HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007-07-20 TAHuiHou
PLANNING COMMISSION
COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I
HEARING TRANSCRIPT
July 21, 2006
A HUI HOU TRIBUTE CENTER,
A regularly advertised hearing on the application of
INC. (USE 06-000004)
was called to order at 4:05 p.m. at the King Kamehameha's Kona
nd
Beach Hotel, 75-5660 Palani Road, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii with 2 Vice-Chairman
Rodney Watanabe presiding.
Kimo Alameda
PRESENT:Rodney Watanabe ABSENT & EXCUSED: C.
William R. Graham
Jeffrey McCall
Fred GaldonesRene’ Siracusa
Andrew Iwashita
Alvin Rho
Allen Salavea
Ivan Torigoe, Deputy Corporation Counsel
Christopher J. Yuen, Planning Director
Norman Hayashi, Planning Program Manager
Phyllis Fujimoto, Staff Planner
Jeff Darrow, Staff Planner
And approximately 11 people from the public in attendance.
APPLICANT: A HUI HOU TRIBUTE CENTER, INC. (USE 06-000004)
Use Permit to allow cremation within a mortuary facility on property zoned Village
Commercial (CV). The property (former 7-11 Store) is located along the east side of
Kuakini Highway, approximately 100 feet northwest of the Kuakini Highway - Hualalai
Road intersection, Honuaula, Kailua Village, North Kona, Hawaii, TMK: 7-5-22:3.
WATANABE:The final Agenda Item, Item No. 8 is A Hui Hou Tribute Center,
Inc., Use Permit Application No. 06-00004 (USE 06-000004). While we’re waiting for
staff in anticipation -. Because we have 16 individuals who signed up to testify on this,
I’m not asking for the testifiers yet, but I am asking that you limit your testimony to three
minutes, be brief, please, and concise. And please, it’s really, I take it a lot of you are
going to be on the same side of one issue whether it’d be for or against and, so, please
don’t be overly repetitive. Okay, it’s all yours, Mr. Darrow.
DARROW:Okay. Thank you, Members of the Planning Commission. If I can
direct your attention, again, to the location map. The area of this application is within the
North Kona District of Hawai`i. Looking at this thick white line, moving in a north-south
direction, this is Kuakini Highway, running through Kailua-Kona Village. We have
Hualalai Road that you might be familiar with. Moving in an east-west direction, we’re
looking at the orange dot as the area of the application. This is near the intersection of
EXHIBIT D
1
Hualalai Road and Kuakini Highway. It’s formerly the 7-Eleven Store. You might recall
that being in this location, we have McDonald’s located in this area, we have the
Territorial Savings Building located in this area and we have our County Building over in
this particular area.
If I can direct your attention to the site plan submitted by the Applicant, the Applicant in
this case, A Hui Hou Funeral. A Hui Hou Funeral and Tribute Services is requesting a
use permit to allow the cremation services within an existing mortuary facility within a
Commercial Village-zoned property. Again, this is the property identified. We have
Kuakini Highway running on the bottom of the map. The actual property itself is 7,500
square feet in size. Most of the area of the property is utilized for parking. There is
existing eight parking stalls with one handicapped parking stall. We also have a loading
zone. The area identified in red is the existing building. The area identified in yellow is
where the cremator would be located within the existing structure.
To bring to your attention some of the recent submittals, we have received this morning
this green packet from the Applicants. Mainly looking at it, a lot of this is repetitive
information, but there is some new information submitted therein. We’ve also received
submittals from Shawn Nakakura which was passed out; and, additionally, we received a
letter from the Kailua Village Design Commission regarding their recommendation to the
Planning Director and the Planning Commission.
The Planning Director is, although there have been discussions between the Planning
Director and the Applicant regarding the issue of parking on the structure which appears
to be resolved at this time, the Director would be inclined to allow the existing parking
rather than require the more stringent parking required for a facility that would have
viewing and services. The Planning Director is still recommending his negative
recommendation based on the impacts that are, would be generated to surrounding
properties. The Planning Department has received quite an extensive amount of
opposition letters from surrounding properties and concerns regarding the possible
emissions that can be, could possibly be generated from a facility of this type if it was not
operated properly or the actual cremator was malfunctioning. There are a lot of technical
issues regarding this particular application. I’m sure that we’ll be addressing those issues
as the Applicant comes forward.
The Planning Director has also sent out to the Planning Commission, which you might
have gotten just recently, a Proposed Findings of Facts, Conclusions of Law and Decision
and Order that basically reflects the Background and Recommendation but placed in a
proposed Findings of Facts form, and Conclusions of Law. Are there any questions?
WATANABE:Commissioners, any questions of staff?
DARROW:Thank you.
WATANABE:Seeing none, can we have the Applicants come up. Okay, why
don’t I swear all of you in at one time, and then we can ask for your name and address for
EXHIBIT D
2
the record as you get up to testify. Would you all raise your right hand, please? Do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the Hawai`i County Planning Commission?
TESTIFIERS:I do.
WATANABE:Thank you. Are you in receipt of the packet from the Director and
the Planning Department?
CARROLL:I have.
WATANABE:I assume you have some comments.
CARROLL:Yeah. Good afternoon or Aloha, Aloha ‘Auinala. My name John
Carroll. I’m the attorney for A Hui Hou funeral group here; and I would like, first of all,
to thank each of you gentlemen who’s here serving, doing this public service for, both for
your interest, your involvement, your patience. I say that sincerely.
We’re here today, and I appreciate very much the Chairman’s change of position on the
current or his previous attitude on the parking. That was covered pretty thoroughly by
the Design Commission; and they came out with a recommendation which you have, and
which I believe has now been made part of this record, if I’m not mistaken.
In any event, there are, the issue of a crematory is extremely volatile and very much
misunderstood. And when my clients here came to me, first they wanted to open a
funeral home which I had never done; and then I thought, well, okay, we’ll do that, got
that underway. And then a few months ago they came and said now they want to put in a
crematory. And I think Chris Yuen and I had about the same reaction when I heard that
and I said, “Are you sure?” You know, they are. Well, we looked at it and, so, we’re
asking you today to look at the facts. There’s a lot of emotion, there’s a lot of
antagonism and there’s a lot of pure baloney. And they say, you know, no matter how
thin you slice it, baloney is still baloney.
With that in mind, I would like to ask if you look at a numbered document in the file
which is 16220, it’s a letter from Mr. Nakakura to Mr. Yuen. And if you look at that
letter it will show you or he says in it that, this is 16220 dated, it’s stamp-dated at
June 30, 2006, and he’s talking about his own operation, “ There is a smoky odor and
small bit of ash on our vehicles after a cremation no matter how careful we are.” And
then down in the second paragraph he says, “If you,” essentially paraphrasing, “If you
allow this to go on,” and then he says, “by then it would be too late for anything to be
done. A Hui Hou won’t be able to stop cremations based upon complaints. They would
have invested too much to shut it down.” Well, I happen to know enough about
government in this State to know that that’s absolutely false. I also know enough about
suing manufacturers, to be able to have gone after them had these expressed warranties
been false.
EXHIBIT D
3
I’m going to ask you then to turn to 016325, that appears to be an anonymously-prepared
document. It’s a format for asking the Planning Commission members to read this
checked-off document. And it, in the first paragraph, first full paragraph, it says,
“Crematory information.” Says, “When not operated properly, there can be periods of
billowy black smoke and the smell of flesh burning.” Well, indeed, I think at Dachau and
Buchenwald we had that; but that is not a fact, and it’s not even close to a fact. And if
you read further down in this, it says, “I am against a crematory for the following
reasons” and they add them all in; but it says on almost the very bottom, “Neighboring
businesses and residences will be adversely affected by smoky smell and particles of
ash,” and it also talks about “burning flesh” and so forth. So this is clearly designed to
inflame and to intimidate anybody who would get this and be asked to sign it.
Now having said all of that, I’m going to ask you now if you would look at our Exhibits
12, 13 and 14. Mr. Nakakura has claimed that this is the situation at his operation. And
my clients took the trouble to talk to the manufacturer of this device and he says, “… if
Mr. Nakakura had been having these issues it is quite possible that the in Hawaii HPA”, I
presume the public health authority, “would have sited him, we will contact him and see
if he wants a recalibration or re-training.” And then in Exhibit 13, we have another letter
basically saying, this is another, from the same corporation but “Please be advised B&L
Cremation Systems manufactured the Cremation systems located at Cremation Services
of West Hawaii, LCC…we have never received any complaints from them in reference to
these cremation systems including: smoke, ash or odor.’” And if you’ll take a look at No.
14, it says in that particular comment from the manufacturer, “We have over 1000
installations world wide and if our units performed as Shawn said we could not get an
environmental permit to operate.” And that goes on. So those are self-explanatory that
you have them, but I just point out that we need to talk about facts. And having said that,
I’m going to pass the microphone to Mr. Fine and he can tell you some facts which he
knows from his own experience.
WATANABE:Mr. Fine, would you state your name and address for the record,
please?
FINE:For the record, my name is Thomas W. Fine, Sr. My address is
76-716 Hualalai Road; and I am the owner of the building that is two buildings north of
A Hui Hou Funeral Home. And ever since A Hui Hou Funeral Home has been in their
site, which is the site of the old 7-Eleven Store, I actually have not even known they were
there. I mean, they operate their business and they do not impact me or any of my tenants
in any way.
As far as the crematory goes, when I heard that they were going to put one in, I was
approached by both sides to either be for or against it. And I did not know anything
about it, so I did some investigation myself. I did some research. I actually visited
Cremation Services. Shawn asked me to come up and see what he did up there and see
what kind of environmental impact there was. And by viewing that I developed a list of
questions; and I called the manufacturer of the equipment that A Hui Hou was going to
buy from and explained to them who I was. And I talked to Michael Burwell who was
EXHIBIT D
4
their technical support man there and I just asked him questions; and the questions that I
asked him were developed from the information that I had gathered from Shawn and just
listening to people. And in my research I’ve actually resolved that if that unit was put in
two doors down from me that we would not know it was there. There were two issues
that had come up, and I discussed them with Michael Burwell; and he agreed with me
that they were issues and he was not aware of them. And when I spoke to Susan and
Penny at A Hui Hou Funeral Home, they were just very cooperative. They weren’t aware
of the issues and said that they would address the issues.
In my opinion, the thought of having a crematory down the street, well, that’s just a bad
thought. I just, I mean, none of us want to deal with death. But as far as impacting the
community, from my research I don’t see that it’s going to impact me or anyone else in
the general area; and I thank you, gentlemen.
WATANABE:Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Fine? Mr. Salavea?
SALAVEA:Can you give us examples of some of the, your concerns and the
questions that you asked?
FINE:One of the main concerns was the fact that during a cremation
what would happen if the electric went out, and we all know in Kona the electric goes
out. So, and it was actually suggested by Shawn, he says, “You know, they really should
have a backup generator.” And when I expressed the fact to Mr. Burwell from the
American Crematory Equipment that the electric went out, I didn’t even suggest the
generator. He said, well, they need a generator, they can’t have that, that machine will
not work properly. And the company actually has a backup generator that is integrated
into their machine so when the electric goes out, this generator automatically turns itself
on; and thereby there should be no smoke, there should be no pollution, there shouldn’t
be anything. And they agreed it was going to cost them some extra money, but Penny
and Susan weren’t aware of it and they agreed that they’re going to have that option to
purchase of their equipment.
The other thing that I found out was that the taller the exhaust stack, the more pure the air
quality of what comes out; and their machine was designed to work with a 10-foot stack.
But if the Planning Commission would allow them to put a bigger stack, then it would be
a little bit better as far as the emissions that would be coming out of the stack. Although
the machine will work with 10 feet, if they would allow them to 15 or 20 feet, which
again would cost them more money and they are in agreement to do that, they would do
that and the byproduct that would be coming out of the stack would be more pure and
more, you know, would, they call it retention time, what comes out would be cleaner and
better for the environment.
SALAVEA:Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
WATANABE:Mr. Graham?
EXHIBIT D
5
GRAHAM:I can remember, I don’t exactly know when, but a couple of years
ago, and I was on the Commission then, Shawn Nakakura was sitting right up there with
the business partners, I think, for a Special Permit out in Kohanaiki Business Park. It
seems a bit unusual to myself and probably to others that the owner of the other, of the
operating facility here in Kailua-Kona would be so involved in your application. And
since you’re in contact with he as well as these folks here, can you give me any little
sense for why he’s so involved?
