergy project – back in the day – anyway, I just started penciling out what price Kamehameha could afford that land that was in bankruptcy and going, you know… Anyway, it turned out that we were able to purchase that land based on putting it into cattle ranching and forestry and it paid for itself in the first six years. That was OK. It wasn’t a real high bar – it was $700.00 an acre. The reason I even mention this is – well two things – one because of the early success that we saw evolving with the hunting club over in Kona we thought we would try one in Hamakua too and we did – I can’t remember who I was working with – I think – can’t recall – but it flopped in the second year and I was very disappointed in that but it made sense too because the guys in Kona they charge each family $500.00 a year for insurance and road work and maintenance and so forth and they built a cabin and that wasn’t part of what was gonna happen in Hamakua and so it wasn’t the same formula – it wouldn’t work everywhere – so \[unclear\] with that and so I just had a long history of managing land in Hawaii. I’ve had really good opportunities to learn even if I didn’t learn all of what I should have – and that’s what got me started on this waiwi problem - I was happily retired. I was promoting forestry as a thing to do and working in my shop and whatnot – but when I – ten years late now – I retired 11 years ago – so that’s when the 3 EA came out for – in all the, you know, testimony and so forth came out of where the waiwi – I missed all that – I don’t know I guess I was busy getting retired. But when I read it – two years ago – my hair went on fire. I mean I’ve been working in that area – I know what waiwi looks like just like you, you know, but when I saw what it was like looking at the waiwi problem in layers – that layer directly above sugar – it’s solid – and then it starts thinning out, it starts thinning out – when you saw the number of acres involved that is what put my hair on fire. I thought, God, we’ve got to find, there’s got to be a way – now I ran into, you know, the reason for the EA, you know, was to spread the insects in the gall – well, I called Tracey Johnson and said, well, how’s it going? And he said, oh, it’s going great – you wouldn’t believe, you know, and he was telling me all this stuff – well, how, what do you mean it’s going great. He said, well, it’s moving at almost 100 yards a year – a 100 meters a year, sorry. And I thought, a 100 meters a year and you’ve got a problem that’s 1.1 million acres – that’s a long time. And so I started questioning what could be done to hasten that and that’s what got me involved in the waiwi problem or this issue but I think more important and this I didn’t – I’m embarrassed to tell you – and there’s a lot of other people in my position and others that didn’t realize the difference between the Conservation R lands and the Conservation T lands. Everybody knows the Conservation T lands but when I looked at the top of where sugar was that looked like the end zone of where I could be active in terms of managing those lands directly because of all of the hoops – I’m sorry this mask keeps falling down… AA: Yeah, hold on. Dalilah – I got a question from the public. Is it OK for him to remove his mask because I guess it’s – he sounds kind of muffled to some of you public – I not sure… DS: Based on the COVID rules if he’s gonna remove his mask you should be distanced six feet away from him, however, I know that some different things going on with council – so since you’ve got the room – that’s the best way to stay compliant. AA: Excellent. PS: I apologize. Sorry about that. They were looking for reasons to get moved away from me anyway. Anyway, so, what I didn’t understand, didn’t realize and I really believe a lot of other people don’t realize is what those lands that are above sugar – those are Conservation R lands – and that’s not the only Conservation R lands and Don went through a map or two with you last time to take a look at it – but they overlay the strawberry guava problem pretty well and when I looked at it further I saw that those lands were designated in 1962 to be used for recreation and commercial forestry – that just – I was shocked. So all of a sudden I’m looking at land that was, formerly just kind of the end of the road and don’t go up there unless you want to go hunt or something and I realized – no – I started reading, well, what was the intent there? Why were all those acres set aside for that purpose? And, you know, if you look at it – at that time multi- purpose management on large landscapes was the way to go – in that era. But these 4 also were lands that were going to be more available to the people, cultural resources, hunting resources, land resources, and I’m not one to say, that those lands specifically should only be used for this or that and the other I’m just telling us as I’ve discovered this that here’s this asset right in front of us that we didn’t know was there and, yeah, there’s issues, don’t get me wrong – there’s plenty issues in terms of managing directly – but even getting permits and so forth – I don’t want to diminish that – but there it is and they’re not trivial. I started looking at the USGS Soils Maps – the new ones – they’re online – I’m not really good with my computer but I could stumble around and see, but those – I could see what those lands look like, I mean, I’ve been there but not – it’s hard to get through that waiwi – it’s hard to go in there. You look at them from a soils perspective and see what soil productivity index is there and what other – you know there’s hundreds and hundreds of waterfalls, of course, but I’m imagining the cultural sites are plentiful as well – that’s a terrific, terrific resource that we haven’t accounted for – at least I haven’t accounted for. I know when I brought it up to other land managers and other regents that we’d always kind of looked at those Conservation lands as one do-not-go kind of place. And so that’s what made me really want to get together with this group and with others – the cattlemen included. I just think it’s a great public opportunity that needs to be explored more and I’m not saying the road – to getting even access is easy – I’m not saying that the government has money – all I can tell you is that I’ve seen what 60 local families can do on 23,000 acres of land – pretty impressive. So, if these are truly meant to be the lands of the people – well – we’re wrecking ‘em by neglect – and that’s not right – and, so, yes, I would have come here regardless, ah, just as myself – but I am a part of the Forest Industry Association and those lands, like I said, were set aside for commercial forestry as well as recreation. It seems like we have something in common – that we want to work on to improve and so that’s what brought me here and that’s kind of the end of that for now. Oh, I could say this too, I, I, you know I consider myself of a - somewhat knowledgeable. But this is all – this is very new. These lands are new – how to manage them is new – how to do it properly and productively, creatively – we haven’t done this and so it would be a mistake to look at, you know, me as the guy that’s had anything but experience and a passion, but that’s why to me it’s an all-in kind of discussion and the opportunities are really large for the community and, I just hate to see them diminishing. So that’s, oh, the waiwi – whether we all said, you know what, you know, we’re not gonna, we don’t want that bug up here but we’re gonna manage that place – hey, I’d be a happy guy – it would be expensive – there’s a tool that’s out there that we know may have a use – but we’ll discover other tools – but the main thing is my goodness – here’s a landscape that’s been set aside – now what are we gonna do with it? That’s a discussion I’d like to engage in overtime and get smarter about those lands and smarter about the laws and, understand how one could handle – like we’ve seen and you’ve seen agricultural, you’ve seen farmers clearing the land with heavy equipment and tools and they seem to be able to keep the waiwi out – so it’s not impossible but we just can’t turn our back on those lands and they climb up and abut the Conservation P lands – good – you know, it’s all one place