HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-09-19 Kathy Lomeli Support
From: Kathy Lomeli
To: Planning LPC Testimony
Subject: Bill 170
Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026 11:16:46 AM
My name is Kathy Lomeli and I live in Kihei, Maui. 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.
150 years, Maui’s freshwater resources were largely diverted by private sugarcane
plantations, disrupting traditional ecological systems and stripping Native Hawaiian
kalo (taro) farmers of their ancestral water rights. Following decades of grassroots
legal battles, landmark rulings by the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court have heavily
restricted these corporate diversions by reaffirming that water is a protected public
trust that must legally prioritize native streams and cultural practices. Water is
sacred to Hawaiʻi, and we must preserve it.
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,
Kathy Lomeli
Kihei, Maui