FINE:I’m not one of the Applicants, if that’s what you mean. I’m just
testifying -.
GRAHAM:No, I mean that you’re in contact with the Applicants here,
obviously ‘cause you’re sitting at the desk with them and you went out and viewed
Mr. Nakakura’s facility and all that. So I was thinking that you’re maybe a person who
sees both of the parties from a non-adversarial way; and I was just wondering if you had
the insight as to why Mr. Nakakura has chosen to get involved in these folks’ application
because that is a bit unusual in our usual practices.
FINE:He was in the general area and just asking people what we thought
of the crematorium and he approached me, I manage my own properties. I was working
around my building that day and one of my tenants introduced me to him and he
explained who he was; and I really hadn’t concerned myself too much with it. And he
was explaining the crematory process and, you know, some of the drawbacks. And he
asked me did I want to come and view a cremation. And, so, he wanted me to testify for
him, they wanted me to testify for them, I was indifferent. But I thought if I’m going to
testify for anybody I didn’t want to look stupid so I just did some investigation. I went
out and viewed what he was doing, and then called the American Crematory Equipment
and told them what I saw and talked to their technician; and the technician said, well, if
this happened, then he must have done this. And-.
GRAHAM:Yeah, I understand all this details but you’re saying he wants you
to testify for him. Well, he has no application here, that’s what I’m saying. So I’m
wondering is this just purely a competitive thing that he doesn’t want the competition, is
there something else -?
FINE:That I don’t -.
GRAHAM:If somebody kind of saw me on the street and says why don’t you
come see my thing and all, I think I’d want to know a little more about it.
FINE:Well, I’m assuming that he would not want the competition but we
didn’t get into that. And personality-wise I think Shawn’s a great guy. I met him and
he’s a hard worker; and he’s running a legitimate business. Somehow I got involved with
this and I know more about cremation than I ever wanted to know.
GRAHAM:Thank you.
EXHIBIT D
6
WATANABE:Any other questions for Mr. Fine? Mr. Carroll? Oh, excuse me,
Mr. Iwashita?
FINE:Well, I’d like to thank you gentlemen ‘cause you guys, I tell you,
you guys work hard, thanklessly.
IWASHITA:Mr. Fine, is it?
FINE:Yes, yes, it is.
IWASHITA:So, in all your research then you find that these representations that
are being challenged about the machine working as well as it does, you don’t have any
concern that it won’t meet those expectations?
FINE:I do not have any concerns at all at this point in time.
IWASHITA:Okay. Thank you.
FINE:You’re welcome.
WATANABE:Thank you. Mr. Carroll, you have -?
CARROLL:I do. I’d just like to add one point that, as I think most of you
know, I used to fly jet fighters, and the temperature that this thing operates at is actually
more than the tail pipe temperature on a jet fighter. Well, that’s the most technical
information I’ll give you. But I’m going to ask Mr. John Raggett, who’s Vice-President
of American Crematory to speak at this point. Thank you.
WATANABE:Mr. Raggett, would you state your name and address, please, for
the record?
RAGGETT:Yes, my name is John Raggett. I’m from American Crematory in
Los Angeles, California, and I’m here to answer any questions that you have regarding
the crematory. We’re the manufacturer. We’ve been manufacturing cremation
equipment, our company has been in business since 1965; and we’ve been servicing,
repairing and manufacturing crematories ever since then. So the reason why we came to
represent them is because of this issue that Shawn has brought to them. So I brought our
VP of Service, Mike Burwell, so that way we can go over and check out this B&L and
find out exactly what’s wrong with it, because we work on B&L’s all the time. And
we’re personal friends with the manufacturer who built that machine in Florida and he’s
not happy that this propaganda is going on his machine because these machines do not
produce ash, and they do produce smoke if they’re not operated correctly. So if he’s
having ash and smoke, it’s either (a) it’s not true, or (b) there’s something really wrong
with his machine. So while we’re here we want to try to go there this afternoon and tune
up his machine for him and get him going straight, but we’ll try tomorrow. So, we’re
EXHIBIT D
7
here to represent the funeral home and answer any questions that you have and, you
know, if you have any technical questions or any kind of information that you need on
the equipment, we’re here to help you out.
WATANABE:Well, follow-up, Mr. Salavea?
SALAVEA:Thank you, Mr. Chair. So in regards to the statements made by
Mr. Nakakura about the condition or the smoke and the ash coming out of the stack, that
isn’t part of the normal operating procedures and -?
RAGGETT:It’s not true one bit. If that was the case, we’d all be out of
business as far as the cremation manufacturing goes. If you ask 50 percent of the people
in this, 100 percent of these people in the room 50 percent would choose cremation.
We’re manufacturing crematories on a daily basis, and there’s six manufacturers within
the United States; and if all of us had those problems of what Shawn has been describing,
we’d all be sued and out of business. So there is no true finding in that at all.
SALAVEA:And a follow-up to that is, could you summarize for us, the
Commission, in the most layman terms possible, what is the expectation and what
regulations you folks or the crematorium needs to abide by? I mean, if there is
particulate matter coming out the way he’s claiming, like you said, I don’t think that
would meet EPA standards or somebody would be complaining, right?
RAGGETT:Exactly. In the State of California where we manufacture them,
there are four different agencies that govern cremation equipment. There are three
agencies of government here in Hawai`i. But the first agency is obviously the City, they
dictate whether it’s okay to put them in; and if it’s not okay, by Conditional Use Permits.
The second agency is Air Quality. Every single crematory in all of the United States and
even in the Philippines and Mexico and everywhere else, they require air quality permits.
The crematories are source-tested, they’re UL-tested and they are mechanically-tested
before they go out; and, so, all of these machines are governed by that agency. And if the
machine were to have a problem, that agency does unannounced inspections and once-a-
year inspections to make sure that those problems don’t happen. And, so, what we have
to, the rules that we go by on manufacturing these is that when the Applicant decides to
purchase a crematory, then we file the application with the Air Quality. They, we submit
all the data, and all the emissions, and all the reports, and the particulate, and the
mercury, and anything else that comes from a crematory to them. They determine if it’s
low enough volumes that it won’t affect the, you know, the atmosphere or the
neighboring communities. We have these things placed near schools, playgrounds, parks;
and we don’t have any problems. And, so, once they issue the permit, then we place the
machine in; and then the Air Quality agency comes out and inspects it after it’s up and
running to make sure that it’s all exactly the way we said it was.
Some of the other requirements from the State of California is that the Consumer Affairs
is involved where they have unannounced inspections. And they govern cremation to
make sure that people are doing what they’re supposed to do as far as paperwork,
EXHIBIT D
8
licenses, cremating the right body, refrigeration and all that; and I’m sure Hawai`i has
those same standards. The fourth thing that California has is licensed crematory
operators. In the State of California, they don’t just let anybody operate a crematory.
You have to be licensed, you have to know what you’re doing, you have to know how to
cremate, and you have to be licensed from the State, which that State requires that that
license be renewed every year. And, so, there are all kinds of different governing
licenses that you have to go and follow through in order to have these things to run.
SALAVEA:I’m glad to hear that not anyone can run a crematory.
RAGGETT:Yeah, exactly, ‘cause if you don’t run it right, you could run into
problems.
SALAVEA:So, getting back to a statement that you made, so after the
crematory is installed, it’s running, then the Air Quality, they come and check it to see if
it’s meeting -?
RAGGETT:Oh, yeah, exactly. Exactly, they come out and they see that the
crematory is installed, they make sure it’s installed correctly and that there are no
emissions and all that. Because if a crematory is not tuned up and adjusted right, just like
a car, it will emit emissions. It won’t be black smoke and ash coming out the retort but it
will, you know, won’t run efficient, it’ll burn excess gas, it won’t run where it’ll cremate
the body within a reasonable amount of time. It just doesn’t run right. So part of that is
the Air Quality is to make sure that everything is perfect coming out of the stack, there is
no emissions, there’s just hot flume coming out; and they make sure of that. And then
they check it twice to once a year to make sure; and then every year the applicants are
required to pay a fee for that permit every single year that that crematory is in operation.
SALAVEA:And, in your experience, have any crematories been, had to be shut
down and discontinued because of air quality problems?
RAGGETT:No. The only time crematories have been shut down is from
human error or human foul play, cremating multiple bodies, cremating the wrong bodies,
cremating obese cases and then having an upset cremation. There are different variations
that have happened throughout the United States. You know, you guys probably heard
about the scenario in Georgia where the person, the crematory was broken and they
didn’t have the money to fix it so they just decided to place the bodies in the lake, and in
coolers, and everywhere else instead of cremating them. So those are why crematories
get shut down, typically not from Air Quality or from the State. It’s always from foul
play.
SALAVEA:Thank you.
WATANABE:Any other questions? Mr. Carroll?
EXHIBIT D
9
CARROLL:I would just direct everyone’s attention to Exhibit 10. It has a
pretty clear-cut definition as to, I mean, statement as to how this thing operates; and it’s
kind of amazing. At this point, we would like to call one of our witnesses; and I think if
he testifies, then we’d be pretty much finished. His name is Jorge Gines but he’s not -.
RAGGETT:It’s George.
CARROLL:I mean, George Gines. If we could take him out of order -?
WATANABE:Okay, yeah, please. Why don’t you bring Mr. Gines up then.
Would you raise your right hand please, Mr. Gines. Do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth now before the Hawai`i County Planning Commission?
GINES:I do.
WATANABE:Thank you. Would you state your name and address for the record,
please?
GINES:My name is George Gines. I live in Hawaiian Ocean View.
WATANABE:Thank you. You may proceed. He has some testimony,
Mr. Carroll?
CARROLL:Yes.
GINES:I was at the last meeting and I asked you guys to reconsider. And I
talked to a lot of friends of mine that knew my wife and myself; and on the Big Island we
don’t have a funeral home, especially in Kona, you know; and we need a funeral home.
And other than that, you know, we need a crematory, you know. My wife was cremated
th
in Honolulu and on the 29 be one year that she has been gone. You know, deep down
inside of me I know that my wife is gone but physically I do miss my wife. I’ve been
married 30 years, you know, but -. And I just hope you guys reconsider A Hui Hou; and
they’re just like family; and I thank you.
WATANABE:Okay. Fellow Commissioners, does anyone have questions for
Mr. Gines? Okay. Mr. Carroll, is that -? Oh, do you have, Mr. Rho, any questions?
RHO:No, not for him. I don’t have a question for him but I do have a
question. I’m not sure when I should ask that question, but it’s not of this gentleman.
WATANABE:Oh, okay, okay. Thank you. You had a question? Oh, finished?
RAGGETT:Yes.
WATANABE:Okay, Mr. Carroll, you said you’re pretty close to concluding your
presentation?
EXHIBIT D
10
CARROLL:Actually, unless the Commission has any questions to ask, I’m
ready to summarize our case.
WATANABE:Okay. Maybe you can summarize and then we’ll follow through
with questions or, yeah, why don’t we do that.
CARROLL:All right. Well, very simply, the technology is such that they
basically evaporate these bodies and then crush the bones. There’s nothing coming out of
there at all. And I think anybody knows my background, the last thing I would ever be
involved with is something that’s going to pollute our atmosphere. When I saw this poop
sheet that Mr. Nakakura sent out, I frankly was a little bit inflamed; and I don’t usually
don’t get like this. But the facts simply do not square off with what he’s saying. Now,
we all respect entrepreneurs, we respect people who compete, we respect people who do
things on a fair basis. But this thing here went really beyond reason in my book; and I
think it has inflamed a lot of people. I noticed that the only person here to testify
contrary to our position is Mr. Nakakura, or I believe he’s here to do that.
So I would say if you will consider the facts, consider the evidence, consider that what
you have heard is the truth, then I think that you will grant us this variance. And, of
course, we are more than happy to answer any questions that we have. And these ladies,
by the way, are Connie Brumbaugh, Penny Brumbaugh and Susan Gillispie, and they are
the three people who run this. And given the amount of fraud and crime that we’ve had
involved with the funeral business, it’s so refreshing to have people that, if you read the
testimony of the people who came in last time, it’s just overwhelming; and I think
everyone in this room right here is ready to testify about what a tremendously good job
they’re doing. This crematorium is going to allow them to give really funerals that
people can actually afford and not take in thousands of dollars away from them over a
period of years hoping that they’re going to still have something left when they finally
die. So I am very proud to be able to represent them; and I really would ask that you just
do clearly look at the facts and not the idea of a Gestapo operation where they’re burning
bodies and smoke coming out of the chimney down there. So -.
