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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-03-06HEARINGTRANSCRIPT-CELLCO DBA VERIZON USE 14-046 WINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT MARCH 6, 2014 CELLCO PARTNERSHIP dba A regularly advertised hearing on the application of VERIZON WIRELESS (USE 14-046) was called to order at 9:48 a.m. in the Hilo State Office Building, Conference Rooms A, B, & C, 75 Aupuni Street, Hilo, Hawai‘i with Chairman Ronald Gonzales presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Ronald Gonzales, Charles Heaukulani, Gregory Henkel, Wallace A. Ishibashi, Jr., Stephen Ono, and Raylene Moses. ABSENT AND EXCUSED: Myles Miyasato. ALSO PRESENT: Duane Kanuha (Planning Director, from 9:32 a.m. to 10:27 a.m.), Margaret Masunaga (Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Windward Planning Commission), William Brilhante (Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Planning Director), Daryn Arai (Planning Program Manager), Jeff Darrow (Staff Planner), Maija Cottle (Staff Planner), and Sarah Hata-Finley (Secretary). And approximately 8 people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: CELLCO PARTNERSHIP dba VERIZON WIRELESS (USE 14-046) Application for a Use Permit to construct a 105-foot tall steel telecommunication monopine with 8-foot tall panel antennas and related facilities on an 8,100 square-foot parcel situated in the State Land Use Agricultural district and the County’s Agricultural 1-acre (A-1a) zoned district. The property is located on the west side of Silversword Court approximately 235 feet northwest from its junction with Ainaloa Boulevard, Tiki Gardens Subdivision, Kea‘au, Puna, Hawai`i, TMK: 1-6-102:056. GONZALES: Ok, applicant number two, Cellco Partnership doing business as Verizon Wireless. DARROW: Unique circumstances. If I could direct your attention again to the presentation. Our next applicant is Cellco Partnership doing business as Verizon Wireless. Again, they are requesting a Use Permit for a telecommunication monopine tower. The area of the subject application is within the Puna District; more specifically, we’re looking near the Pāhoa area which is located on the right bottom portion of your map. Just for reference, going through the middle of the map, we have the Kea‘au-Pāhoa Road, which is Highway 130. Again, for reference, this particular area here represents Ainaloa Subdivision. On the blue color, smaller lots represent Orchidland Subdivision. On the upper portion of the map is the Hawaiian Paradise Park Subdivision for reference. 1 EXHIBIT B The subject property is located within the Tiki Gardens Subdivision. Right now, you just see a little small black dot, but we’ll zoom in. Again, for reference, we have Ainaloa Boulevard moving in a, a—through the middle of the map. On the bottom portion of the map, this is considered Ainaloa Subdivision, and across the street, you have Tiki Gardens Subdivision. Again, the subject property is located within the Tiki Gardens Subdivision. It is accessed from Silversword Court from Ainaloa Boulevard. The subject property is identified with a black outline and is zoned Agricultural – 1 acre. It is a smaller lot. It is 8,100 square feet in size. The applicant is requesting a Use Permit to construct a 105-foot tall steel telecommunication monopine with 8-foot tall panel antennas and related facilities on a 8,100 square foot parcel. This is situated within the State Land Use Agricultural district as well as the County’s Agricultural – 1 acre district. The applicant’s objective for this site is to provide infrastructure necessary for wireless coverage to the residents and guests of the Ainaloa Subdivision and the surrounding neighborhoods. The property is centrally located between two existing Verizon Wireless site, one being located at Bryson’s Cinder in Pāhoa Village, and the other located on Pohaku Circle in Orchidland Estates. This is located on the Sure Foundation Church site along the highway. This is the applicant’s site plan. Just for reference, on your right side would be Silvercourt (sic) Road, so access would be from the right side of the map. The actual location of the tower with the facilities will be located near the rear portion of the, the lot. For this particular tower being 105 feet in size, the setback ratio for a freestanding tower is one foot for every five foot, for a freestanding tower, so being 105 feet in size, the setbacks would be 21 feet from any boundary line. According to the site plan, it appears to meet those setbacks. This is a elevation of what the tower should look