and if they’re better managed and we have better control of what’s going on there – I think this would be – that would be very beneficial everywhere – it’s on all 5 the islands – I just happen to know this island better than I know the others. Anyway, that’s – that’s that and if I could take just one little bit to give an update on the feral and wild animal – mammal issue – when I first talked to the group here it was moving target – I felt like I lit a match and fuse came by and, you know, this seems to be a pretty good interest in controlling feral and wild animals on all the islands and I had mentioned David Tarnas having taken an interest in that and that he is looking – I’m not saying I know – he’s looking to create some legislation this year with other people. He’s looking for suggestions, um, I’m not real close to David, I like him, but I’m not, you know, like tell – I just know him – but I do know that he is interested in getting recommendations and the Cattlemen’s Association is interested in being a part of this and I hope that this group will take its opportunity to be a part of it as well, so that’s, you know, it’s a way bigger deal than me – I was just – I just found out about it early and brought it to your guys’ attention. So thank you. AA: Thanks, Peter. Any questions or comments from Commissioners or the public at this time? BL: Brian Ley - District 4. Basically, I guess, is what would you like to see us do? I know we would like to manage the land and stuff like that but, I mean, what is your vision of GMAC doing to help you get to where you want to get? PS: If there were – Peter Simmons – just thinking out loud – but if there was a committee of interested people from this group I can see if there’s a committee of interested people or group of people from the Cattleman and HFIA to see if we want to start figuring out just what you’re saying – I think it’s in a pretty early stage – we might as well – and finding out, you know, the realities of those lands, ah, I think we’re still finding out so that’s… BL: \[Unclear\] Department of Forestry would let us get away with and stuff like that too. PS: I think, well, we have Ian Cole on the…here BL: Yeah… PS: ….line here and, you know, so far as I know then that opposed to making proposals but mainly I’d like to see the Legislature say, yeah, that’s what we intended – those lands are supposed to be used for recreation and forestry. Now – what are your suggestion? How can we do that and we know DOFAW doesn’t have the money and the resources to do that so we have to be more creative, and maybe they will come along and help us – we don’t know – but to start off I think that we get to know each other – work with each other – find ways to back up hunting and forestry together – that’s not a big ask – and pursue this together. That’s my desire, I guess. AA: Any other questions or comments from the public? 6 NP: I do – Nani here… AA: Hi, Nani. NP: Hi everybody. Thank you Peter Simmons for coming again to talk to us, you’ve been the most approachable and friendly – appreciate that you would like to return public lands to the people – that’s awesome – I have a couple questions – has anybody researched into whether native honey creepers feed on the strawberry guava blossom and, if anybody done any research as to how the biocontrol diminishing the strawberry guava will affect our wild game resources as far as our pig, , I’d like to know if any research has been done on those things and another question is – how will you then control the secondary invasives of Himalayan Raspberry and Clidemia, I’ll end those questions there. PS: OK, Peter Simmons. I happen to have – I took a look at the EA again today and, but, I see JB is on the line here and Ian too and I’m sure they know better than me but I believe I read that it was the – our native birds are not dependent on the waiwi but I stand to be corrected on that but one thing I would like that I would ask that instead of it being gee how are you going to control Clidemia and Himalayan Yellow Berry and on and on and on. What I would like is for us to say how are we going to do it – how are we gonna do it – because there’s a big prize out there if we can figure it out and there’s nobody thinking that it should be done in a day – but look we all, I believe, it should be done if those lands need help and so where to start. Where’s the least disruptive place that we can start to learn the most? And, at this time we, HFIA has a grant from the Honua Ola to look at some methods of controlling strawberry guava both mechanically, the heavy equipment – the three different techniques with heavy equipment – as well as looking at aerial means – as developing the tool box – not to go running out and do all those things you might be thinking about – and that’s where I believe that making this a collective action that invites the creativity of the entire community, it would be a great benefit and not to go faster than we should go but to make some progress as can be done. NP: Yeah, well, um, excuse me – well, my question was – was there any investment into scientific research into whether the native honey creepers – that being that the blossom is very similar to the Ohia, would feed on strawberry guava or is that just an assumption that they don’t? PS: That’s beyond – I don’t want to answer because I just don’t know 100% on that one. I think it’s an important question. NP: Yeah, being that the Ohia are so, diminished. 7 PS: Yeah, I mean, in the same area it is – sorry – Peter Simmons here again. In that same area that we’re talking about – at least in the most infected areas – I mean, it is a – it’s not only strawberry guava that’s a problem, I mean, it’s mosquitos, it’s fruit flies, it’s fire ants – all of the above – this is probably the land that Division of Forestry and their – properly so – just said they don’t have enough money to manage it and it’s in the worst shape so they didn’t. And, at least at the lower elevations – as it goes up the mountain well it thins out and so I guess the best examples we have are in agricultural areas but I don’t believe the bird studies have been done. NP: Thank you. PS: Someone else should say that… AA: OK. Thank you, Nani. NP: Well I have one more question. Also the same thing with our pigs being that the DLNR is held responsible to manage game and support hunters with game resources – if there’s been any research in how it’ll affect the pig populations as far as starvation with the biocontrol on the strawberry guava. Has there been any scientific research into that – in the protection of our game resources? PS: Not to my knowledge – but I’m not the right one to ask. NP: Thank you, thank you, but thank you… AA: Abraham – District 5. So when you guys did the - you guys back in the beginning of your talk, where did you guys take you guys samples from the sheep or game that you guys collected… PS: Where did we take the blood from? AA: Yeah, no, not where you – where did you take the blood to? PS: Oh, oh, - there’s a lab on the mainland. I’d just send ‘em off and they’d send back a report. AA: Oh, right on. Can you get that… PS: I think Tim Richards was helping us on it – that’s my memory. That’s a while ago, though. AA: So the Big Kahauloa Club – was that sixty… PS: Sixty families… 8 AA: So there was – that was also down on McCandless Ranch? PS: It was formerly – it was leased land to McCandless Ranch when I was managing McCandless Ranch so there was this 23,000-acre piece above Honaunau forest and when I would ranch it every year I could see, you know, what the cattle had done to the area and I felt like it needed a rest. And so when Duane came in with this idea I got kind of excited about it and I thought well… AA: So basically, sorry, Abraham – District 5. So basically my question is was there any public areas that they did that, you know, your guys kind of worked with the club. PS: Ah… No. This was for the club exactly where this particular part of the lease was but in Honaunau forest there’s always been hunting allowed at certain times of the year by everyone. AA: So that was more like a public forest? PS: Yeah, that particular, yeah, yeah. And, you know, in the old days, wow, the hunters and the cattlemen they got along great, so… But, anyway, that’s another story… AA: Now it is… Now it’s a lot different. Ian or JB do you guys have any comments to help out Peter Simmons or any ideas that we can help him move along? JBF: Sure, this is JB Friday… Good evening – and Peter and I – I mean I’ve been talking with \[unclear\] by about this as well. I think it’s great to try to get some of these lands into some productive thing and, again, and I agree with what he said, you know, DLNR prioritizes conservation lands that are way mauka in the lands or not – one note to Nani – creepers are pretty much stuck at 4,000 feet and above and the strawberry guava goes up to about 3,000-foot elevation. You know it’s creeping up higher but they’re pretty much in different places so, I mean, anything you do to knock back strawberry guava isn’t going to affect the honey creepers cause they’re not even there anymore, some exceptions on it and I could find some research on that, but, yeah, I think it’s a good idea to find some sort of useful things, and, again, if you had some sort of thing that was producing money and you could use some of that money into managing the land that would be really helpful because again, DLNR does not have, you know, they pick their special areas to manage but the amount of money they can put in per acre – especially in those areas right mauka of the sugar cane lands – they don’t have the funding to do the management and it is indeed going downhill so I agree with him on that. AA: Yeah, Abraham – District 5. There’s a lot of neglected areas. So, Ian, what is the rules or maybe protocol, laws that – is there anything that restricts – let’s say a club that goes and cleans up like a few acre parcel of waiwi or any other invasive or just go in and clean up an area in the forest reserves? 9 IC: No, you just have to talk to Jay who’s the forester to make a proposal. I mean, I would start small – you’re gonna figure out real quick how hard it is if you don’t have mechanical means or, you know, I mean – it’s – the reason we don’t do it is because it’s a lot, a lot of work – we don’t have that much money or resources but any proposal that’s preventive could be accepted, I mean, it’s perfectly logical to talk but, depending on the scale you’re talking about you just have to pick it… AA: Yeah, just pick an area and go to work but first have to submit a proposal and a plan to… IC: Yeah, you have to probably get a permit, I mean, that would be the simplest way to start a test plot is just to get a permit for the activities you want to do. AA: Would you still need like an EA statement or anything like that? IC: A what, an EA statement? AA: Yeah… IC: No. Especially if it’s just like control of invasive species there’s no negative impact. AA: There you go Peter… PS: You got your dozer ready? AA: \[Unclear\] bringing any dozers – I think that’s a whole different ball game there, buddy. PS: Oh, no, Ian said it was gonna be hard and I know it’s gonna be hard. AA: \[Unclear\] everything by hand \[unclear\] without the mechanical means and, yeah, that’s gonna be hard. NP: (Nani) I have just one more comment. I have a large parcel of land and it’s primarily all Ohia and strawberry guava and I have a lot of honey creepers – that I hear their songs – so I know they’re there – just saying. AA: Thanks, Nani… Thanks Mr. Simmons. Let’s still work together on this but at least now we kinda got a better idea. You know, we had Ian that kind of brought up a starting process pretty much, and, ah, Mr. Friday gave us a little more information too. PS: Maybe a conversation with Jay would be a good place for us to start. AA: Yeah, maybe we can hook something up with him and schedule something… 10 PS: OK. b. Virginia Beck, Legislature Public Access Room Coordinator, will give a review of the Legislative process. AA: Miss Virginia Beck… She’s with the public access room. She’s actually the coordinator – she’ll give us a review of the legislative process so Miss Virginia Beck – welcome… VB: Hi, thanks for having me here. Let me go ahead and share my screen and I’ve got a PowerPoint. Thanks for inviting me. I just want to talk a little bit about what happens at the Legislature and how you can participate and, um, you know, first thing I want you to know is there is an office called the Public Access Room at the State Capitol and we were created by the Legislature just to help people participate. So if you wanted to find out if there were any bills about “hunting” for example, you could call our office and we’d be happy to help you search for that. But we are non-partisan – we don’t take a stance on any issue and all of our services are free of charge. As you may have heard the capitol is closed to the public right now so all of our communication is by email or phone or Zoom, but when the building is open you’re welcome to use our office as your own and we do lots of workshops and tutorials and whatnot and you would think that every single state in the country would have an office like the Public Access Room – cause it makes sense, for government to work we need people involved and for people to be involved they need to know what’s going on – have an office - it turns out only Alaska and Hawaii have full service offices like this. So at the Legislature we’ve got 76 legislators that are making decisions on what should be the laws for the state and, so they’re bicameral 25 Senators, 51 House of Representatives and the State Constitution rd says you’re gonna start on the 3 Wednesday in January at 10:00a – have a new regular session. And, will – so that’s gonna be tomorrow and we’ll go until May 5 – they’ve scheduled – 60 days where they actually convene in Chambers and that takes us to May 5. That’s why they call this a part-time legislature but your legislators are available all year round – they’re just in session part of the year and that’s when they’re making the laws – deciding on which bills should become law. And we’ve got a legislative calendar that gets put out that has all of the deadlines that we get – that we have to pay attention to during session and it’s really important to know that calendar because if your bill doesn’t make a deadline then it dies. So you need to look at where your bill is in the process and what day it is. So you can always find the calendar in the upper left hand corner of the Legislature’s website, which is capital.hawaii.gov. You can just Google Hawaii State Legislature and you’ll find it right away. It’s a great website – it’s been voted as one of the better websites for legislation. If you’ve got a bill number, you just put it up here and click on Go and find out everything that there is to know about a bill. So usually we have a big opening day party and they open the building and have pupus and whatnot – but because of COVID – no – we’re not gonna do that. They’re gonna get right to work. And what they’re going to be doing at the first few days of session is introducing bills so, from – they’ve already started pre-filing bills and they’re going to continue to introduce bills until Wednesday, January 26. And they’ll probably 11 file a couple thousand bills in that time. Now there’s a lot of duplication, but still – it’s a lot of bills. So when a bill is introduced it gets a bill number – so either and HB if it’s a House Bill or SB if it’s a Senate Bill – and the bill title can never change and it has to reflect the content of the bill – the bill, if it has a purpose section you’re gonna see it right up front – then you’re gonna get into the guts of the bill, maybe changing the Hawaii Revised Statutes, that kind of thing – then at the very end, um, when the law should take effect. So a lot has to happen for a bill to become a law. It’s going to be referred to some committees and it needs to pass through those committees in the order specified and it’s during that committee process that we have hearings – that’s why we’ve got a disembodied ear up here – because they actually hear from the public on whether or not it’s a good idea. At the same time – it’s going to have to have three votes on the floor of the House and the Senate. So the way this will work is they’ll have a vote on the floor – have it go to a committee and if it survives that it’ll come back to the floor – maybe go to another committee – it varies how many committees they get