WATANABE:Okay, thank you. So, why don’t I open up to questions of the
Applicant from the Commissioners.
RHO:I have a question. I assume that you folks have access to this
County of Hawai`i Planning Department Recommendations?
CARROLL:We do.
RHO:You do. And as I read it, I would say that two of the four or five
pages deal with parking, deal with parking.
CARROLL:Correct.
EXHIBIT D
11
RHO:And I was distracted because we got so much new information or
so much additional paper to read as you came up today so I didn’t get to read it before;
and I was reading it while some of your testimony was being made, so I apologize for
that. But I guess I didn’t personally hear you folks address this parking issue that’s
really, to me, anyway, the focus of these four or five pages. It does mention a smoke or
the emissions, but that’s only in basically one paragraph on Page 4 maybe. But other
than that, on almost every single page it talks about parking. So can you address
parking?
CARROLL:Well, I would do it this way. The Kailua Design Commission,
Kailua Village Design Commission had a lengthy hearing on the subject matter and they
recommended to you, and I think you should have that document, it basically states that
they should approve, that you folks should approve what we’re asking for as we have
designed it, including the parking. And the bulk of the argument that was coming from
the Board, not even from us because we were ready to go, try to find the parking if it was
necessary, but they, themselves, found that the additional need for parking was not
necessary. And, also, and I thank you very much, Mr. Yuen, the Director actually
conducted a separate investigation and found that, indeed, their comments regarding
parking were true. And they went around and I presume one of the inspectors had asked
the different people to describe what kind of activity they had seen there; and their so-
called full service mortuary operation primarily revolves around giving full service. But
what we all think of as services, church services and that, do not occur there. In fact, I’ve
been in the place a few times and there’s not enough room, No. 1, to do them and, No. 2,
I didn’t see enough chairs or pews or anything, even remotely supportive of that kind of
an activity. I could let Ms. Brumbaugh here comment more on that if you like.
WATANABE:Well, before you do comment, let me swear you in and I’d also
like to have probably the Director make some comments to that. I know this all revolves
around a definition of whether it’s a funeral home or you’re going to have services, so
maybe you can have the Director clear up that situation.
YUEN:Yes, the Zoning Code has a section on parking; and it says
mortuaries are one per 75 square feet, whereas offices and other kinds of commercial
uses are one to 300. The logic behind that is that a funeral home that has services on site
does need, tend to need a lot of parking. When this business originally started, there were
discussions with Planning Department staff about what was actually going to go on in the
business; and it was described as an office, a place of making arrangements and that there
wouldn’t be services per se, like the typical wake service or viewing of the body that’s
open to the public. And so because of that, and there is a catch-all provision in the
Zoning Code that the Director can adjust parking in cases of doubt about the actual use.
So we did send out a letter saying that based on what was described to us the business
could go ahead on that site with the amount of parking that it had which is enough for a
regular office or commercial enterprise.
Later, we, I believe in response to, I’m not sure if it was a response to a complaint, but
we had an investigation; and our investigator went to the site at the time when there were
EXHIBIT D
12
about 20 people present. And because of the number of people it generated a violation
notice that said “Looks like you’re having large gatherings, stop doing that,” sort of
thing; and they then denied that, and that was pretty much the end of that.
When this application came in, we looked at that violation notice and also at the way the
business was advertised as a full service home and felt that they were not in compliance
with the original understanding, that they would not have viewings.
When it went to the Kailua Village Design Commission, my staff reported to me that they
seemed pretty credible that they were not having viewing. So I asked, we have a new
inspector in Kona so I asked her to do a follow-up, and she did contact all of the
neighboring businesses. And they all reported that they’ve never seen anything that
looked like funeral services, wake services being conducted there, that they’d see, you
know, people going, cars occasionally going in-and-out, people going in-and-out, but not
any kind of a large gathering like you might have at, if you people here, you know, are
familiar with, say Dodo Mortuary and other kinds of funeral homes that do have these
wake services.
So that, and then we also checked published obituaries. Because, typically, when you
have public services, it’ll say on it, you know, services to be held at Borthwick Mortuary,
7 p.m., you know, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesday night; and we didn’t find any evidence of
that sort of thing. So that being said we have to withdraw any claim that the way they’re
operating is in violation of their understanding on the parking requirements.
WATANABE:Thank you. I guess you wanted to make some testimony; and if
you do, I need to have you state your name and address for the record, please.
P. BRUMBAUGH: My name is Penny Brumbaugh. My address is 76-6278 Kokoolua
Place, Kailua-Kona. I am one of the owners of A Hui Hou Funeral Home. And when the
issue of the parking came up, the one thing that we just kept reiterating is that we are full
service facility. We are full service in reference to full services to our families. We do
everything that they need us to do, to whatever extent that might be, all the way down to
getting a gallon of milk if that’s what they need to help them get through this. We go to
their homes, we take care of their services if it’s, I mean, if it’s more convenient for them,
for us to come to their home to take care of the arrangements, that’s what we do, or they
may come into the funeral home. And a lot of times we go to their homes ‘cause they’re
more comfortable there. But we receive the body into our funeral home, we bathe, we
prep, we embalm, we take care of everything, casketing, if we’re sending off island, send
them off-island from there. Everything is done in that building with the exception of
cremation. We have an area inside the building, and the whole public can even see it,
that we could put the retort, that we could do the cremation there too; and that would
make us fully independent from our competitors. At this time, we’re not. We’re totally
upon the discretion and the willingness of our competitors to work with us; and it’s not a
very easy situation for us that way. And we want the opportunity to do everything for a
family, to have total control of what goes on with the remains of a loved one, and this
would give us that opportunity to do it.
EXHIBIT D
13
WATANABE:Any questions? Mr. Iwashita?
IWASHITA:The Zoning Code provides for a crematorium in CV and in all the
Industrial, the three Industrial classifications and -. ‘Cause I want to know if you looked
into having the retort put in a space in an Industrial area as opposed to, you know, in
Kailua town?
P. BRUMBAUGH: Okay. When we first began to look for a place, I’ll just go back
from there, we met a lot of difficulties in even locating a building for us to even operate
out of. There’s a lot of pre-conceived ideas of what we do and, you know, granted,
people don’t like death and, so, I can understand that. But finding the building we did,
we had to find a building we could work out of that we fit the zoning for; and funeral
home mortuaries are only allowed in Commercial Village, Commercial General,
Commercial Residential. CV is where we are. In order to go to an Industrial area,
Industrial area, we can’t operate a funeral services establishment there, it’s not zoned;
and we can’t even get a user permit for that. We can do a retort, but then we’d have to
have a separate property to set the retort in order to function, which would then, again,
increase our expenses. If we have to do it, we will. But since we have the space in the
building that we could work from, it just made it more logical and more economical for
us to try to get the retort there since we could do it with the user permit. We had to do a
use permit either way; and at least we could do it on-site in our facility.
IWASHITA:So, that answer is no, you have not looked at other, another space
in a Industrially-zoned place to put the retort?
P. BRUMBAUGH: I mean as in specifically talking to other people?
IWASHITA:Yeah, I want to know if -. You want to do it in the space you have,
right?
P. BRUMBAUGH: We would like to do it in the space that we have because it’s more
economical to us and it’s of convenience. The other is that we don’t have to go through
another lease, get another set of arrangements. We have looked at purchasing other
property. The amount of commercial properties or properties available for that purpose,
there isn’t much around to do that. We’re pretty well limited to what we’ve got. And the
industrial buildings, there’s just -. When we were looking the first time just to find a
place for ourselves while we were going around there, the availability for what we’re
wanting to do was very difficult to find. Did you want me go over that?
CARROLL:Just mention it.
P. BRUMBAUGH:Okay. One of the things that was brought up that we, a long time
ago, back in the good old days, in communities where you grew up, a funeral home was
one of the houses down the street. They called them funeral homes because that’s where
the funeral people lived, they lived there. And when people came to their home, they‘d
EXHIBIT D
14
come into their parlor and they would sit down there and make the arrangements. That’s
called a funeral parlor. That was the way things were, it was part of a community. The
funeral home was there just as the local town doctor was there. What we’re trying to do
in our facility is to create the same sense of being members of the community. We’re a
part of what the resources are there that people should be able to call upon, in a
comforting area, some place that they’re comfortable in. And coming into our funeral
home, you walk into the front, we have couches and chairs, and a fish tank; and we try to
make it as a comfortable low-key setting for people that they can feel a little relaxed in;
and we just want to continue our stuff there.
IWASHITA:I don’t know if you know the answer to this. But like Dodo
Mortuary in Hilo, is their retort in their building, right there in Wainaku?
P. BRUMBAUGH: I believe it is in the building. They are zoned in the Agricultural
area from what I understand.
IWASHITA:They’re right across the street from apartment houses and single-
family residences.
YUEN:We did look at this and they do have a retort in their building, as
does Borthwick on Kinoole Street in Hilo.
IWASHITA:Right in the middle of multi-family and single-family residences.
Okay.
P. BRUMBAUGH: Yeah. We have our children come to our building after school
everyday. We are there an awful lot because of what we do.
IWASHITA:I’m seeing my girl all over again.
WATANABE:Any other questions for the Applicants? Mr. Graham?
GRAHAM:Since we just had some testimony from the Planning Director, our
recommendation from you is in opposition to this Use Permit; but you gave us testimony
that seems a little bit in conflict with what we have written here. Is the Planning
Department’s position still one of opposition to the granting of this permit?
YUEN:Let’s talk about that at the end of the public testimony.
GRAHAM:Fine.
WATANABE:Is that it, or do you have something more to summarize?
CARROLL:There are a number of people here who wanted to talk, but I
understood a need to not have cumulative testimony.
EXHIBIT D
15
WATANABE:No, I’m -. Okay. Generally, what happens is, you know, you do
your presentation as the Applicant or the Applicant’s representative. And I was not going
to ignore these individuals, they would all have an opportunity to come up, and I take it
that, you know, a number of them already have such as yourself, John Raggett, Tom Fine
and George Gines. So I was looking at the rest, to call upon the rest to come up in stages.
CARROLL:Well, I would simply add at this point, then, we can pull back,
have the testimony, then I presume we’ll have one last crack, right?
WATANABE:Yes.
CARROLL:Okay. And, so, the point here is that this zoning is allowed. The
so-called local Board is clearly, it’s an advisory board; but it’s like you folks, they’re
people who are interested in the community, and they’re the most central to this
particular problem. And they came in and they have recommended that their application
be granted as is, which includes the crematory. So, I’d say, there’s no legal impediments,
there is an emotional overtone to the issue. I think the facts are clear. And I think when
you hear the other folks testify as to the job that these folks are doing, you’ll be
compelled to grant their motion. Thank you.
WATANABE:Okay, thank you. So, with that, then, I guess you may be seated;
and we’ll call on the other testifiers. I have listed a Michael Burwell, John Brumbaugh,
and Gary Brumbaugh and Danny Choy. Are those individuals here? Did you want to
testify? We can take two more at least now. You were, excuse me -?
G. BRUMBAUGH: I’m Gary Brumbaugh.
WATANABE:Gary. And John?
J. BRUNBAUGH:Yeah.
WATANABE:Okay. What about Mike Burwell, is he here yet? You want to
testify?
BURWELL:No.
WATANABE:No, okay. You must be Darlene?
GULUZZY:Laura Guluzzy.
WATANABE:Anyone else? We’ve got room for one more. No, okay. Would
you all raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth now before the
Hawai`i County Planning Commission?
TESTIFIERS:I do.
EXHIBIT D
16
WATANABE:Okay. Who’s going to go first?
G. BRUMBAUGH:I’ll go first.
WATANABE:Okay, would you state your name and address for the record,
please?
G. BRUMBAUGH: I’m Gary Brumbaugh, same address as Penny Brumbaugh.
WATANABE:Go ahead.
G. BRUMBAUGH: Mr. Director, Mr. Chairman and Planning Commissioners, thank
you very much for sitting through this long arduous day. Thanks for coming to Kona to
hear this and all the other issues that were before you today. That’s really great for you
to do that. We do appreciate it when that happens.