like. Again, this is a unique tower, that they try to minimize visual impacts by creating what they call a monopine. This is kind of what it looks like, this right here. This one is a shorter one, but it kind of gives you an idea of what they look like. This is an aerial photo. Again for reference, we have the Ainaloa Boulevard on the lower portion of the map with Silversword Court Road. The subject property is in this general location, currently undeveloped, and as you will notice, around the subject property is undeveloped lots. The nearest house is in this general location here. These are site photos— ONO: --(inaudible) Jeff, to the previous—thank you. DARROW: Do you have any questions regarding— A, the site, this is a photo on Ainaloa Boulevard looking mauka. The access to Silvercourt (sic) would be on your right side. This is looking makai with Silvercourt (sic) on Ainaloa Boulevard with Silvercourt (sic) on your left side. And then this is on Ainaloa Boulevard looking directly on Silvercourt (sic) so you notice that it is an unimproved road. The actual area is just before those trees in that general location. 2 EXHIBIT B The Planning Director is recommending that the Planning Commission approve this request with conditions. I do have a few bits of information I need to bring to the Commission’s attention regarding this application. We have received several letters since the Background and Recommendation was submitted to the Planning Commission. One is a letter dated January 31, 2014, from Dayne and Shari Shinsato. This is a, an opposition letter that you should have all received, and we’ve also received a comment letter from the Department of Public Works dated rd February 3, 2014. There is one correction I need to make on the record. Unfortunately, some times, we cut and paste and we miss something. This would be on Page 4 of the Recommendation. On the, in the second paragraph, 1-2-3-4, line number 5, it says the tower site is located on a small portion of a 5.371 acre property. If that line can be deleted. The property is 8,100 square feet which is identified at the lower portion of the page. And then lastly, the Planning Department has received a Petition for Standing in a Contested th Case from Daryl Inaba. This was received on February 28, Friday. There is a question whether or not the request is considered timely. In our Planning Commission rules, Rule 4-6, 4-6a, it says that the petition needs to be submitted prior, before seven days before the Planning Commission’s first hearing on the matter. So, when we look at it being submitted on Friday, we’ll count Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the date of the hearing would be the seventh day, so it’s going to be up to the discretion of the Planning Commission to consider standing in this regards. They did submit the $200 filing fee, so other than that, everything’s in order with the petition. With that, that concludes our presentation. Are there any questions? GONZALES: Questions for staff? DARROW: Thank you. GONZALES: Thanks Jeffrey. I’d like to call up the applicant, please. Good morning. MARTIN: Good morning. GONZALES: Can you raise your right hand, please? MARTIN: Yes. GONZALES: Do you swear to tell the truth before the Windward Planning Commission today? MARTIN: Yes, I do. GONZALES: Thank you, go ahead. MARTIN: My name is Danette Martin. I work as a consultant with Verizon Wireless, and I was tasked with trying to locate this tower, and I realize from the comments that people, you know, that you made with the previous application, that there’s some concern about the siting for this one, and I wanted to answer your question more directly on how far do these towers really go. Well, when we first started back in the analog days, they were, they went 20 miles. And then, 3 EXHIBIT B we came up with the, you know, PCS, and those would go five miles in circumference. And now, with the new wireless broadband, they only go one mile. So, that’s, that’s the really difficult part in trying to site these things. It’s that you’ve got an existing coverage area here and here, and you’ve got, you know, we kind of laugh when the RF engineer gives us his specifications because they used to be called search rings. Now we call them search dots because they’re so small. So, when I first got this search ring, for this Ainaloa area, I was told that the Ainaloa Community Association had a pole there, a flag pole, and that would have been the perfect thing to co-locate on. That’s the first thing that we do, is try to co-locate on existing structures. But the RF engineer said no, that’s too