referred to – come back to the floor for a third time and then cross over and do it in the other chamber. And then we’ve got to make sure that they agree on the exact wording of the bill – then we’ll then go off to the governor who will sign it into law, allow it to become law without signature or if the governor vetoes there’s a mechanism for over- riding the veto. So that’s a lot that has to happen for a bill to become a law. Ninety percent of them are going to die because of deadlines. Most of them will die in committee – they’ll either not be heard or they’ll be heard in held or deferred. So the first reading is no big deal – what you’re going to see starting tomorrow are bills that have been introduced and first reading and then what you’re going to – say I’ve identified a couple of hunting bills I’m interested in – I’m going to look at those bills – the status page – to see if they’ve received their committee referrals and as soon as you find out which committees the bill is going to go through you want to talk to the chair of that committee or the chair’s office to ask for a public hearing – if you want the bill to go forward. If you don’t want the bill to go forward, you’ll ask them not to hear the bill – tell them it’s not even worth discussing and you’ll want to move quickly because these deadlines come up really fast and the chair has the power to schedule a bill for a hearing or not. And if he’s got say – Water Land – and he’s got, you know, six different bills on the same subject – he may just pick one bill to be heard and the other five will die. So if you are wanting a bill to go forward and the chair is not in favor of it – what you’ll probably want to do is lobby the other members of the committee because, as I said, they’ll die in committee if they don’t get heard. So one of the things you’ll want to do after you’ve identified some bills that you’re interested in is sign up for hearing notices so that you will get an email every time a hearing is scheduled on bills you’re interested in. So capital.hawaii.gov, again, that’s the website and actually on the website if you click on links you’ll find the Public Access Room here and the reason I point that out is we’ve got something called Engagement 101 or you can find it up here under Engage and that’s where you can find out how to register on the website – how to sign up for hearing notices – submit testimony – set up a tracking list – all kinds of things. So you can either watch videos or read hand-outs – whatever works best for you. So you sign in and you’ll click on hearing notification and then you just put in one after the other any 12 bill that you want to make sure that you get a hearing notice on – if it comes up for a hearing. If it’s not scheduled, you won’t get an email. You may also want to sign up by committee – so say Water Land or maybe some – the environment groups of committees – you may want to sign up for those. So that you’ll just receive emails every time they schedule a hearing – you can browse through the agenda and see if there’s anything on there that you want to offer testimony on. And it’s not a very pretty looking email in your inbox – it’s just got some links in there – you open it up and there’s the hearing notice and at the end will be instructions on offering testimony. Now, if a hearing is taking place you can watch the hearing on You Tube and you can also watch the floor sessions on You Tube – but hearings – if there’s an upcoming hearing you want to watch – you just click on hearing and then go over here to appropriate You Tube link and you can watch it. If it’s already gone by – so say it was last week there was a hearing and I wish I’d seen it – I don’t know what happened – just click on the Live and On Demand video button and then you’ll come to the channels and you can select the proceedings that you’re interested in. So if your bill does get scheduled for a public hearing, of course, then what you want to do is testify and, ah, so testimony is a formal piece of communication that becomes part of the public record. It’s going to be posted on the website and if you offer oral testimony it’s gonna be preserved on You Tube, um, in regard to your position on a piece of legislation. So you want to make sure it has the bill number, your name, whether you’re for or against it – you want that to be right up front and center and then why – where are you coming from? Are you an expert in the field? If so, that’s great. You don’t need to be – you may be coming from your own experience as a hunter, you may be coming from your own experience as a hiker, you want to use your own words and keep it short – if you can keep it to a page that’s really ideal. So then you’ll use the web form to submit your testimony - if you’ve – you can type up your testimony ahead of time and then come to the website and sign in – when you sign in the buttons turn orange – that are the interactive buttons – you’ll click on testimony – put in a bill number, up comes this form and it’ll have your name – if you’re going to testify on Zoom you want to make that your name matches your Zoom identity cause that’s how they’re going to be letting you in the room. Whether you support or oppose the legislation as an individual or this time as a representative of an organization and then whether you’re submitting the testimony – just written testimony – that’s all I want to do – I don’t want to go on Zoom or whether you also want the opportunity to offer oral testimony and then you can just choose your file or to upload your file to this form and then your file name will appear right here. Now if you don’t feel like typing up your testimony ahead of time – that’s fine – what you can do instead is type your comments into the testimony comments’ box so either you upload a file or you use the comments box. There’s quite a bit of room in the comments box so whatever you find easier and then you’ll submit and once you submit your testimony on your testimony page will be a green box that shows that you have submitted testimony for that hearing and if you request – and if you’re just doing written testimony you’ll be all done. But if you’re also requesting Zoom you’ll see a Zoom Requested notation – then what happens is a few hours before the hearing that’s going to morph into a Join Button. So on the day of the hearing – what you’ll do is sign into the Legislator’s website, you’ll click on the 13 Testimony Button, click on Join, keep your Chat Pail open – you’re gonna stay muted and your microphone off till it’s your turn – and then when they call on you you’re gonna say “Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee” I’m here in strong support of, you know, SB 452 and you want to be courteous, respectful, professional – even if it drives you crazy – you may know more than the legislators do about a particular issue – but your job is to teach them and persuade them. So, and you might get nervous but you want to remember to breath and tell the truth – don’t exaggerate and all that kind of stuff. Now, what will happen at the end of the hearing is sometimes they will take votes on the bills that they’ve heard during the – on the agenda – at the end of the hearing. Sometimes, they’ll defer action until another day – so it happens both ways. Who gets to decide whether, you know, when they’re going, if they’re going to take a vote – if the Chair of the committee – and the Chair also decides whether they’re going to vote on the bill exactly as it is or the bill with changes or if after hearing the testimony the Chair says we’re going to defer this bill – we’re gonna hold it – in which case your bill will die in committee because it’ll miss those deadlines coming up. This is what a bill status page looks like so on the Home Page if I put in SB 756 – this is what would have come up and you’ll notice that the bill number is kind of wonky – it’s got these other numbers after it. Every time a bill gets changed it gets a new draft number and so the most recent draft of the bill is always going to be at the top of the page – you can either use the PDF or this HTML and if you want to see a previous version you can come over to the right hand side – you can look at committee reports that accompany any bills moving out of committee – and those