I’m here simply to support my wife and my sisters-in-law in their endeavor and maybe to
answer some questions. As far as history of funeral homes I’ve worked on several
on the mainland and then helped in this one here. And I just wanted to reiterate how the
funeral home or the funeral parlor came to be known as a funeral home or a funeral
parlor, because they were, indeed, operated out of the mortician’s or the funeral director’s
home. It was the parlor downstairs, the funeral parlor; it was out of his home, the funeral
home. And that’s the atmosphere that my wife and sisters-in-law are trying to provide for
people in their most difficult time in their life. We try to avoid a sterile atmosphere. And
we have carpet on the floor, we have couches, not hard-back chairs, not, you know,
linoleum on the floor or something like that. The walls are painted a nice, soothing color.
There are paintings on the wall. It’s in every effort that we could do to make a home-like
atmosphere to try and help people in this very, very serious time in their life.
This location is perfect for that. It’s in the center of town, it’s right off of Kuakini,
everybody where it is. The former 7-Eleven, everybody knows where that is. I think that
the parking issue has been addressed and answered, I hope, to your satisfaction. We did
an awful lot of work when we started this business several years ago to try and locate a
building where we could operate. And we settled on this one; and it has worked quite
nicely for these couple of years. And I believe that the investigation that the Planning
Director had gone through the last week or two has shown that we were not impacting the
local areas as far as parking is concerned.
But my main thing is that it’s, I feel in my experience that it is important for a family to
be able to relax to the extent that they can relax, and the location of our funeral home
business is an aid to that. And I just would implore you to grant this additional use of our
facility so that we can continue to help the people of Kailua-Kona and the entire west side
of the island.
WATANABE:Thank you.
EXHIBIT D
17
G. BRUMBAUGH:Any questions, I’ll be happy to answer.
WATANABE:Any questions, Commissioners? None.
G. BRUMBAUGH:Thank you, gentlemen, your public service is greatly appreciated.
WATANABE:Would you state your name and address for the record, please?
J. BRUMBAUGH: My name Is John Brumbaugh and I’ve got to read my address off
my card. I don’t know it by heart yet, so -. It’s 73-4343 Wainana Place; and that’s in
Kailua. And I want to ask a simple question of everybody on the Board. Have you ever
been involved in arranging a funeral for a loved one? You don’t have to nod, you don’t
have to raise your hand, but just go back to that time if you have. It’s a very stressful
time. And, as Andrew mentioned, wouldn’t it be better to go to an industrial site for
arrangements, a service, funeral home? Think about that for a minute, those of you that
had to have done this already, driving into an Industrial area that is full of concrete plants,
porta-potties, Light Industrial or Heavy Industrial things. Would that have been a very
inviting, very comforting thing for you to do for your loved one to go and make the
arrangements? Think about that for a minute. Okay, that’s what you’re asking us to do,
is to move to an industrial site to do our services to those families. My thought is you
want to be in an area that’s comfortable to the families, that’s familiar to the families, and
it’s more like a home environment.
Okay, the Kailua Village is where we’re at.That’s home to a lot of people that live here
in Kona. That is their home. That’s their center. Okay? When they come to our place,
they feel very comfortable. They feel like it’s home. And like the girl said, a lot of what
they do is in their homes anyways; but those that like to come in and take care of things
in a funeral home come to our place. and they feel comfortable. Okay? So go to that
place and think about it. Would you rather be in the Village taking care of something
that’s a lot of fun to do or up in an Industrial site? That’s all I got to say.
WATANABE:Any questions of the testifier? Seeing none, ma’am? Would you
state your name and address for the record, please?
GULUZZY:Aloha, I’m Laura Guluzzy. I live at 75-202 Malulani Drive in
Kailua-Kona. Mr. Chairman, Honored Commissioners and staff, I come before you
today as a concerned citizen. I’m concerned for many reasons. You have my affidavit on
file I believe there, it was submitted through A Hui Hou. I’m in favor of A Hui Hou and
the crematorium being there. I’ve lived in a small town and a large town many times in
my life. It’s important to me that when I have to go lay to rest one of my loved ones that
I have a place to go to that is convenient and comforting for me. I have to be a little
careful here because some of the people that are against this are clients of mine; but,
again, I say to you, I am a concerned citizen. I do not want to go out to the industrial area
to be around all those big Mack trucks and all my other clients out there while I’m trying
to make funeral arrangements for a loved one.
EXHIBIT D
18
The fact that A Hui Hou has been here for two years and operating successfully with the
small amount of parking that they have should not be an issue, as far as the parking. I
have personally driven past there many times during the day during the Kuakini project
on the street and seen County vehicles parked in their parking space. I’ve seen other
people parked in their parking space. They have no problem sharing their space with
others.
Now, the meeting I was at previously where I testified on this in favor of A Hui Hou
having their business remain where it is at with the limited parking that they have, they
also approved a large parking structure to be built not far from A Hui Hou Funeral Home.
So I don’t understand why the parking, if you do, in fact, require it, cannot be mitigated
to another area. The legal counsel here could, I’m sure, inform you that you can make
the lease the same length as the lease that they hold for their business. That would suffice
everyone involved if, in fact, you do make them have more parking. I think they’ve
demonstrated that they don’t need any more parking. Their business is actually going to
be reduced in traffic by having the bodies not have to go out anymore because the
crematorium will be in.
As far as any testimony you have received that there is smoke billowing from these
chimneys, I’ve done my own research on this. I know that that is not true. If, in fact,
somebody is coming to you and saying that is happening, I have two words for them,
“backup generator,” because then it will never happen. So if the EPA found out that this
is happening, they should be shut down, period.
Now, I am involved heavily in my community. I’m a member of Rotary, active member
of the Chamber of Commerce, I sit on the Kona Executive Association and I have served
Mayor Harry Kim as Chair of Hawai`i County Committee on the Status of Women. I am
not without friends that also think the same thing, that A Hui Hou should remain and
allowed to prosper and do well. When I was Marketing Director for Regency at Hualalai
Retirement Community, we never got the kind of support from the other funeral homes
that this family has given to the people of Kona. It should be recognized and applauded
and awarded. Let them stay where they are successful. Don’t punish them for being
successful.
As far as it being a beautiful corridor for visitors to come in, I was in the cruise industry,
too, in the mainland. I know how much the cruise ships want to come to Kona instead of
Hilo. I’ve talked to those people. We need to make it beautiful here for those cruise
ships and the passengers. Very important that we have aloha spirit. But we also need to
have that same aloha spirit for the people that have death that happens here, so it’s
comfortable for us here, for visitors, for locals, anybody. Now I’d be happy to answer
your questions.
WATANABE:We have any questions? Okay, you may -. Thank you.
GULUZZY:I’d like to thank you very much for your time. My husband was a
city manager for 32 years and I can appreciate the difficulty of your jobs. Thank you.
EXHIBIT D
19
YUEN:No, I have a question that comes not from your testimony but your
affidavit.
GULUZZY:Thank you, Mr. Yuen.
YUEN:And you say, there’s a statement in here that concerns me. You
say, “As a business woman in Kona, it concerns me that a business operating for two
years, named ‘Best in West Hawaii would be told they would be shut down by the
County.” And then this next sentence is the one that concerns me, “Especially since one
of their competitors sits on the Planning Commission and should not be participating in
any of the discussions of this business since it’s a conflict of interest.” My question is, do
you have any factual basis for that statement?
GULUZZY:I was told that a member of Dodo Mortuary sat, and was involved
with the Planning Commission. If that is not correct, I apologize. It was information I
was given.
YUEN:That is not correct.
GULUZZY:Okay. Thank you for that, clearing that up, I appreciate it. Any
other questions? Okay, thank you.
WATANABE:We do have, I believe, Shaun Nakakura here that had signed up to
testify. Is there anyone else here from the public that would like to testify? Oh, for the
record, let’s see, I have Danny Choy, Monty Stewart -.
P. BRUMBAUGH:They had to go.
WATANABE:Darlene Hutto, Ken Clewett and Asher Motola. I guess all of, they
are -. You’ve all either testified or left, then, yeah?
P. BRUMBAUGH:They left.
WATANABE: Okay, so you would be the last one, then, Mr. Nakakura?
P. BRUMBAUGH:We have one more after that.
WATANABE:One more testifier. Would you come up, please? Oh, I asked you
earlier. Mike Burwell, right?
BURWELL:I’ll speak if it’s necessary.
WATANABE:Okay, can I swear both of you in? Do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth now before the Hawai`i County Planning Commission?
EXHIBIT D
20
TESTIFIERS:I do.
WATANABE:Okay. Thank you. Which one of you wants to go first?
NAKAKURA:I’ll go first.
WATANABE:Okay, would you state your name and address for our record?
NAKAKURA:Hello. My name is Shaun Nakakura. I live at 77-110B Kalaniuka
Street in Holualoa 96725. I am part owner of Cremation Services of West Hawai`i. My
company and A Hui Hou Funeral Home, if allowed to open their own, if allowed to have
their own crematory facility, will be in direct competition. I’m not here as a competing
business. I’m here today as an informed member of the community who knows first hand
what it is like to be in the surrounding area of a crematory. If the proposed site was in the
proper area, I would not be here before you.
the granting of the
As an informed member of the community, I would like to state
proposed use will ‘cause substantial adverse impact to the community’s character
and to surrounding properties.
My goal today is to present the Planning Commission with information that tells the other
side of the story. The more information you have, the better decision you can make.
How I got involved with this?
I became alarmed when I noticed the sign in the front of
their A Hui Hou Funeral Home facility that the County requires to inform surrounding
businesses and residences. On the sign there was no mention of a crematory being added.
All it said was that the “ADDITION OF EQUIPMENT” was being proposed. No
mention of the additional equipment being a crematory. The purpose of the sign is to
inform the public of exactly what is being added, otherwise, why have a sign? I felt it
was vague and started inquiring what the surrounding property owners were being told. I
also wanted to find out if accurate information was getting to the people who would be
affected the most, the people who work and live in the area. I was surprised to find out
that people who lease offices in the surrounding area had no idea what was going on. No
one was required to tell them. The owners were not filtering the information down to
their tenants.
What all the surrounding properties were being told?
The surrounding properties,
owners were told that these “state of the art” machines are smokeless and odorless.
They’re being told that “they will not even know that a cremation is being performed.”
sell
These statements are made by the people who these machines. A Hui Hou Funeral
Home is just reiterating what the sales people are saying.
Have you ever purchased a product that was guaranteed to work a certain way only to
find out that that was not the case? We have a similar situation here. Salespeople are
telling A Hui Hou Funeral Home that these machines are smokeless and odorless.
EXHIBIT D
21
We were told the same thing when we purchased our equipment two years ago. We were
very surprised to find out after investing a lot of money and opening our business that
these machines do put out a smoky odor as well as a small bit of ash. Thank goodness we
are located in an industrial area in the middle of nowhere. To this day, our landlord has
been the only one to talk to us that they could smell a strong smoky odor. We have
improved a lot since opening, but we still smell a consistent smoky smell as well as see
ashes rolling around the parking lot no matter how careful we are.
Salespeople make money only when they sell their product. Have you ever known a
sales person to exaggerate a product to make a sale? Technicians and those who operate
crematories do not exaggerate when it comes to these machines. Technicians have to try
to make these machines work as advertised. Operators of crematories know better than to
make those claims.
What are the factory technicians’ concerns?
When told that A Hui Hou Funeral
the
Home’s stack height would be 18 feet (8-foot machine plus 10 foot of stack),
manufacturer’s technician said it was too short for such a congested area.
It would
pass EPA standards but a 28 feet or higher stack would be optimal. The higher the stack
means you get better draft and more complete combustion. The stack height at
Cremation Services of West Hawai`i is 30.5 feet, and we still get a smoky smell and
small bit of ash, especially in the cool down phase when the afterburners are off.
The residents and businesses in the proposed area deserve the optimal and not the
minimal. If you had your life savings and all your waking hours tied into a neighboring
business, you’d want to be assured that the optimum precautions were being taken and
not the minimum. The Kailua-Kona Village Design Commission was shown an 18 foot
stack height; they were not informed of a 28 foot stack. Would a stack sticking 12.5 feet
above their building be an eyesore to neighboring businesses and residences?
Another concern that the factory technician had was the number of power outages
that occurs in the downtown area.