far away. So, don’t even consider that one. So, we went, a--I first went to Ainaloa Community Association. We tried to start with the community first in our siting, and they referred me to some areas in their subdivision. They have, I don’t know, if you go back to maybe the map, you’d see that there are large squares where it would indicate that maybe there are larger parcels there. Well, those are set aside by the homeowner’s association or the developer for the homeowner’s association for future parks. And so, they thought, well that would be perfect. Why don’t you put it someplace there because we really, really need the service. So, we tried that, and we actually got the go ahead from Verizon Wireless to do that. I pulled the title report, and I see that there is an obstruction on that parcel, that they can’t, that this company paid Ainaloa Community Association a sum of money to purchase the, the rights for telecommunication on that tower that’s at their, at their community center. What they didn’t realize is that they were also signing away rights to all their other property. So, when we went to them, they said, well, you know, we’re going to charge you, you know, we’ll let you do it, but we’re going to charge you this huge amount of money. Went back to Verizon Wireless, and they said that’s extortion, no. You can’t do that. So, I looked around. I called all the large property owners in the area. I tried to get in touch with them. Some I could not get in touch with, but I did try. And, so that left with me tasked with just trying to find something with what was existing. And so if you look back on that, that tax map, you’ll see that there are miles and miles of small lots. So if we’re not able to place it on a small lot, these people won’t get the coverage that they need. GONZALES: Any questions for the applicant? Mr. Ono. ONO: Yes, over the years again, when these requests came in, I was looking at the distance and the single pole, but if you’re saying a one, one mile distance between Pole A and Pole B— MARTIN: --right, oh, no, no, I’m saying a circumference, so figure two miles maybe— ONO: Ok— MARTIN: --because you’ve got one mile from this way and one mile from that way so— ONO: --Ok, oh, I see what you’re saying— MARTIN: Yeah. ONO: Ok--I guess every request that came in had the objection of the so-called radiation whatever— 4 EXHIBIT B MARTIN: Oh, safety— ONO: And the, yeah, I’m just wondering in terms of distance then— MARTIN: --yeah— ONO: It seems to be more concentrated and when you say a two mile distance between—I don’t know— MARTIN: Although it’s not, it’s not something that typically you guys deal with but I did bring, some information that the FCC puts out. And in plain language, it explains that you have to stand in front of the antenna within two feet for a prolonged period of time to have it happen, any negative effects, yes. So, if you’d like, just for your information, I brought it, and I thought maybe, you know if there were some of the residents here that were worried about that, I could set their mind at rest by providing this information. ONO: Thank you. GONZALES: Any other questions for the applicant? Thank you, Ms. Martin. I think at this time we’re gonna address this a, consider the standing on this contested case hearing, so if I could a, ask Mr. Inaba to come up and the Planning Director and/or his attorney. Who’s first? BRILHANTE: William Brilhante, Deputy Corporation Counsel. I’m the attorney for Planning Director, Duane Kanuha, and the Planning Department. GONZALES: I should, can I get you to swear you both in. Could you raise your right hand? Do you swear to tell the truth before the Windward Planning Commission today? INABA: Yes. GONZALES: Thank you. INABA: I’m Daryl Inaba. We own the lots—2 lots right across the street parcels 97 and 98, and I guess I represent myself, my wife and my son. GONZALES: I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Mr. Inaba, would you consider this one day late or are you saying the seven days, this is day seven? INABA: You know, it’s late. I misinterpreted, you know, the language on when you had to file it by, so it is my fault, and Jeff Darrow has been helping me with this process, and he’s been very helpful, and you know, I called him late, and it is my fault that it is late, and I recognize that. I did want to say, though, that I did submit a letter myself which wasn’t recognized this morning. I dropped off a letter on behalf of myself and my wife to the Kona office which, seems like the Planning Department didn’t get it. 5 EXHIBIT B DARROW: If I could address