committee reports will summarize any changes that the committee made and then, of course, you’ve got the testimony – that will posted that people have submitted – just a PDF file with one piece of testimony after the other. And then everything that ever happens to a bill is reflected on its bill status sheet so passed first reading, got referred, scheduled a public hearing, they decided to wait, then they passed it with changes and on it goes. So after a committee hearing or two bills can be referred to just one committee, 2 committees, 3 committees, two committees meeting together and then third committee, um, it really varies and the Public Access Room has a great handout on what deadlines apply to my bill based on how many committee referrals it’s received. You’ll find that on our website. So after it’s been to a hearing it comes back to the floor for another vote by the full Chamber – says it’s a House bill – then the 51 members will vote on whether they like the bill – in the state that it’s in – so if it’s gotten changed they’ll be looking at the changed bill and if they pass it by a majority it goes forward and sometimes you may want to advocate the entire Chamber and you may want to talk to your own legislators, you may want to get people to talk to their own legislators or you may want to canvas the entire Chamber and the Public Access Room is here to help if you do want to do that. And then if your bill passes that second reading you get to do it all over again. You would go to the next committee on your referral sheet – ask the Chair for a hearing – if you get a hearing offer testimony and you just do that as necessary, you’ll have to come back to the floor when you’ve gotten through all of the committees to have the third reading or vote and you’ve got to do – have that vote by the crossover deadline which this year is March 10. So by March 10 we should know – there should be probably about 75% of the bills will 14 not make it to this point so only about 25% make it this far and then it gets to go through the same process in the other Chamber. So now the Senate has certain committees and the House has certain committees – they get to decide what, this one has Judiciary, this one has Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, so you’ll get different referrals in the other Chamber and you’ll have to go through the three readings or votes on the floor of the Chamber and successfully make it through all of the committees that you’re referred to. And then we’ve got to make sure that it matches – that what the House has passed matches what the Senate has passed and quite frequently, usually I would say, they don’t match. It’s gotten changed while it was away in the second Chamber so what they do is they go into this process called “Conference” where members are selected in each Chamber to get together and talk about that piece of legislation that’s made it this far and see if they can’t figure out what the final version of the bill should be and at this time there’s not public testimony but you can certainly lobby or advocate the members of the conference committees – you’ll probably also want to advocate to your own legislator – strange things happen during conference – your bill may be affected by another bill that has nothing to do with it because of things that they’re talking about and then, if they’ve come up with a final version of the bill, it’s got to be voted on by both the House and the Senate before the end of session, which this year is May 5 – so we want to make sure that when the bill goes off to the governor – every single legislator has had an opportunity to vote on that final version of the bill. And then you’re not quite done – you get to go to the governor and on his website you’ll see there’s a place to offer your opinion on ending legislation and governor has deadlines that take him into July before he has to decide whether he vetoes, signs, or allows bills to become law. So it takes a little while before we know what all the laws are as the result of the session. If you had an idea for a bill and you made it through in one session you would be pretty ecstatic – it usually takes a few years just because it takes educating – if you can get a hearing that’s a tremendous step forward and we would encourage you not to give up – to get ready for the next year’s session – we’re in the second year of what is a two-year session – so this year they’re going to also be considering – if they want to they can pull up any bill from last year’s session that didn’t pass out of the legislature but then after this year’s session they’re going to have elections and so we’ll start afresh in 2023. I just want to mention – almost done here – I just want to mention finding bills because usually this is what people are doing right now is they’re saying “what bills are in the offer?” And so there are two ways to find bills – the first way is on the Legislature’s Home Page to just use the Keyword Search and what that will do is it will search through the body of all of the bills that are in the hopper as well as their descriptions as well as their bill titles and all that good stuff and you get these results that are a little hard to decipher because it’s hard to know exactly what the bill is about so you have to go in and out of the status sheets to find out what the bills are about. You can narrow things down on the right had side like if I was looking for electric vehicles – I can narrow it down we got things on finding bills that way. Another way to find bills and the way I usually go is I use this Reports Enlists Button, which is where a lot of information is hidden and there – under that Reports Enlist Button there’s this subject search – but before we go to that I just want to note – you 15 can also find all of the house bills introduced and all of the senate bills introduced and you can just find them and they’ll list them one after the other with descriptions of each of the bills – you can do a Control F for Find and search for different bills that way or you can come down here to subject search and it will search not the content of the bill but it will search through the bill titles, the keywords and the description, which is often enough and then you can always do the Control F if you want to refine it further. And Public Access Room – we’re here for you so please don’t be a stranger – we’d be happy to help you we love our jobs – Keanu and I are here year round. We’ve got a woman, Ashley, working with us this session so we’re just ready for your phone calls and on our website – I’ve mentioned the Engagement 101 but there’s a lot more information. Under Current Legislature that’s where you’ll find which deadlines apply to my bill and that kind of thing as well lists of all the committees and all that kind of stuff and you can subscribe to our newsletter on that site – but mostly I want to say don’t hesitate to call or email us because we’ll be happy to help save you some time, some frustration, it can be a little bit wild, you know, session start but it really goes at quite a pace so, , please don’t waste your time trying to figure it out – go ahead and call or email the Public Access Room and we’ll be happy to help. So that’s all I’ve got and, oh, we’ve got a You Tube page, and Facebook and Twitter so please follow us on social media. AA: Perfect, thanks Virginia. Any public comments or questions from the commissioners? Public for Virginia… VB: You’re still awake but that’s a good sign. BL: Virginia, Brian Ley – District 4. Is there any truth to that the legislators are only allowed to introduce so many bills this session? VB: Yeah, there, there is. The senators can introduce an unlimited amount of bills but the house members are restricted – I think it’s ten bills each member – but then the chairs get to introduce additional bills and then there are some caucuses where they’ve been approved as like the Keiki Caucus or Kupuna Caucus where they’re been approved to introduce a bill package with a number of pieces of legislation there, of course, speaker and president go ahead and introduce any they want, um, the other thing is that they’ll have – so this week they can go ahead and introduce as many of their bills as they want per day. But next week they start