If the power were to go out while the cremation is
being performed, the deceased would continue to burn on its own without the secondary
Black smoke and the smell of burning flesh would be emitted from
burner working.
the smoke stack until the power went back on or the machine cooled down.
A
backup generator would be a must.
Does a crematorium in the proposed location enhance the surrounding area?
The
surrounding neighbors do not have anything to gain from cremations being performed at
the proposed site. Two realtors are interviewed so the proposed use would only detract
from the surrounding area. Is this the effect we want for a major commercial residential
area in the center of town? Property is less desirable when located near a crematory.
Crematories must be disclosed in any real estate contract if they are located near the
property for sale. There are a lot of businesses and residences within 300 feet of the
property as well as three restaurants that may be adversely affected by a crematory at the
proposed location. Two of the three restaurant owners were unaware that a crematory
was being proposed right across the street from them. All three have open air seating.
EXHIBIT D
22
How does this affect the community morale in that area?
The surrounding neighbors
would be confronted with death every time they smelled the smoky smell. The
surrounding neighborhood would unfairly blame A Hui Hou Funeral Home for any
smoky smell in the area whether they were the ‘cause of it or not. If someone had a
barbecue, others in the vicinity would be thinking that a cremation is taking place. It may
not affect them all the time but what if they just lost a loved one? Would they be
thinking could that be the loved one they just lost? The surrounding community should
not be put through this kind of ordeal.
Where is the right place to put a crematory?
Cremation is becoming more and more
popular around the entire country. Hawai`i has the highest cremation rate at 67.5 percent.
More and more cremation businesses are being proposed. Planning Commission
meetings are the heated battleground for communities that are opposed to crematories
being placed in Commercial and Residential zoning districts. Planning Commissions
around the country are seeing that they can save the community and themselves a lot of
limit crematories to industrial areas that are 500 to 600 feet
stress and time if they
away from the nearest residence.
San Rafael County, San Diego County, Los Angeles
County have adopted these guidelines to name a few places.
A solution.
The solution I would like to offer is for A Hui Hou Funeral Home to obtain a
Use Permit for an off-site warehouse in an industrial area to perform their cremations.
Their crematory will be in the proper place and will have less adverse effect on their
surrounding neighbors.
I know it was mentioned that Dodo Mortuary and Borthwick Mortuary are located in
centers of towns, but there is a difference here. They were there first, if you take a look.
Dodo was there for 100 years and Borthwick at least 50 years. So, it’s not like they
moved into the neighborhood. It’s pretty much they were there first, so I think that’s the
difference there.
Also, I do have a little folder here of just pictures of the area as well as some, an EPA
study that was teamed up with the Cremation Association of North America. And in the
study they have graphs and on the graphs there are numbers. And to say that only hot air
comes out of the stacks out of crematories is exactly that’s what it is. It’s a lot of hot air
to say that it’s hot air. If you look at the numbers, you’ll see “particulate matter.” What
is “particulate matter?” It is ash. If you look at the graphs, you’ll see one that says,
“smoke.” So there is smoke, maybe a little. They work really well but they’re not
100 percent. There are certain cases where you will get black smoke coming out of the
stack. If you put an obese, a very obese person in a very hot retort, the machine will not
be able to process that amount of fuel. And, so, it just gets over-run and you get black
smoke. Not that A Hui Hou would ever do that ‘cause, you know, they just wouldn’t do
that. But if the machine breaks, you get the same effect. If the machine is turned off for
whatever reason, a timer is accidentally done incorrectly, you’ll get that effect, you may
get that effect.
EXHIBIT D
23
In Closing,
the right decision now will save the community and A Hui Hou Funeral
Home a lot of problems later. Please go with your gut feeling that crematories do not
belong in the center of town. The people who live and work in the surrounding area will
thank you. Thank you.
WATANABE:Thank you. Are there any questions for Mr. Nakakura?
Mr. Iwashita?
IWASHITA:Dodo Mortuary hasn’t been in the present location for 100 years,
right?
NAKAKURA:Okay, that’s right. Sorry. I apologize. I know they’ve been in
business for 100 years.
WATANABE:Any other questions?
GALDONES:Mr. Chair?
WATANABE:Yes, Mr. Galdones.
GALDONES:Mr. Nakakura, the machine that you use for the cremation, as
compared to what American Crematory is selling, are there differences between the two
machines?
NAKAKURA:I was looking at the, some of the literature that was out on the table
today. I know there’s, our crematory, we’re, we have to heat our secondary chamber to
1,650 degrees Fahrenheit and I notice theirs is 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. So it’s not as, it
doesn’t run as hot, I would say. Yeah, as far as the technology, I’m not quite sure.
They’re all two-chamber types, though.
RAGGETT:Yours is hotter.
NAKAKURA:Hotter?
RAGGETT:Yes.
NAKAKURA:Ours is?
RAGGETT:Yeah.
NAKAKURA:I’d say they’re very similar machines.
GALDONES:As far as the scrubbing, you think they would be the same, too?
NAKAKURA:There’s no scrubbers. Is there a scrubber in your machine?
EXHIBIT D
24
RAGGETT:No scrubbers.
NAKAKURA:No scrubbers.
GALDONES:There’s no filtration system for the stacks? You mentioned the
other counties have certain regulations. Can you repeat that again? What was that all
about?
NAKAKURA:Sure. I said that San Rafael County, San Diego County, Los
Angeles County have adopted guidelines that limit crematories to industrial areas that are
500 to, anywhere from 500 to 600 feet away from the nearest residence.
GALDONES:Okay. Thank you.
WATANABE:Any other questions? I guess not. Thank you. Oh.
YUEN:Mr. Nakakura, did you ever complain to the manufacturer or the
person that you bought the machine from about the emission of ash, the constant
emission of ash that you’re discussing?
NAKAKURA:What kind of ash I’m -. Well, I would say, no. It’s minimal, not to
the point where I would, you know, when I open my door outside, my car door, I’ll see a
layer of ash; and when I look in the parking lot, I might see some ashes swirling around
the parking lot. I’ve not called them because I’m one of those people who try to, you
know, work it out and, also, I’m sure Sam, too. I mean, we’ve been trained properly, you
know, trained on our machines. The manufacturer came down, trained us, and we were
certified to do the cremations. So, no.
YUEN:The machine does not, you know, you came here, applied for a
Special Use Permit to install your crematorium and represented to the Commission,
odorless, no emissions, no offensive emissions whatsoever. Now, you’re explaining and
you’re not the only building, you’re not the only user in the building, right? There are
other cars that park in front of your building?
NAKAKURA:Well, our building has six bays, four are used for storage and one
is the Kona Lua Portable Potty people. So there’s not a lot of vehicles that come into our
area.
YUEN:Okay. But, at any rate, your equipment is not working as you
represented to the Commission here and you’ve taken no effort to get advice from the
manufacturer or inquire of the manufacturer or the person that you bought it from how to
improve the performance?
NAKAKURA:I guess ‘cause we don’t get any complaints regarding it and we
were just taught that way; and the way we were taught is the same way it has been
performing.
EXHIBIT D
25
WATANABE:Use the microphone.
NAKAKURA:Oh, okay.
YUEN:You have a warranty on your equipment?
NAKAKURA:I think it’s one year. Okay, it -.
YUEN:This problem emerged during the warranty period?
NAKAKURA:Yes.
YUEN:You never made any claim to, that the machine was not performing
as warranted?
NAKAKURA:No. Because one thing is it falls within the EPA guidelines. The
EPA guidelines doesn’t say it has to be smokeless and odorless. There are certain periods
of time when you can have emissions; and, so, we fall within all, with all those
guidelines. We just had the EPA, well, actually, the Department of Health come and
inspect us last week. The EPA, somebody had called and complained that maybe we
should be checked out because they were saying we’re having emissions. And, so, he
came and we did pass with flying colors, we exceeded what he expected or what the
expectations are.
YUEN:Should we re-examine your permit?
NAKAKURA:If necessary, if necessary. I would say no. I think we fall within
the guidelines for EPA. We’re in an area that is the right place for one. There’s no
residences within, definitely not within 650 feet, but -.
YUEN:But you’re getting ash on your own car on a regular basis and you
don’t mind that?
NAKAKURA:You get used to it, Mr. Yuen, you get used to it.
WATANABE:Mr. Iwashita?
IWASHITA:Thank you, Mr. Chair. What I’m gleaning from your testimony,
Mr. Nakakura, and correct me if I say something that is not, maybe if I’m expressing
something that is not accurate. My impression is that your, well, let me ask you a
preliminary question first. Is your retort similar or going to be the same as the one that A
Hui Hou wants to put in? Do you know?
NAKAKURA:I’m not quite sure. I haven’t studied the -.
EXHIBIT D
26
IWASHITA:You don’t know which ones?
NAKAKURA:American Crematory Equipment. Maybe he could -.
IWASHITA:Okay, that’s fine, that’s fine. You bought yours two years ago?
NAKAKURA:In 2004, correct.
IWASHITA:So, well, I’m going to guess that A Hui Hou is going to get the
newer better version. But in the two years, my impression from your testimony is that
you have not experienced any problem with the operating of the machine which required
you to make any report request, any special kind of repair or maintenance from the
manufacturer?
NAKAKURA:Correct. The machines -. Oh, yeah, I’m sorry.
IWASHITA:That’s fine. And that, so that the machine has worked as within
the limitations that the specifications require it to work on, is that correct?
NAKAKURA:Correct.
IWASHITA:And that every time you’ve had an inspection by the Department
of Health about the operation of your machine, it has passed inspection?
NAKAKURA:Correct.
IWASHITA:Okay. Thank you.
WATANABE:Any other questions? Mr. Salavea?
SALAVEA:Mr. Nakakura, on the graphs provided to the Planning
Commission, I don’t really understand or have a reference point to look at the
information here. Is it your position that the emissions exceed EPA standards or is this -?
I’m not sure how to use this information.
NAKAKURA:They’re under EPA standards but they’re not, my thing is they’re
not smokeless and odorless. They’re very good machines, they work very well, but it’s
not 100 percent. And I believe we’re in an area that, you know, we don’t have to be
100 percent. But I think the area that is being proposed, they’re expecting 100 percent,
they’re not going to get 100 percent, so -.
SALAVEA:All right. Thank you.
WATANABE:No other questions then? Thank you. So we have our last testifier,
Mr. Burwell. Would you state your name and address for the record, please?
EXHIBIT D
27
BURWELL:Thank you. I’m just, I’m here, I’m Vice President of Service and
Repair for American Crematory. So if you have any technical questions about our
equipment, I’m here to answer them for you. That’s kind of why I’m here.
WATANABE:Mr. Galdones?
GALDONES:Thank you, Mr. Chair. Could you explain the, in reference to what
Mr. Nakakura had mentioned, can you relate your machine to what he is experiencing?
BURWELL:Say that again?
GALDONES:Could you relate the results of your machine to what
Mr. Nakakura is experiencing? He mentions that it’s not 100 percent clear, there’s some
smoke, there’s going to some ashes and there is some odor. In your equipment, are they
absence of all of those substances?
BURWELL:Right. I would say that if he’s having smoke and particulate, it
might be operator error, it might be out of adjustment, there’s a few things that play into
that. Our equipment is source-tested and also within the stringent guidelines of the air
quality, which is, I’m sure the manufacturer’s are as well.
GALDONES:I’m not so much interested in meeting EPA regulations. What I’d
like to know is whether there will be some dust floating in the air or there won’t be any at
all, or will there be a little bit of smoke coming out of there, will there be a little bit odor
coming out of there? That is what I’d like to know.
BURWELL:No, no odor, no smoke.
GALDONES:And no particulates coming out, either?
BURWELL:There should be absolutely no particulates.
GALDONES:Okay. Thanks.
WATANABE:Mr. Iwashita?
IWASHITA:So how do you explain these charts that show particulates coming
from retorts?
BURWELL:I don’t know. I haven’t seen the chart.
IWASHITA:Can you show this, then?
WATANABE:I guess so.
EXHIBIT D
28
BURWELL:The particulate matter that he’s talking about would be ash and it
does show a very small, small percentage. But in my experience, I’ve been doing this for
15 years, and I’ve never seen any ash coming out of a stack from a crematory.
IWASHITA:Okay. Can you, I don’t know if you know this, does your
company supply the retorts for -?
BURWELL:The source testing?
IWASHITA:Well, no, for Brothwick Hawai`i Funeral Home in Hilo or Dodo
Mortuary in Hilo? Do you know?