that, Mr. Chairman? GONZALES: Sure. DARROW: The letters that he’s referring to were made part of the Background, so they were submitted, and the Commission does have it. GONZALES: Very good. Counsel. BRILHANTE: I don’t, um, again, William Brilhante, right before we have this dialog in consideration, why don’t I place my objection on the record, and then we can make a determination regarding my objection. GONZALES: Very good. BRILHANTE: So, the County of Hawai‘i, the County of Hawai‘i Planning Department, hereby objects to Mr. Inaba’s request to intervene pursuant to Rule 4-6a. Motions to intervene or requests to intervene should be provided seven days prior to the setting of this hearing, and in this case, the record will reflect that the request to intervene wasn’t filed, was filed, only six days prior to so, therefore, the County puts its objection on the record that Mr. Inaba’s motion to intervene shall be denied. And that being said, I’ve known in the past, you know, our objections again, are to protect the record in case this matter goes up to appeal and, therefore, I’m placing it on the record. GONZALES: Thank you. Well, you know, they’d like to me to ask you if you have a response, but you kind of already told us you know it’s late and accepted responsibility for that. Is there anything else you’d like to say in response to Mr. Brilhante’s? INABA: Nothing that I really can say. GONZALES: All right. I’m not sure but I think maybe I’m going to direct you, to, is there a precedence here? Are these things sometimes allowed when they’re late, never allowed when they’re late, always allowed when they’re late? DARROW: Unfortunately, I’m not, yeah, I’m not really sure about any precedence that, I just, the authority for granting standing comes from the Commission, so— GONZALES: Ok, well it’s yeah, it’s clearly, Mr. Brilhante’s stated Rule 4-6a. It is late. How do I proceed, Daryn? Do we need a motion— ARAI: Yes, you will need a motion to either grant or deny standing, and you need to specify exactly why standing is not being granted or being granted, one way or the other. Just for the record, we should note that there has been precedent where someone has filed a request for intervention late, and the Commission did grant standing based on circumstances, and I believe that was like Jeff Gomes, if I remember correctly with the Connections case. And, oh right, well anyway. But so there has been precedence. I just wanted to make that clear. 6 EXHIBIT B GONZALES: Ok, Commissioners, questions? ISHIBASHI: Thank you, Brother Chair. Mr. Inaba, give me your side of the story. Let me hear what’s your opposition on this. INABA: --just on, for being late or— HATA-FINLEY: Mike please. ISHIBASHI: No, no, not on the lateness, we know already we’re late. Why, why we’re filing this contested case. What is your position? INABA: Um, you know I filed it because I just wanted to make sure my voice was heard in this whole process. Jeff has been very helpful to me. Kind of explained things going along. One thing I was a little disappointed with, I sent a letter to Ms. Martin just asking about information on, you know, the efforts she’s made to maybe site it somewhere else, and I felt like I gave them the benefit of the doubt to provide that information to me, and that’s kind of why I waited so long to do anything, cause I was waiting for a response from her. I didn’t get anything, and when I called Jeff, you know, I wanted to find out ok, what exactly is the process, and he told me ok, if it comes up, you’ll get three minutes to speak, and I kind of was shocked at—wow, you know, it really affects my family, and I’m only going to have three minutes to speak, so I asked him what other things can I do and he said you know, you can file the petition to be an intervenor which you know I really didn’t want to do cause I know it takes up a lot of time, expense, everything for the County, but you know, if this whole process can go on, I wrote a courteous letter to her. I never even got a response. I thought I have to something to at least voice my concerns as best I could. I didn’t think it could be done in three minutes, so that’s why I filed it, thth and you know, then I called to find out everything, was the 7 day or the 6 day, as you say, I filed it right that day, paid the money and everything, but it was late. I knew, I read that section th before. The way I interpreted it, I thought that was the 7 day. I thought I was going to get in on time. That’s why I called him. So, the error is all in my part. As far as the whole picture, you know, my family, me and my wife own two