doing a limited number of bills per day that they can introduce just to keep the administration of the whole thing together. But, yeah, there are limits on the house members. BL: OK. Thank you. I’ve heard rumors about it I wanted to double check. Thank you. VB: Yeah, yeah… 16 AA: Abraham – District 5. So Virginia, when is a good time to actually start talking to your legislators and house members? Before we’ve – I think just about everyone we talk to is saying we’re late, we’re late… VB: Yeah, well, usually what we say if you’ve got an idea for a new piece of legislation to try to get to them before Thanksgiving, um, so really, you know, and we’re gonna be in session till May 5 so during that summer time and the beginning of fall that’s really when the legislators don’t have – they’re not as busy – they’ve got time to focus – the research agencies have time to draft the legislation, but, yeah, it is, it is very late, , they’ve got only until January 26 to introduce bills so if you came to them with a brilliant idea tomorrow they may have a limit on, you know, they may already have reached their limit, number one and then if they don’t have a limit or if they do have room they’ve got to turn to the research agency to actually put it into bill format and there’s, you know, depending on how complicated the bill is that could take some time. AA: OK. Thanks, yes. We brought you in today because we have our own legislative committee that we needed help on so, um, our chair for that committee – he’s not here today so we have the other committee members that – we’re all rookies – so thanks for all your information. We can all talk story when it comes to the Legislative Committee’s section so if you like hang out for a bit then if more questions come up at that time maybe you can answer it for us. VB: Yeah. NP: This is Nani from the public. We had a bill when I was still a member of – a commissioner – in 2019 and it made it through the senate all the way and it was about to go to the house and then COVID interrupted it and then it got shut down and then somehow it got neglected to be reintroduced in 2021, so we got it to be reintroduced this year and my question is – since it has that history where it did make it all the way through the senate would that make a difference to legislators in their decision to support it or not? VB: Well, it could. Because they could look at that and know that at least it was vetted by the senate at the time, ah, so it certainly gives it some credence I would think, yeah, it was really disappointing when COVID hit and so much legislation just got dropped and then the following year it didn’t all get picked up so you’ll see some legislation this year picking up some of that dropped – some of those dropped balls, yeah. NP: Thank you. VB: Yeah, and if you are interested in a particular bill, um, you know, it’s helpful if you can say, oh, it was SB 254 in 2019 is exactly what I’d like to see introduced, you know, that makes their job much easier. 17 NP: Thank you. 5. OLD BUSINESS: a. Update on the County GMAC letter requesting the County Planning Department to pursue the development of the Kaupakuea public access into the Hilo Forest Reserve. LT: Aloha. Leomana – District – 3. I didn’t get a response from them – I tried to call this afternoon right before this meeting – it was already too late. I also sent an email to the PlanningDepartment@hawaiicounty.gov just asking for a general update. For my personal emails I don’t know if they would recognize me based off my personal email so I guess we’re just gonna move forward with that. b. Commissioner brain storming session on the October 19, 2022 “Out Door Day” planning. AA: I feel we should form a committee with that general idea if you guys remember Tom Lodge got funding for GMAC to support some kind of activity and it’s still a good thing to get up and go and at this time I’m not sure how exactly it’s gonna be with all COVID but who knows, maybe by October everything will be cleared up by then. So it’s still a good thing to plan. So if you guys still up for it maybe someone could make a motion to form a committee for October 19 Out Door Day. Action: B. Ley motioned that GMAC form a committee for the “Out Door Day” planning. Seconded by L. Turalde. Motion passed unanimously by voice vote. AA: Who will serve on committee? BL: Brian – District 4. I volunteer to be on that committee. LT: Leomana – District 3. I volunteer… AA: I’ll be on the committee. OK. Anybody else? OK. That’s three. That should be noted. At this time we moving on to – Brian Ley will recap on the 2021 bird hunting season. c. Brian Ley will provide a recap on the 2021 bird hunting season. BL: To sum it up in one word – dismal. It was a horrible year. There’s no birds anywhere – everyone I’ve talked to has said it’s horrible. There’s no birds – the places that historically had a lot of birds – there’s a few pockets, some people get lucky and find a few pockets but the last time I went hunting – two pages of hunters – only 12 birds were taken by the time I left and that was a normal day for me and the four people that I hunted with – we would get 12-15 in our little grove so I don’t know what is the 18 problem with the bird count – it seems to be it’s just not habitat cause it seems to be island-wide everybody is saying that the numbers are drastically down and the majority of the hard core hunters that I even know aren’t even going out cause they’re under the impression that the season should have been closed and refunds given on the stamps cause there was not much of a bird season this year so I have no idea of what happened to the birds – where they’re going – where they’re disappearing to – if there was some new virus that came in with the migratory birds that could be influencing the game birds – analogous to the Palila population, you know, that’s something with somebody with a degree but, you know, the cap is it’s a horrible season – nobody’s going out. I’ve hunted same dog, same places that historically always had birds – there’s nothing – I’ve never had such a bad season – so that’s just basically my impersonation and stuff and I had some papers from Richard Hoeflinger who had some numbers but I forgot the papers today so I rushed out so I apologize for that. Richard had some numbers and it was not looking good so… My apologies for not having those… AA: Hey, Ian, you still online? IC: Yeah. AA: Hey, got a question. How come DOFAW doesn’t – do you guys enhance the bird population in any way? IC: We started bringing in birds a couple years ago but I couldn’t during COVID – they wouldn’t ship – the shipping because it’s got to be second day air – so I’m planning on bringing more in this year – I’m working with some people to bring in birds. AA: So what about just enhancing the environment for that area or is that something you need to talk to Kanalu about? IC: Well, on Mauna Kea you’d talk to Kanalu but East Hawaii I’ve been trying just do mowing and water units – I’m experimenting with mineral but I haven’t gotten around to finding it – used to be like a calcium put out at the water units too – we used to get the crushed coral but I don’t know if it’s easy to get anymore – I don’t think anyone puts that out anymore so I’ve been looking for crushed coral and oysters to put at water units to kind of help – it’s always been a limiting factor in volcanic soils is calcium, things like that. That’s about the extent of it and then try to do habitat management where feasible. AA: It seems kind of, you know, just personally, it just seems kind of weird that the bird population is so far down – even the bird habitat is not well maintained or taken care of when you don’t really see the public complaining about birds unless you know something that I don’t know – like I could see ungulates, all the complaints about the ungulates and you guys like get rid of all the ungulates but as far as the birds – the birds is on such a decline and there’s no help for their habitat or anything just to get the 19 populations back up cause maybe you can reintroduce more birds but if there’s no habitat for them to live then kind of like no sense bringing in birds too, yeah? I don’t know – what do you think? IC: \[Unclear\] for East Hawaii – I don’t do anything on Mauna Kea