BURWELL:No, we do not.
IWASHITA:You don’t?
BURWELL:Yeah, we didn’t build their equipment. No.
IWASHITA:Okay. Thank you.
WATANABE:Any other questions? Okay. Looks like we have another
individual that wants to testify. Would you come up, sir? I need to swear you in. Would
you raise your right hand, please? Do you swear or affirm to truth now before the
Hawai`i County Planning Commission?
LIEPACK:Yes, I do
WATANABE:Thank you. Would you state your name and address for the record,
please?
LIEPACK:I’m Scot Liepack, PhD.
WATANABE:Thank you. You may go ahead. Oh, I need your address. I’m
sorry.
LIEPACK:It’s 75-5751 Kuakini Highway, Suite 201-I.
WATANABE:Thank you. Go ahead.
LIEPACK:Okay. So, I actually am a neighbor of A Hui Hou; and my office,
my business, I’m a child psychologist. Okay, and I just want to say, you know, in the
Territorial Savings Building we now have the Community Health Center. We have a
number of psychologists who are in there. The area is really turning into this wellness
health, your medical kind of an area. A Hui Hou, from the moment they came in, they’ve
been coming over to us, they’re saying, “Hey, we’re here, do you have any questions?”
EXHIBIT D
29
you know, “how can we be good neighbors?” and, I mean, sometimes even more than
people in our own building go ahead and talk to one another.
I don’t know if you folks had anything to do with it but the driver’s license or the
licensing place where they do driver’s licenses, that’s a huge mess that we’re dealing
with. Because I’m parking now, and our parking lot is horrible so A Hui Hou lets me
park over there. You know, they’re just, they’re really excellent people and they’re
excellent neighbors; and I actually just really wanted to come today to go ahead and tell
you. I mean, I don’t know the technicalities of all of that kind of stuff but, you know, the
kids that I work with is like nobody is afraid of having a funeral parlor next door, a
funeral home next door. You know, they’ve been good neighbors; and far as I’m
concerned, yeah, I trust them in terms of what they’re saying, of course, the engineer was
here also. But I really support them because of how they’ve been to us in the building
right next door. So that’s what I wanted to say.
WATANABE:Mr. Iwashita?
IWASHITA:What if there’s a 30-foot stack instead of an 18-foot stack sticking
out of their building? Does it bother you?
LIEPACK:Not at all.
IWASHITA:Okay, thank you.
LIEPACK:I mean, in fact, I actually just came back from a funeral in Taiwan
where there was this huge industrial crematorium run by the government and stuff, and I
certainly didn’t notice any smoke, or dust, or anything coming out of that thing. And, I
mean, that was huge, so, you know, the difference between an 18-foot stack or 30-foot
stack, you know, I just don’t see any major difference. I mean, I know it’s almost twice
as big. But in terms of the experience of being there looking at it or whatever, I hope
they build a nice stack but I hope they get to build the stack.
WATANABE:Any other questions? Okay, I’ll let it go. Make it brief because,
generally, we don’t allow second testimony.
RAGGETT:I want to clear the record for the stack issue. Evidently, I’ve never
been to Mr. Shaun’s facility and, accordingly -.
CARROLL:Wait, wait, you haven’t been recognized by the Chair to start
talking. Are you recognizing him, Mr. Chair?
WATANABE:Yeah, yeah.
CARROLL:Oh, I’m sorry.
RAGGETT:Okay.
EXHIBIT D
30
WATANABE:Just keep it brief.
RAGGETT:I just figured something out as we’re going through this, and the
stack issue I just figured something out. It’s real important that with the crematory the
stack height, and it seems to be a topic here and I just figured out why he’s having
problems that he’s having, ‘cause his stack is way, way too high. As people know in the
engineering of a fireplace, the higher the stack the more draft that has. If you were to
light a cigarette in front of a crematory with a longer stack such as 30 feet, it would suck
the air in more. So what’s probably happening with Shaun’s machine, and I’m going to
go by there tomorrow ‘cause it’s too late tonight, but due to the fact that he has such a tall
stack, he may not be getting total combustion and burning all the particulate and
cremated remains. And, so, the cremation is probably being cremated in the main
chamber and then going underneath the floor and out the stack, and not a total
combustion because the draft is so fast on it. To where the newer machines that we build
nowadays, our whole goal in manufacturing is to keep the remains inside as long as
possible, would take all that residency time, to keep the residual smoke and odor within
the machine before it exits out in the atmosphere. So listening to all this stuff, I just
realized why he may be having a problem, that his stack is way too high; and it’s pulling
such a draft, it’s not getting combustion. It’s just going through it and getting pushed out
before it even gets burned.
WATANABE:Okay. Well, well, that’s fine and well. But for the record, your
name was John Raggett?
RAGGETT:Yes.
WATANABE:Yes, okay. Thank you. Okay, you know, according to my list we
have gone through everyone that has signed up to testify who is here. I believe I gave
everyone an opportunity from the public. So, with that, I’d like to call up the Applicant
again, please. And, as promised, you have your opportunity to make your final argument.
CARROLL:Again, I really thank everyone for their patience and for their
dedication. I see Andy Iwashita, I forgot who he was until, getting white hair now, but -.
IWASHITA:Everybody does that.
CARROLL:I’d just like to say that, first of all, there’s no controvertible
evidence to anything that we put before you, other than the emotional side of this issue.
You have had the single competitor here, even Dodo and Borthwick are not here to testify
against this. And I think you’re looking at the bottom line of what this is all about, it’s to
be able to allow these ladies, who are doing such a wonderful job that they’ve been
named as, you can see in there, the best funeral parlor in this side of the island, to
continue. And this will allow this low-cost or relatively economic delivery system; and
they are dedicated to doing everything perfectly. And having said that, I really think
EXHIBIT D
31
there’s nothing more to say, except to ask that you do grant this permit, excuse me,
variance as requested.
WATANABE:Thank you. Are there any further questions of the Applicant?
GALDONES:Mr. Chair?
WATANABE:Yes, Mr. Galdones?
GALDONES:Mr. Carroll, the manufacturer is advertising that the unit is smoke
and odor free. Are you, if we grant you your permit, is your client saying that they will
be operating a crematory that would be free of any smoke, and any odor, and any
particulates?
CARROLL:Absolutely. And I said, earlier, and I’m really not sure why
Mr. Nakakura hasn’t done it, if the thing is not functioning, we’ll be suing them
forthwith. And they’re looking at a, you know, $75,000 investment, not to mention all
the preamble to that. So, absolutely, we’re looking for that smoke-free, odor-free
operation; and that’s why they went with, as Mr. Fine said, the stand-by generator in case
there’s any power interruption which is, you know, possibly likely over here.
GALDONES:And this addition to the business, this is not to add on viewing? As
far as viewing that is handled elsewhere? This is just to do, take care of the remains of
the individual?
P. BRUMBAUGH:Right. What this will do is we don’t have to drive off-site to
another location for the cremation and then come back on-site with the remains. All
viewings, all public services, those types of things are all done elsewhere. The churches
in our communities have been incredibly helpful in opening their doors to us to use their
facilities for families for viewings and services. We’ve used a huge amount of them all
over the place. I think it’s written down in an itemized list in your docket. But this does
not open up to anything else other than allowing us to fully care for our family on-site.
GALDONES:Okay. Thank you. You are aware that we are in receipt of several
petitions, I haven’t counted the petitions, that were against the site in which you are
proposing the permit?
P. BRUMBAUGH:Yeah.
GALDONES:And have you had the contacts with these individuals to try to
mitigate this problem, situation?
P. BRUMBAUGH:We’ve gone around and talked to everyone other than the ones that
we just received yesterday. And by and large the majority of those people, I would say,
pretty everyone of them, except for a couple of them that, some people you just, it’s not
going to happen, but those people, a lot of them stated, Shaun Nakakura brought those
EXHIBIT D
32
petitions in, he encouraged them to sign those petitions. And a couple of the people said
they felt too intimated to say, no, so they took the petitions and they signed them. And
on the set that we got from yesterday, a number of those petitions were sent from Shaun
Nakakura’s office to the Planning Department than to us. And, so, I would say for you to
please consider that what he did was, I don’t think it was a very nice thing to do. But he
went around to all of our neighbors, the people who worked there, and gave them
information and gave them the petitions to sign and then encouraged them to sign them;
and their responses were totally generated from his efforts. They’re all from there as a
competitor.
GALDONES:Thank you.
CARROLL:And I would add, also, to the fact that the only people here to
oppose this is Mr., the only person I should say, is Mr. Nakakura; and we saw this flood
of paperwork that came in. And I think if somebody sent me one that said there’s going
to be burning flesh in your neighborhood, you know, I’d probably sign them myself. So I
think it’s understandable. And, as I say, competition is competition but I think this went
a little too far.
WATANABE:Thank you. Any further questions for the Applicant? Seeing none,
then you may be seated.
CARROLL:Well, again, I really, really appreciate you fellows, you gentlemen
doing this job; and I know it’s a burden sometimes. Thank you.
WATANABE:Thank you. You know, we’ve been through quite a bit of
discussion over this and it might have been a little more than we expected or taken a little
slightly different vein than we had expected earlier. The Director had indicated he would
prefer to discuss his final opinion on this after testimony and maybe this is a good time.
YUEN:We always have to turn to the criteria for making a decision. In
this case the most this is, the one that would be significant would be, does it ‘cause a
substantial adverse effect to surrounding properties, and that includes the people that use
and live in the surrounding properties.
We can look at this, there’s two parts for this. One, we can look at the objective aspect of
it. If there was the odor of burning flesh or ash of human remains settling upon people’s
cars in the parking lots, then there’d be an objective problem. My opinion is, from the
testimony, that those, that that kind of, that those kinds of impacts can be avoided. We
can put conditions of approval that would require the operation to be odorless, that there
not be particulate matter, you know, no particulate matter settling on the surrounding
properties; and you can handle it, you can handle that objection to it.
Then we were left with this last question; and the question is, are there some, is this
basically an offensive use in a Mixed Commercial area? Is there, even if there’s nothing,
there’s nothing physical, there’s no physical problem with it, is the cremation of, is
EXHIBIT D
33
cremation itself such an undesirable use in a mixed area of office buildings, multi-family?
I think there’s one home somewhat in the vicinity that from a standpoint not of a person
who is unusually sensitive but from a standpoint of the general public that it has a
significant adverse effect on the surrounding businesses.
I have a real hard time with this question because I have to say that from my own, you
can start with your own viewpoint; and I would say from my own viewpoint, I would say,
no. It, you know, it does not greatly bother me. I lived on Lehua Street, about a half
block from Dodo Mortuary for a few months. I had no idea, if we had asked, I did not
know whether they did cremations there; and if I had known while I lived on Lehua
Street, it wouldn’t have bothered me at all. So, I mean, but you just can’t judge things on
a personal level.
Second level, you know, how do the people around there feel about it? And the opinions
of the people in the surrounding area are entitled to a great deal of respect in this, you
know, because they are the people who are affected. We have to ask ourselves, now, we
have a lot of letters of opposition, mostly these form check-offs from people in the
surrounding area, are they responding to information that they have that leads them to
think that there’s going to be a bad smell and dust settling all over their cars?
In reviewing what, and this is why it’s helpful to have public hearings and to see what
people have to say. It does seem from, we had no one except Mr. Nakakura testifying in
opposition. It does seem from the way these things were answered that they were
responding to statements about the physical effects of having cremation rather than
saying, you know, this, I don’t care whether there’s dust, I don’t care whether there’s
smoke or odor, I just don’t want this. You know, I could be wrong about where people
were coming from with this. But this is my sense of looking at the letters that the
message is protect me from dust, odors and the like. Don’t, they’re not saying that this is
just offensive in itself.
And the final piece of evidence I would, that we have on the record is that you do have
cremation going on in neighborhoods in Hilo that are mixed neighborhoods where you
have homes and businesses relatively nearby. If the business, if the cremation was there
first, that tells me that people moved next to a mortuary with cremation and aren’t upset
by it, I’m not sure if that’s correct, that the cremation was going on first and the people
moved there later. But either way that’s a piece of evidence that indicates that as far as
community standards, it is not a matter of, that it’s not a matter that’s just basically
offensive to people in the community.