lots, and then the other person they mentioned is also my family. It’s my sister and her husband. They own two next door, and we’re right across the street, directly across the street. And based on looking at their design, the lots all been cleared already and looks like they’re going to have a driveway straight to the tower. There’s nothing going to be blocking the view of the tower from our lot. I mean, completely in the view, and the right-of-way is only 40 feet, so it’s right there. Right across the street. And, you know, I have a son that’s seven years old. I don’t plan on selling the property. I think later on I want to give it to him, and if I don’t file that action just so my voice could be heard, is you know, it would just go through and you know he would be hurt later when he gets old, if he wanted to sell it, or if he wanted to build on it. He would be affected. So, I just felt I had to do it just so my voice was heard, and you could listen to the concerns that I had because I think they’re very valid. So, that’s where I am now. ISHIBASHI: Which is, what is those— 7 EXHIBIT B INABA: Can I just go over everything. ISHIBASHI: Yeah, go ahead, go— INABA: I was, so did you guys did get that letter— ISHIBASHI: Yes, we have that letter— INABA: So, there’s no sense in my going over the letter again because you’ve all read that, right? It wouldn’t have any more effect. But um, just on the application itself, I can just go over what you know, was kind of discouraging to me. On Page 3 of the application right at the top, it says, “No cultural materials of any kind were observed during the archaeological inspection.” And you know, I went and read further on into this document which references an Exhibit C, and that’s a historical properties assessment by T. S. Dye & Colleagues, Archaeologists, Inc. In the introduction, it says, “The primary focus of the project was on the discovery and appropriate treatment of historic properties within the area of potential effect. The goals of the investigation were to determine whether the installation of the telecommunications facility, including an antenna monopine, would have direct or visual effect on historic properties.” And on Page 4 of the Exhibit C, under Background Research, it says, “No field inspection of the proposed site was conducted by T. S. Dye & Colleagues, Archaeologists.” So they haven’t even been on site. And, you know, it didn’t seem right that they’re using this report prepared by a professional and they never even been on site. So I kept reading, and again on Page 9, it reiterates that, “No field inspection was conducted by T. S. Dye & Colleagues, Archaeologists.” And it says, “No permits for the subject property were found to indicate that any grubbing or grading has occurred on the parcel.” I don’t know who this is but, “Bureau Veritas North America interviewed the real estate broker for the current owner, who indicated that the subject property has never been developed and has never been used as agricultural land.” But if you go back to the applicant, the application, Page 3, it says, according to the property owner’s realtor, Hank Correa, the property was recently grubbed. So, I’m going back and forth in this document and they’re saying one thing here and they’re saying the complete opposite in other areas, so you know, I was just concerned about that, and the exhibit goes on to say, “A review of the archaeological literature, historic maps, and information provided by Bureau Veritas North America shows that the project site is unmodified and lava tube caves may be present. Caves may contain cultural resources. Based on this situation, it is recommended that an inspection by a qualified archaeologist be conducted for the entire parcel.” And I’m thinking this guy is supposed to be a qualified archaeologist. That’s the title of his company. So it just wasn’t making sense to me. So, I kept you know looking into it more with Jeff’s help, and I came up with a couple of other things. Something very similar. I guess a special use permit application went through, regarding a property in Orchidland Estates, and that was denied in March 2006. And I feel that our situation is, is worse than that particular case cause over there, they were dealing with two-acre parcels. The right-of-way was 60 feet, and one of the owners, I believe his names was Mr. Pa, he was 200 feet away, and he was allowed to intervene and his voice was heard in that matter. And that application was denied. Although it was determined unusual, it was determined not reasonable for that Chapter 205-6 purposes, and they cited adverse