but, um, you trying to increase habitat modifications – I’m doing this on an active ranch lease so I try to utilize the – work with the rancher to use the cattle as a tool as well, but, you know, she doesn’t have a lot of cross fences or anything so it’s more about kind of provide limiting factors like water – there should be plenty of feed and stuff out there – I have done pretty well at Kapapala \[unclear\] so I can’t say what everyone’s else bird season’s been like but I’ve done all right, so I don’t know… AA: Right. Yeah, it’s just up Mauna Kea and I guess Puuwaawaa had a lot of people have been complaining about those areas so maybe next month I’ll bring in Kanalu and maybe he can enlighten us a little bit better or something. BL: Even PTA has said they have horrible bird counts… AA: Yeah, so basically the whole Mauna Kea west side/north side Mauna Loa, I guess, is really bad. IC: I don’t have the reports from that on some of the private lands to – not as much Parker Ranch but some of the Hualalai ranches and it started way back in the drought and why it never recovered I don’t know cause at first glance it seems like the vegetation has recovered, so there should be food and cover and stuff and lot of these places are getting a lot of predator control – I think it would be something worth looking into that the gal you had here before – Melissa Price. I was gonna approach about studying some of that – maybe doing a research project on that because she seems to have really good grasp on how to do research projects better than we could at our level so that’s something I’ve been toying with. 6. NEW BUSINESS a. Commissioner agenda ideas for meetings AA: OK. Perfect. Maybe we can help you out with that. Moving on… Any other new ideas for commission meetings? Any ideas or topics that you guys like bring up to anyone or any questions you like us – any people you want us to bring in? BL: Bring back Kanalu (Sproat) and ask him what he thinks happened to the birds. 7. Announcements 20 AA: We just lost – I think it was earlier this month – we just lost a big hunter advocate – am I saying the right word? BL: Yeah. AA: Steve Hurt… So as GMAC we had Nani write up a letter about Mr. Hurt and for me. Last year he took me and my two boys hunting and we spent all day with him and, you know, he’s just an awesome guy – we had fun with him all day – we sat down ate lunch under the tree and, so, I know in the hunting community he’ll be missed and he was also president for Bird Hunters of Hawaii so… In the years following the formation of the Hawaii County GMAC – Steven Hurt faithfully supported and attended GMAC meetings, often offering helpful information in comments from the public – it was always encouraging to see him – a strong supporter of the cause even up until the last GMAC meeting – Steve was great at giving helpful comments. Sadly, we were counting on him to continue but we have lost a great warrior for our game resources. Steve Hurt was primarily a game bird hunter and he loved his bird dogs. He was the president and founder of Big Island Bird Hunters. He tirelessly fought to promote and protect game bird and hunter. He and his organization contributing game bird watering units in the Kapapala and Kaohe game management areas. He was involved in and fought faithfully at the legislature to protect game resources and hunting rights. He also attended the Na Ala Hele state committee meetings to represent bird hunters. In memory of Steve Hurt friends have described him as sensible, thoughtful, quiet, committed, involved, dedicated role model and just a nice guy – just the nicest guy ever. He shall deeply be missed. So, yeah, like I said – spent the whole day with him – it was perfect – sad to hear that he has left us when I got the phone call the next morning. So moving on to Commissioner Reports by District. 8. COMMISSIONER REPORTS BY DISTRICT: AA: Any commissioners have any district reports? LT: Eh, Leomana – District 3. AA: Go ahead Leomana. LT: First of all, sorry for your loss. Aloha, Uncle Hurts. I just wanted to say this past two weeks I’ve been driving around – I wanted to visit the parks in Hilo cause it’s the rainy season and we have a lot of the pigs come out and destroy all of the parks and so one of the ways I’ve been trying to engage in the community is – and promote hunting is to talk to the young boys and try and get them to go hunt the pigs that destroy all of our parks. So far I’ve been in ten and seven of our county parks are all busted up – the grassy fields where all the kids play and I try to get the younger boys interested in hunting which all of ‘em – they don’t really care to hunt the pigs that are kind of busting up the community – they care more about going out and hunting the wild pigs and getting the 21 adventure out of it so… That’s just one of the things I was trying to do locally in the district to mitigate all the parks being torn up and the families not having a place to go play. Anyway, just wanted to mention that. AA: Thanks, Leomana. BL: Brian – District 4. Oh, I did take some kids and some people out to the range last Saturday since there was no birds to chase. We went and slaughtered some clay pigeons and, we’ve got some good, talented kids that picked it up real quick – it’s a shame we don’t have some birds – we could take ‘em out and see if we could knock some feathers off ‘em but, you know, they had a good time – they got the basics – and, you know, it was a good day to spend on the range, so that’s always good. AA: Yeah, so, Abraham – District 5. So, yeah, that was with me and my boys and a few of my nephews and some of my buddies and we killed 4 cases of clays and everybody had a good old time so hopefully – and that was their first time and they picked up – they all picked it up pretty quickly so, ah, the plan is hopefully we’ll get some birds next weekend so, yeah, thanks Brian. Up in volcano, up above the transfer station there’s 25 Mile Marker over there – last month I drove in that – there’s a little side road – drove inside – the road was horrendous – bottomed out my truck couple spots – called Ian Cole from Forestry – he sent up a crew – they laid down some gravel in that area – now it’s much better, they still need to go, I guess, they still need to make some patch ups – there’s some other areas next to that needs to be fixed up too – so they’re still working on that. That’s about it in District 5 for now. As far as the commissioners another announcement – mentioned to the commissioners is please reach out to your fellow hunters or outdoors men, gatherers in your guys’ area so when you guys come to this part then, you know, everybody’s involved. Great, so all districts please try to find out – if you guys don’t know any hunters or anything – just go to your local hunting store and just go talk story with somebody in there and guarantee you guys going be lead on to the – hopefully the right people to talk to. CO: Abraham – this is Cortney – District 8. You mentioned an issue up in Kaloko – was that part of my district and, if so, could you give me more information on that. AA: Um, I think, actually, that’s in District 7 but because now you are the Kona representative – the only Kona representative, Ian what’s the – do you remember the forest reserve up on Kaloko that tourist area? IC: The one with the trail? AA: Yeah… IC: I can’t get a name right now… 22 AA: But anyway there’s some kind of issue with private landowners and the forest users up there and it was on Civil Beat where I’ve seen it. CO: Oh, OK. Oh, I was wondering if that was what the issue was. I think there was a private landowner who was threatening some hikers who used the area because there is a designated hiking trail up there – I’m a user myself – but one of the areas was actually on private property but I hadn’t heard of any relation to hunting or hunters with regard to that but I will look more into it and report back to you guys if there’s any issue there. AA: OK. And there’s – if you speak to anybody up there – it’s – those are Dave – he’s pretty much a strong hunter out on the Kona side so he can lead you on ‘em, maybe you can get more information around the area or whatever. CO: Yeah, and also just to let everyone else know I did try to follow-up with Jerome Nickerson, again, to