And in the end I think I don’t have much more to add to it than that. I can’t claim any
expertise in this. And that’s what the Commission is there for, to make this kind of
judgment and, ultimately, and to make this judgment whether it is, whether just having
the crematory facility there is something that is going to have a significant adverse impact
on the surrounding properties. If the Commission, you know, I think this is one case
where the Commission should have some discussion. If the Commission is inclined to
approve, there are a few conditions that we would suggest. If it’s inclined to deny, we
EXHIBIT D
34
would suggest that it’d be based upon the opposition of people in the area and their
feeling that it does have a significant adverse impact on them rather than as stated in our
Recommendation, which was primarily based on parking.
WATANABE:Discussion? Mr. Iwashita?
IWASHITA:I just, clarification on point of procedure, and I guess I’m prepared
to make a motion if that would serve as a basis for discussion, if the Chair wants to
proceed that way, or we can have talk first and then a motion later.
WATANABE:Well, why don’t you go ahead and try? Let’s shoot for the motion
and -.
IWASHITA:I move that the application for Use Permit, Docket No. USE 06-
00004, Use Permit to allow cremation within a mortuary facility on property zoned
Village Commercial (CV) by A Hui Hou Tribute Center, Inc. be approved based on the
following: That the granting of the proposed use will be consistent with the intent and
purpose of the Zoning Code, that the granting of the proposed use would not ‘cause
substantial adverse impact to the surrounding properties and the granting of the proposed
use would not unreasonably burden public agencies to provide related infrastructure,
subject to those conditions that the Director mentioned he would impose on the granting
of such permit.
WATANABE:I guess we can revise those conditions during discussion.
SALAVEA:Second.
WATANABE:We have a motion and a second. So discussion?
IWASHITA:If I can speak to the motion?
WATANABE:Please, yeah.
IWASHITA:I guess the immediate reaction I had on this was, you know, well,
within the middle of town, you’re going to have this crematorium. Then, you know,
having gone through all of the testimony and just basically, you know, looking at what
we have in our community, you know, our community as a whole -. You know, I worked
within a block of Hawai`i Funeral Home, now Borthwick Hawai`i Funeral Home, for
three years, I think. It never really occurred to me other than when I actually had to go
use their facilities that actual cremations were done there. And, you know, so -.
PUBLIC:It’s not being done there, sir. It’s done at Homelani Crematorium
up on Ponahawai.
IWASHITA:Up on Ponahawai?
EXHIBIT D
35
PUBLIC:Yes, sir.
IWASHITA:Well, the Director put on the record otherwise.
DARROW:But Borthwick is renting that from Homelani.
WATANABE:Wait, wait, wait.
YUEN:I’m sorry. Could we clarify that. Did I misspeak?
DARROW:You had mentioned Kinoole Street, but Borthwick is renting the
Homelani property which has the crematorium.
YUEN:I’m sorry, then I did misspeak.
IWASHITA:Okay. So I was two blocks away from the crematorium instead of
one. Sorry, I misspoke. And, you know, I frequented the Dodo Mortuary area, also.
And, you know, I don’t, I guess it’s my view that, again, as represented by the Director in
terms of viewing the evidence presented, and I take the community association’s support
of this effort as good evidence that, you know, that the community supports the location
of the facility where it is, so that’s the basis for my making the motion.
WATANABE:Any further discussion?
GALDONES:Mr. Chairman?
SALAVEA:Mr. Chair?
GALDONES:You first.
WATANABE:Mr. Salavea?
SALAVEA:Thank you, Commissioner Galdones. Mr. Chair, my overall
impression is I’d like to support implementing the crematory at the A Hui Hou facility. I
do have some reservations about the air quality after it’s up and running; and, so, I’m not
sure how we’re going to do this. I want to kind of implement or ask if we can do like a
conditional permit where if, you know, six months, twelve months down the road if the
neighboring businesses and residents or whoever’s around there still has no objections
then -, you know, it would be good for me.
WATANABE:I believe that the Director, in the event that this motion does pass,
is working on some conditions that he would like to add, or at least he would probably
add those prior to us voting on it, yeah, and would come up during discussion.
SALAVEA:And I think, if they work, A Hui Hou works closely with the
manufacturer and they fine-tune the machine and work to get it right, it should function
EXHIBIT D
36
as advertised with minimal impact on the surrounding neighborhood; and in my mind
that’s fine with me. I don’t find the idea of, actually, I find the idea that the proposed use
and the concept that they use in dealing with this issue refreshing and a nice turn or a nice
perspective. So dealing with it, looking at it from a difficult situation and being in a very
comfortable environment and having the minimal amount of, I guess, things to do, places
to go, issues to resolve in the difficult time, very comforting for the local residents and
should ease people’s anxieties in that particular time. So that’s about all I have to add.
Thank you.
WATANABE:Mr. Galdones?
GALDONES:I’d like to introduce an amendment and I would like to speak on
the amendment thereafter. And what I would like to introduce as part of the motion is an
amendment to say that the unit is, “The emission from the unit would be smoke-, odor-
and particulate-free.” I’m going to speak on that. That goes along with the motion that
Commissioner Iwashita had mentioned where it won’t have any adverse impact on the
environment. And, also, if you look at the petitions that were submitted to us, it speaks
of billowing black smoke, smell of flesh burning; and that could possibly have driven a
lot of people who had submitted this to go against the crematory being located there. But
if we take away those concerns that they have, then I would be okay with that. It will not
have that adverse impact; and, also, the people would probably, will not know that that
activity is occurring on that property. So I would like to introduce that as an amendment.
WATANABE:Mr. Director, would you -?
YUEN:I think the, the application does say smokeless. I think from the
testimony, there is some particulate matter in normal operation, and the Commission
could ask the representative, the manufacturer’s representative, to come back up if this is
a key point. But I don’t want to have a condition that there is, you know, absolutely no
particulate matter if, in fact, there is some. They’re very, you know, as I say, I think it’s a
very small amount but I believe there is some in normal operation.
GALDONES: In response to the statement, Mr. Director, I’m taking it on face
value that the manufacturer is saying that it will be particulate free. I want to make sure
that we also try to make this a win-win situation where those who had opposed the
application, their concerns are also taken care of. If the concerns can be taken care, then
we can satisfy the client, they can continue, they can have this operation there.
In line with what you had mentioned, if there are some particulate matters, if Dodo
Mortuary is doing retort cremation there, then it would be helpful for me to do a survey
of the neighboring, the neighborhood because right next door, right across the street, you
have a lot of neighbors. That’s a neighborhood that’s, that’s a housing area. It would be
good to see what kind of reaction we get from them, also. That would probably give us a
good gauge how these people around the surrounding area of A Hui Hou will probably be
responding to it.
EXHIBIT D
37
WATANABE:Not to provide testimony here but I believe most of the residential
area around there are probably tenants, very likely tenants and not so much permanent
residents.
GALDONES:They do have permanent residents since they have single-family.
They also have apartments.
WATANABE:Okay. Any other comments? Mr. Graham?
GRAHAM:Yeah, kind of, Fred, in regard to what the Planning Director said,
like, I mean, bodies are composed of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, a
bunch of different things. So they’re all going to come out in gases as well as
particulates. So sulphur coming out as sulphur dioxide and stuff like that, it’s going to
have a little smell. But what they’re saying is the smell is going to be very, very minimal
and people probably don’t notice it even. So I think that what he was saying about really
not being able to make that a firm condition is probably true, and we need to abide by
that.
My own personal feelings were if it’s a wrong decision the downside is greater. In other
words, it’s a bigger mistake for things to go wrong than it is not to do it because they’re
operating fine already now without it; but it would be beneficial to them to have it. And
my first thought was like if we were in a residential area, I would sort of say, well, if you
get the neighbors on all sides to say it’s okay with us, and bring us a little signed piece of
paper, then I’d say, well, I’ll go with it.
But Commissioner Salavea said, well, maybe after 30 days, or six months, or something
like that, if there’s no problem then they can continue operating. That sounds very
reasonable to me. But the only issue I get with that is it could turn into kind of a
contentious situation 30 days, or 60 days, or whatever from now, if somebody sort of
said, well, I smelled it, I didn’t like it, but the Department of Health guys came over next
door and they couldn’t find anything the next day or something. So it could kind of drag
into an issue. So, you know, I think a lot of us are probably in a situation here where we
don’t have a clear, strong feeling. If I understand correctly I don’t think the Planning
Director ever said those words that parking is no longer an issue in his mind. Is that a
truthful issue? It’s no longer an issue at all?
YUEN:Right.
GRAHAM:Okay. Thank you.
YUEN:You know, if they start having wakes there, we will cite them
based on the previous letter that we had as far as an understanding; but that’s an
enforcement problem. The cremation itself does not add to that question and we do not
see a problem at the present time.
EXHIBIT D
38
GRAHAM:Okay. Is there a way that if we were to, you know, the idea of a
residential neighborhood where you get the surrounding property owners to affirmatively
write and say, “It’s okay with me,” is that a practicable approach in a situation like we
have here? Or is it a little too unclear who the surrounding owners are? ‘Cause we got
tenants and we got a building with 12 different people in it, you have to get all 12 and
that’s too hard and that kind of stuff. Is it not a viable approach at this point with this
particular application? I’m asking the Planning Director, or Jeff, or whomever.
YUEN:We have an application and it has come here for a hearing. I think
the Commission has to make a decision based on whether this does have a substantial
adverse impact to the neighbors. At this point, you have a, you know, the Applicant has
gone around and talked to them, and you have a substantial number of neighbors who
have not recanted their letters of opposition that they checked off before. So you don’t
have that. I mean, if it’s your inclination that you’re not going to vote for it if the
neighbors don’t like it, then I think that’s your prerogative as a Commissioner. I mean,
you have to think of it a little more than they don’t like it but that you agree with them
that they’re going to have a substantial adverse impact or that their opposition is evidence
of that. But, you know, to say as a, it’s not a, certainly not a general requirement of these
permits that you get the affirmative consent of your neighbors.
GRAHAM:I understand that. The only reason I was bringing that up is in this
particular situation I think the downside if it’s a wrong decision is much greater than the
upside if it’s a right decision. So that’s why I was going that extra step about affirmative.
But, again, I feel like that would apply if there was a situation where we had three or four
specific owners we were going to ask. If there are 50 people operating all right around it
then obviously you’re not going to get them all in favor. So it doesn’t work, I thought,
that’s all.
WATANABE:Yeah, I don’t think it would work, actually. Mr. Rho, you and I
are the only people who have not commented yet. Would you like to chime in on the
discussion?
ROE:I guess my concern revolves around whether or not it really is
odorless and no smoke, no whatever, I mean. And there’s that chart in that folder, and
I’m not sure that we gave the representative from the company or the company that
they’re purchasing this from a chance to actually truly respond to it. So I’d be interested
in hearing what they really think about those two charts. I’m not, you know, I’m not a
scientist so I can’t really speak to whether or not it will be odorless. I’m not, when I
looked at that chart, though, it seemed like the higher the temperature was the more,
maybe it’s the opposite way, the more particulate, the more odor, or black smoke, or
whatever would come out. And, again, I’m not even sure that we know how to read those
charts. So can you respond to those charts?
HAYASHI:Mr. Chair, we do have a motion on the floor.
EXHIBIT D
39
WATANABE:Yeah, procedurally, I think I would have to re-open, yeah? Is that
right?
TORIGOE:You know, this, these are, this is not a formal contested case. I’d
say just do what is the most efficient way for you to, I guess, facilitate your discussion
and come to a decision.
WATANABE:Okay, then if I asked him to limit his response to that specific
question that would be in order?
TORIGOE:Yes.
WATANABE:Okay. I believe that was John Raggett? Would you please
respond to Mr. Rho, and just that specific question, please.
RAGGETT: Yeah, the specific question is from the Cremation Association of
North America, their test results from restaurants versus crematories, fireplaces versus
crematories, and the degree in temperature in which the body is cremated at. As you
indicated the higher the temperature, the higher volume of particulate matter that comes
out. But he didn’t show you the rest of the results on what the emissions are, particulate
matter, that the emissions of particulate matter are very low and not noticeable, just like
he didn’t show you the mercury report. During the cremation, the teeth are burned and
they emit mercury out. It’s such a low amount of mercury that what they’re saying is that
fast food restaurants and fireplaces produce more particulate than human crematories. So
the McDonald that’s two doors down is creating more pollution than the crematory will
be at the funeral hall.