effects on property values, adverse effects on the views that include whoever can see the tower, and the fact that the cell 8 EXHIBIT B company didn’t thoroughly do as much as they could to investigate alternate sites that may be viable for them. You know, there were other options that are still out there, and they didn’t exhaust of all of those. So, I think, my situation is very similar. They were working off a two- acre parcel. These are 8,100 square foot parcels in the area they’re trying to build this tower. The right-of-way is 40 feet. That’s a third less. So I’m actually, yeah, only 40 feet away from the parcel that they’re going to build a 100-foot tower. I live in Waimea, and the subdivision I live on, the lots are 75 to 10,000 square feet, and it’s almost unimaginable to have a 105-foot tower located in any of those lots if all the houses are built out. It’s unbelievable. Just imagine it. So, I researched further. Again, I came up with a hearing transcript from I believe it’s February 3, 2006. Am I allowed to read from that? Is that ok? ONO: Mr. Chair? I think we’re-- GONZALES: Yes, Mr. Ono. ONO: --we’re permitting him to state his case, and we haven’t decided on whether we’re going to hear it not so I’m kind of questioning the procedure at this point. GONZALES: Well, I’d have to ask that Mr. Ishibashi if he’s still interested in what he has to say. It was his question. ISHIBASHI: Yeah, that was my reason for asking the question. I wanted to determine his position before I make one ruling or make one decision on what he, you know, timely filing of his case. The problem I had was exactly what he talking about in regards to the archaeology report that came back. Cause how can we accept one report that there was no physical inspection— BRILHANTE: Mr. Chair— ISHIBASHI: --of the property? BRILHANTE: Mr. Chair, I’m going to raise an objection. We seem to be deliberating the actual points of the motion to intervene at this point. GONZALES: Right-- BRILHANTE: --I’m going to request that we just go back and we readdress the issue as to whether or not we’re gonna assert standing. GONZALES: Ok, very good. Mr. Henkel, I know you had a question. HENKEL: I have a question that refers to the standing. Mr. Inaba, your neighbor that owns the lot across the street, is he a resident of the area? 9 EXHIBIT B INABA: The person th— HENKEL: The person that’s leasing the lot to Verizon. INABA: He’s actually selling the lot. And my understanding, he’s selling three lots surrounding it as well. HENKEL: But he doesn’t live in the neighborhood? INABA: I don’t believe so—no-- HENKEL: --So, I would think— INABA: --she told me he lives on the mainland— HENKEL: --this impacts you a lot more than even him, and you know I would be inclined to think that Mr. Inaba has standing and since there’s been precedence of a late submission in the past— GONZALES: All right. Let’s— ONO: Mr. Chair, I’m sorry, I have one more question-- GONZALES: Ok. ONO: --before I make my decision. Mr. Inaba, have you ever faced a committee like this previously? INABA: No, and I’m pretty petrified right now to be honest with you. ONO: Well, you’re rather articulate. I’m kind of, no I thought maybe if you had some experiences in the past— INABA: I feel like I’m in a David and Goliath situation, but I mean, this— ONO: You never had the experience— INABA: No, sir. ONO: Ok, thank you. GONZALES: Not at all. We’re all here to work together. I understand that you’re a County employee. INABA: Yes, I work for the County. 10 EXHIBIT B GONZALES: For the record, could I just get you to state that you’re appearing here on your own time. INABA: Absolutely. I work for the Department of Finance, but I’m taking vacation time to do this. GONZALES: Very good, very good. Thank you. I think we should go ahead and entertain a motion then on whether we want to grant standing for a contested case or not. HENKEL: Quick question. GONZALES: Mr. Henkel. HENKEL: To clarify, for Corp Counsel. If we grant standing for a contested case, does that mean that we stop deliberation on this— MASUNAGA: --for the--- HENKEL: --item until it’s gone to the— MASUNAGA: I think we would continue it for the next meeting. Sorry, Margaret Masunaga, Deputy Corporation Counsel, and under Rule 4-6, it does state the relevant part about standing, you know, if it’s timely filed, and then the criteria on whether it can be met, whether Mr. Inaba’s interest is clearly distinguishable from that of the general public or government agencies whose jurisdiction includes the land involved in the subject request. Or that they have some property interest in the land or lawfully resides on the land. Or that even though they do have an interest different from the general public, generally, that the proposed action will cause them actual or threat injury, in fact or persons who are descendants of Native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778 who practice those rights which were customarily and traditional exercised for subsistence or for cultural or religious purposes. So that’s generally the criteria, ok? HENKEL: Thank you. GONZALES: Ok, Mr. Darrow. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The other question that may be posed to the Commission is whether or not the Commission wants to hear the contested case or whether or not they want to hire a hearings officer. GONZALES: Ok, so first we need to decide whether or not we’re gonna grant, and then if we decide yes, then we’ll address that, so ok. Back to looking for a motion. HENKEL: Mr. Chair? GONZALES: Yes sir. 11 EXHIBIT B HENKEL: I’d like to move that in the Use Permit Application 14-000046, Verizon Wireless, monopole that we grant contested case status to Daryl Inaba. ISHIBASHI: Second. GONZALES: Any discussion, Commissioners? ONO: Yes, could you clarify that. I’m sorry, I don’t understand the motion. GONZALES: I believe Mr., Commissioner Henkel is asking to approve his— MASUNAGA: Standing. GONZALES: his standing— MASUNAGA: Even though it was late— GONZALES: --for contested case hearing. ONO: So that he could present it today or is this— GONZALES: No, we’ll have to if, we’ll have to come back. ONO: Thank you. GONZALES: Any other discussion? DARROW: I have a clarification to request. If we could identify the criteria that, that we are granting standing for? As, a, Margaret Masunaga had stated, if we could identify the criteria? HENKEL: A, his criteria that his interest is clearly distinguishable from that of the general public, that they have property interest in the land they lawfully reside on. Are you Hawaiian? INABA: No sir. HENKEL: No. Yeah, that makes two of the requirements. DARROW: Thank you. GONZALES: Do you second that Mr. Ishibashi? ISHIBASHI: Sure. GONZALES: Ms. Martin, do you want to respond to any of this before we vote? 12 EXHIBIT B MARTIN: Well, um, first of all I want to apologize, I did not return a response to his letter, and my daughter’s been ill, and I’ve been travelling a lot, so I apologize for not doing that and the request was asking me who will I contact, and I wasn’t able to give that information to him because of confidentiality reasons. I did, I do hear what he’s saying, and you know, there’s all kinds of things that we can offer up to mitigate his concerns. Excuse me. He doesn’t want to look at it, I understand that. We could do some kind of a landscape buffer. It’s quite far back from the lot— BRILHANTE: Chair, again I’m going to have to object— GONZALES: We’re almost doing the contested case hearing right now. BRILHANTE: The issue before the Commission is regarding the standing request to, for granting of standing— GONZALES: Yeah, why don’t we move to a vote, Mr. Darrow. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The motion is to grant standing in a contested case hearing to Mr. Inaba. With that, we’ll take the roll call. Commissioner Henkel? HENKEL: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Ishibashi? ISHIBASHI: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Heaukulani? HEAUKULANI: No. DARROW: Commissioner Moses? MOSES: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Ono? ONO: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chairman. GONZALES: No. DARROW: The motion passes four to two. GONZALES: Ok, and now I believe we need to decide whether we want to hear this ourselves Commissioners or what’s our other option? Have a— 13 EXHIBIT B DARROW: Hearings officer hired. GONZALES: Yeah, what’s our financial situation as far as that goes? ARAI: A third option is that they could actually appoint, or you could appoint one of the Commissioners to preside over the proceedings, so that’s an option. GONZALES: That’s option three. ARAI: Yeah. And regarding a funding, if you do decide to hire a hearings officer, we do have a budget for it, so we’ll find the money if you-- GONZALES: Ok. I need a motion for this. Mr. Brilhante. BRILHANTE: Again, the department’s position is that you know that the Commission is able to choose any of those three options that has been presented to them from a, Mr. Darrow, Jeff Darrow, but I think, again when I look at a historical perspective, these issues, when it comes to granting of cell tower leases, have historically been handled in front