let us know about updates regarding the pier closure – I know that with the tsunami there appear to be a little bit of damage to the pier so I’m assuming he’s pretty busy right now but hopefully we’ll hear back from him and he can let us know what goes on with that next time. BL: Brian – District 4. Hey, I got a question for Dalilah, I’m sorry, I’m pronouncing your name wrong… DS: Dalilah – no worries… BL: Hey, with the talk that we’re gonna get another district are we, do you think, when they draw another district for the Island are we gonna be out of quorum or do we gonna have to fill that seat really quick or are they gonna give us some leeway on that when they decide if we get another representative for the Island – that’ll give us another district. DS: You know, I don’t have the answer to that but I can absolutely look into it and get you folks and email answer so you have an idea of what to expect. I’m sure that there’s gonna be a way to stay in quorum, um, trying to think about how many vacant seats there are right now – but let me look into that then I can get you guys all some information that says one way or another, you know, what the protocol will be to add another seat. BL: OK. And just to get that before it bit us in the butt. DS: Absolutely, that’s a great point, thank you… BL: Thank you. 23 9. COMMMITTEE REPORTS: AA: OK. Commissioner reports number 9 – Committee Reports. So, ah, we got Leomana which is Native Hawaiian Cultural Rights and, ah, so, Leomana – you got anything for that committee? LT: Nothing right now, nothing solid. I’ve been trying to brainstorm since the last time we talked, ah, and then I’m reaching out to a couple of people who work and just kind of do cultural stuff on Mauna Kea to see if they’re willing to come in and give a speech but I’ve been having a hard time to find people who are, I guess, used to the talking to groups. AA: OK. Next going be our Legislative Committee – Nani can you give us an update? NP: Yeah, I’m here – can you hear me? AA: Yeah, perfectly fine. NP: Great, um, yeah, we’ve been trying to get our bills introduced through different legislators and I have to say it’s like pulling teeth and I think that maybe by next year we’ll have a good technique down – I wish Grayson was here to say something, but, anyway, good news – we did get Lorraine Inouye and Mark Nakashima both to introduce SB 2417. It will be receiving a new bill number and, as soon as I get that or any of us get that we’ll get it out to everybody, so it’ll be the senate – one will take the senate and one will take the house, so that will be awesome and so I just hope that everybody will really jump in and stay on it to support the bill, I’m hoping that you all received the suggested letter that we can submit to the county to get the mayor and county support on our testimony for our bill to submit at the hearings. Did everyone read that letter, by chance, to vote on it if anyone could make a motion so it could be in action so it’ll be ready because that would be a powerful way to testify and then, of course, to testify also as individuals. And I just want to encourage everybody don’t be frightened – once you get in there and start fiddling with the legislative website it’s really actually user friendly – it can seem overwhelming but you just get in there and start playing around – it’s really pretty easy. AA: OK. About the – sorry, Nani, about the letter – Barbara is on vacation so everyone didn’t get that letter – so would you mind… NP: I didn’t send it to Barbara. I just sent it to the Commissioners so that you can vote on it tonight, then once you vote on it, if it passes the vote than you can submit it the county. AA: OK. Did everyone – did the Commissioners get the letter – the email? BL: Yes. 24 AA: Cause she sent it out the other day. KU: Yes, I did. Waiting on Cortney and Leomana… Did Leomana get it? Any comments on the letter. If there’s no comments or anything or improvements on the letter than we can – somebody can make a motion to move the letter forward. Action: B. Ley – I make a motion that we move the letter that Nani wrote up for the legislators to move it to the legislative at the county to see if we can get the county approval and the mayor’s stamp and the county’s stamp on the letter so when our bills do go to committee we can submit this letter saying that we have county backing and the mayor’s support on this bill – that we’re just not flying by night so - I know it’s last minute but with the legislation session we’ve got to go through the county to get their stamp of approval so I move that we move the letter forward and in the position it stands right now. Seconded by C. Okumura. Motion passed unanimously by voice vote. AA: Nani can you just forward the letter to Barbara? When she returns. NP: Sure, sure, I’ll do that. AA: Can you read the bill that we’re supporting just to get everyone on the same page? NP: The bill will be reintroduced is SB 2417, but the number is going to be changed. We don’t have the number yet. It’s to add in the wording in the State Revised Statutes that establishes the worth of our game animals and the worthiness of their management. Hopefully they’ll keep our wording that we originally submitted – we’ll hope for the best. I think that GMAC should form an organized way of having each one of you, a list of contacts that you know would be supportive of our bill so that when you get the news that our bill is up in hearing you can contact these other people get them to testify at the legislature. We need some sort of a chain to get a lot of people to testify and if we each had our own list or people we knew who were supportive it will be awesome. AA: Abraham – District 5. So Virginia – the bill should still be under SB 2417? VB: Yes. So if you go to the Legislature’s website – capital.hawaii.org – and go on the right hand side you’ll see a bar that says archives – and you can go to 2020 and put in the number SB 2417 and bill that’s currently – the stage that it died – I’m not sure… AA: Excuse me, Virginia – that’s the bill that died right at COVID time when the Legislature shut down… VB: Right. The question is whether you want it as it was originally introduced or has it got changed – you can look at different versions of the bill – maybe Nani knows that. 25 NP: Ah, we requested it to be revised back to our original intent in wording and we submitted wording. AA: Abraham – District 5. So for the new commissioners, don’t really be in shock because this bill that we introduced is actually from 2019 and I think George, you remember, and Kean, you guys remember we’ve been pushing it and last year we pushed it again but somehow it got lost in the fray last year – like Virginia said – and that one actually didn’t make it but we sent 2 others up and they also made it pretty far up before they both died, yeah? Well actually, one died and one got vetoed, right? BL: Yeah, Stanley’s got vetoed. AA: Yeah, one actually made it all the way to governor’s desk so we’re doing a good job and this bill SB 2417 is also gonna put worth on our game – that’s a real good thing. So, if you guys can gain support like Nani said – talk to your friends – talk to the fellow hunters – let them know what you guys just learned tonight about the public access room – if they still lost – just tell ‘em go to the Public Access Room website – Virginia, Ashley and Keanu – they’re very willing and able to help. Tell them – don’t be shame because we kinda need this bill so our game actually gets some worth, you know, that I cannot stress that anymore. NP: Right. That’s the point – we want to make it a fair playing field since the eradication agenda has been so prevalent our game resources are in serious danger and this bill will give them a legitimate standing and support and asking the DLNR to support them, so thank you. AA: OK. Any other comments or anything? Comments? Talk story a little bit more? You guys all good? If you guys are good, then can we make a motion for adjournment? 10. ADJOURNMENT: Action: C. Okumura motioned to adjourn the meeting. Seconded by B. Ley. Motion passed unanimously by voice vote. Meeting ended at: 7:51pm. Next Meeting Date: February 15, 2022 Respectfully submitted by, B. Otani Temporary Secretary ATTEST: Abraham Antonio, Chair 26