WATANABE:Thank you. Does that answer your question, Mr. Rho?
RHO:Yes.
WATANABE:Okay. You may be seated then. I guess I’m the last remaining
Commissioner that hasn’t commented yet. And I found it odd that a competitor would be
taking such great interest in the application. And, of course, to that extent I did discount
many of the responses that we got from the neighborhood. However, I did field some
calls from individuals who did not sign, in fact, this particular check-off list. You know,
they handed in their own, in their own words objections; and I do know that they have
businesses right next door in the Territorial Building, in particular. And I guess, you
know, this comes under, well, “What’s your pleasure? Do you find it offensive or do you
not find it offensive?” It’s kind of like just an opinion, yeah? But for myself, in
particular, I’m not sure that I can agree with that type of use in that area and especially
not, I think, at that intersection; but then, again, it’s just my opinion. And like the
Director had said, you know, it’s kind of like your call because it’s not like a real, I guess,
it’s not real well-defined here. So, with that, unless there’s further discussion, maybe, we
have a motion and a second, so maybe we can have roll call?
EXHIBIT D
40
TORIGOE:The conditions?
WATANABE:Oh, excuse me. We have additional conditions that you would be
placing, we agreed we would place on that. And, Mr. Director?
YUEN:Yes, some of them are fairly standard since we did not, we didn’t
prepare an alternative. Yes, the Applicant, its successors or assigns shall be responsible
for complying with all of the stated conditions of approval. The crematorium shall be
established within two years from the effective date of this permit. That’s, there’s a
typical time condition so that if they don’t go ahead that this doesn’t pop up ten years
from now, for example. The Applicant shall comply with all applicable laws, rules and
regulations of the State and County agencies for the proposed use. The standard time
extension condition, and I would say that the Applicant shall comply with all the
representations they made in the application. That’s a more general statement of the way
that they would operate. The crematorium shall be operated without, to be odorless and
smokeless. I would not recommend the additional condition of “free from particulate
matter.” Because in reviewing one of the things that we received, we received the air
quality permit where they have test results, and there are small amounts of particulate
matter emitted from the crematorium in the normal operation; and I didn’t see the,
anything from the Applicant or the manufacturer that made a claim otherwise as far as
particulates. The cremation unit shall include a backup generator. The cremation shall
not emit particulate matter that settles on surrounding properties. And any complaints
that are made to the Applicant shall be forwarded to the Planning Department for its
review. Sometimes they complain to the Applicant and to the business and not
necessarily knowing that there is a governmental agency that we involve. And that’s the
set of conditions that I would have on a favorable, if the Commission were to go ahead
with a favorable recommendation.
WATANABE:Okay, Mr. Iwashita?
IWASHITA:Yeah, those are fine.
WATANABE:You’re satisfied with that, the seconder? Mr. Salavea?
SALAVEA:Yeah. For Director Yuen, do we need to have a condition
specifying hours of when you can cremate or is, you know, day and night, okay? Or
should it be like during regular business hours? I’m not sure, it just came to me.
WATANABE:I’m thinking it’s going to take awhile to burn a body, so I don’t
know that you want to specify the hours. You have any -?
YUEN:I don’t know what the more, perhaps it would be even more
desirable if they operated at night, I really don’t know. I also, and this last one just
occurred to me, and I would ask for the comments of the Applicant if this poses a
problem that I don’t see, a condition that says that the cremation shall be limited to,
where this business handles the funeral arrangements for the deceased. And what I’m
EXHIBIT D
41
saying here is that they would not, there may be other funeral homes and funeral
establishments in Kona, for example, that do not have the ability to cremate. And what
they’ve represented to us is that they want to offer, you know, they’re handling the
arrangements and they want to be able to offer cremation. What this condition would
mean is that if another funeral home were handling all other arrangements, except for
cremations, they could not accept that as a part of their business. And if that poses a
problem, you know, I think the Applicant, we should give them the opportunity to say
why that I’m misunderstanding this.
WATANABE:Mr. Carroll, do you pretty much understand what he’s saying?
He’s saying you can’t sublet those services, basically.
CARROLL:Yeah, we are in agreement to that. We are in agreement.
WATANABE:Okay.
GALDONES: Mr. Chair?
WATANABE:Mr. Galdones?
GALDONES: Procedurally, we have the Applicant address the conditions. In this
particular case, it came forth with a rejection and, so, the conditions are beginning to
come up now -.
WATANABE:Unfolding, yeah.
GALDONES: Yeah, so we need to get -.
WATANABE:Maybe we should address all these is what you’re saying? All of
the –?
GALDONES: Yeah, have the Applicants respond to the conditions that we had
put forth in the approval.
YUEN:And Mr. Darrow mentioned that we have some information that
the machine may make some noise when it starts up or cools down; and so that there’d be
a condition that, we suggest a condition against operating after 7 p.m.
CARROLL:I think John here can answer that question.
RAGGETT: Yeah, the condition of doing no outside cremations, meaning
outsourcing cremations, that condition is fine. The 7 p.m. turn off time, that’s fine.
WATANABE:Oh, turn off or start up?
RAGGETT:No, he said -.
EXHIBIT D
42
CARROLL:He was asking about noise, yeah.
RAGGETT:You have the noise of the machine?
P. BRUMBAUGH:It doesn’t make noise.
RAGGETT:Yeah, the machine is quiet so you won’t, the neighbors next door
won’t hear it.
WATANABE:Okay. And with regard to the other conditions that I assume you
were listening to, do you need further clarification or are those conditions satisfactory?
CARROLL:Let me ask them. Did you hear all of the conditions?
P. BRUMBAUGH:Well, John here is the real expert and -.
WATANABE:Well, most of the other conditions are actually, were with regard to
timeframe. You know like you would do this within two years -.
CARROLL:Well, everything, with compliance we have no problem, of course.
P. BRUMBAUGH:So, okay, are they asking us though to limit what time we can do
it?
CARROLL:No.
WATANABE:I beg your pardon?
CARROLL:Can you go over the conditions so that the Applicant can review
them?
WATANABE:Well -.
CARROLL:You can skip A through C, I mean, A through E. Those all have to
do with compliance -.
P. BRUMBAUGH:Are you asking if there’s this particular time that we cannot
operate the machine? Is that what you’re saying? No?
WATANABE:I believe the last thing that we agreed to was you would cease
operations at 7 p.m., right, as far as cremation.
RAGGETT:Yeah, but the machine doesn’t make any noise. So if that would
be a stipulation, we wouldn’t need it because the neighbors won’t hear it. ‘Cause within
a brick building, you can’t hear it.
EXHIBIT D
43
YUEN:We can simply say a condition that there should be no noise. I
would rather say that simply that it should be operated without noise audible from
neighboring properties; and then if there is a report then they’re in violation of that
condition, rather than having an hourly operation of time.
WATANABE:Okay, so that’s the revised condition. Other than that, any
significant ones that we need to review with them? ‘Cause a lot of the conditions were
sort of like standard conditions there -.
P. BRUMBAUGH:Right, yeah, and that’ll be fine.
WATANABE:That generally we would put in an application anyway, such as the
two-year time period, and etc. I think the special ones would be in regard to the -.
CARROLL:Generator.
WATANABE:Backup generator, no noxious smells, and no smoke, and no, there
was a separate one on no particulate matter falling on adjoining properties, but not
specific to the point where absolutely no particulate matter.
CARROLL:Right.
P. BRUMBAUGH:Right.
WATANABE:Okay. So you all are comfortable with that?
P. BRUMBAUGH:Yes.
WATANABE:Other than that, it’s pretty much I think standard. Oh, and the last
one was “no noise,” right?
P. BRUMBAUGH:No noise.
CARROLL:What was the last one?
P. BRUMBAUGH:No noise.
WATANABE:The last one was no noise -.
CARROLL:Oh, the noise.
WATANABE:Audible to the surrounding -. Oh, excuse me, and the other major
one, of course, was “no outsourcing.”
P. BRUMBAUGH:No, we’re not doing outsourcing.
EXHIBIT D
44
WATANABE:Yeah, and into the future, also, now.
P. BRUMBAUGH:Right, yeah. We’re only going to take care of our own families.
WATANABE:Okay, so you’re in -? I’m sorry, it’s kind of convoluted because
it’s, we’re kind of doing everything on a fly here, yeah.
P. BRUMBAUGH:Yeah.
WATANABE:So you all are comfortable with those conditions?
CARROLL:Well, I have a question on that. You’re saying they cannot take
from, say, if Borthwick says we want you to -?
WATANABE:You cannot.
CARROLL:They’d be prohibited from that -?
WATANABE:You can only do, you can only cremate people that are your
customers. No outsourcing, okay?
CARROLL:Okay.
P. BRUMBAUGH:No outsourcing. We’re only going to take care of our own
families.
WATANABE:Okay. In that regard, you’re going to limit how much cremation
can occur there?
CARROLL:Right. Well, someone from the staff is going to write that up, I
hope.
WATANABE:Oh, yeah, yeah. They will, and you will receive -. Assuming it
passes, you will receive everything in writing. Okay?
DARROW:No, the applicant can do it (jokingly).
WATANABE:Okay. So I guess, I take it everything is kosher?
P. BRUMBAUGH:Kosher.
CARROLL:Yes.
WATANABE:Okay. Thank you. Then you may be seated and we’ll do roll call.
Okay, so, Mr. Darrow, roll call, I guess. I think we’re done discussing this one.
EXHIBIT D
45
DARROW:Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Iwashita?
IWASHITA:Yes.
DARROW:Commissioner Salavea?
SALAVEA:Aye.
DARROW:Commissioner Galdones?
GALDONES:Aye.
DARROW:Commissioner Graham?
GRAHAM:No.
DARROW:Commissioner Rho?
RHO:Yes.
DARROW:And Mr. Chairman?
WATANABE: I’m sorry, no. I thought he had the votes.
DARROW:I’m sorry, the motion does not -.
WATANABE: I really thought you had the votes.
DARROW:The motion does not pass, four to two.
P. BRUMBAUGH:Does not pass?
DARROW:Does not pass.
WATANABE:What this means is there are Commissioners that are not present
today that may have voted in favor; and, so, procedurally, we will rehear this, I believe, at
the next meeting, at the next Kona meeting.
CARROLL:Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, before this is finalized, could we
possibly ask for continuance on this until we could get a -?
WATANABE:It’s, there was no decision made because it requires a five -.
CARROL:Five votes, right
EXHIBIT D
46
WATANABE:At least five Commissioners, and you had a four-two vote. So no
action was really taken. It did not pass, the motion did not pass but it didn’t fail, either.
CARROLL:It didn’t fail, but yes -.
WATANABE:So, it’s going to be continued automatically till the next Kona
meeting, okay -?
CARROLL:Okay, thank you, thank you very much.
WATANABE:When hopefully we’ll have more Commissioners present and
everyone can vote their mind and we’ll see where -.
TORIGOE:Hold -.
WATANABE:We’re not passed the 90-day period, are we?
HAYASHI:Mr. Chair, we need to have the minutes -.
WATANABE:Right, administrative matters yet, yeah?
HAYASHI:No, we need to have the hearing transcribed so that we can provide
that to the Commissioners that are not here today.
WATANABE:Right.
HAYASHI:So I need to check with Sharon how long it’s going to take to have
those minutes.
WATANABE:Oh, excuse me, then, I may have misspoke then. We may be
beyond the next -.
HAYASHI:Yes, so we just have to play that by ear.
WATANABE:Okay, Mr. Carroll, for clarification purposes, because there were
other Commissioners who were not present who may be present at the next Commission
meeting, the minutes would have to be transcribed, yeah. Please, can you, quiet please.
Yeah, so the minutes are going to have to be transcribed; and because we are currently
short-staffed, yeah, they may not be transcribed by the next, and circulated, you know,
for the benefit of the Commissioners who were not present. So it may not occur, the
meeting may not occur, I mean, this may not be taken up at the very next Kona meeting.
But it will be continued, okay?
CARROLL:Well, that’s -.
EXHIBIT D
47
WATANABE:So it’s going to be continued, we just don’t know exactly when it
will be on the agenda again.
CARROLL:Okay.
WATANABE:Okay -?
CARROLL:Okay.
WATANABE:Is that satisfactory -? Okay.
CARROLL:And I thank you all. Even the no votes I thank you.
The discussion ended at 6:20 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Sharon M. Nomura, Secretary
EXHIBIT D
48