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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-09-19 Ruby Mandini Support From: ruby mandini To: Planning LPC Testimony Subject: Hawai’i Data Center Concerns Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026 9:49:14 PM My name is Ruby Mandini and I live in Kailua Kona. I am writing in support of Bill 170 and asking the Leeward Planning Commission to recommend additional strengthening changes before sending it back to the County Council. The original Bill 170 language uses subjective phrases like "industrial-scale operation" and "beyond that typically accessory or incidental to office, commercial, or public institutional uses." Those phrases don't set a clear line, and a well-resourced developer's attorney can argue around them either way. I'm asking the Commission to recommend replacing that subjective language with an objective, enforceable standard: a specific electrical- demand threshold, measured in megawatts, that applies to a single facility and to any campus of multiple facilities built under common ownership or control, so a developer can't dodge the rule by splitting one large project into several smaller buildings. Water here in Hawaii is not just a resources but apart of the culture and life here. Destroying this native land leaves these already beaten down and impoverished natives with nothing. How can you move forward in anything without taking care and preserving these special lands that make life possible. Hawaii does not and will never need the help of this harmful technology. We are in no shape what so ever to even be able to support these kind of advancements( if you can even call it that). I find even the idea of this absolutely absurd. Our island's closed water system, fossil-fuel-dependent grid, and already strained infrastructure cannot support data centers. Please recommend the strongest possible version of this bill to the County Council. Mahalo, Ruby Mandini, Kailua Kona