of the Commission and, you know, I haven’t been aware of any situation where an actual hearings officer has been assigned to handle these type of matters. So, for the record, the preference would be that we reset this matter for a contested case hearing in front of the full Commission and go from there. GONZALES: I tend to agree with you. I need a motion from one of my fellow Commissioners please. HENKEL: I’d like to move that the USE 14-00046 (sic) Verizon Wireless application and Mr. Inaba’s status as contested case, to have a contested case hearing, be heard by the Windward Planning Commission. Is that ok? GONZALES: Any second? ISHIBASHI: Second. GONZALES: Discussion Commissioners? All right, Mr. Darrow. DARROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The motion before us is that this contested case will be heard before the Windward Planning Commission. With that, we’ll take the roll. Commissioner Henkel? HENKEL: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Ishibashi? ISHIBASHI: Aye. 14 EXHIBIT B DARROW: Commissioner Heaukulani? HEAUKULANI: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Moses? MOSES: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Ono? ONO: Aye. DARROW: And Mr. Chair. GONZALES: Aye. DARROW: The motion passes six to zero. GONZALES: So, are we going to pick this up next month? At a future date? ARAI: Right, before we get into that to, we also have, I believe one person— GONZALES: Yes, we’re going to let Mr. Strickland come up and— ARAI: --who wishes to testify. We do have to set a schedule for the submittal of like Statement of Position, Exhibit/Witness Lists. Probably all of that might not be able to be done prior to your next April hearing, so we’re probably going to have to look at probably scheduling it maybe in May or so. So maybe what I could do to help move this thing along is I could work with the individual parties to set that schedule. GONZALES: Very good. Thank you, Daryn. We’ll be in touch. Mr. Strickland, I would like you come up and exercise your right to testify. You’ve already been sworn in, so just let us know your name, where you live, and go ahead. You have three minutes. STRICKLAND: Ok, I live on Paradise Drive. Ok, yeah, my name is Lee Strickland, and I live on Paradise Drive and about a week ago, I was talking to my son-in-law in New York. And, we like the property in Ainaloa so much, he bought the property. It’s on Sandalwood. He received information in the mail about it and asked me about it. I knew nothing about it. I’m two streets over on Paradise. I received no information. He got information and had to relay it to me from New York on the whole deal. One of my main concerns is after listening to the testimony today that this cell tower only has a reach of two miles, one mile obviously on each side according to their new electrical output or whatever it is. It doesn’t go as far as I assumed FM stations would. So, one of my concerns was the hazards of human life to being close to those towers, and a, the lady did mention that it was two feet for a prolonged period in time to get damaged. I’m not sure of that. You know, that’s what F-, that the information was that they got but I get, I have Verizon service. I went to Verizon service, customer, because the other one I had wouldn’t give 15 EXHIBIT B me information in my house. It does. I get information from my Verizon phone at my house on Paradise. Someone has mentioned I live in a two-story house so I may get little bit better reception, so down below, some of those streets may not, but you’re looking at, the Commission’s looking at, the possibility of lot more towers then. If it’s only a two mile radius, you’re going to be faced with a lot more of these. It looks like. This tower is really close to a lot of people in Ainaloa, and the lady from Ainaloa, Debbie, gave me the publication out of the paper and it was, you know, maybe for another tower that’s up the road you just talked about. But, I guess my main concern, one of them was for visibility, and it looked like this tower, being as it’s as close to people, it’s gonna look like a pine tree perhaps. I think that’s good. I think they have some up on the maybe golf courses here and there. They have those pine tree effect looking things. I think that’s good. I—let’s see. Well, anyway, I’m not too far away from it. I do get cellular service, the cell service, and I’m not so sure about if that cell can’t be placed because I know where that cell service is down there, it’s Sure Foundation. I just did some work for them the other there down there, the big cell tower, and so I’m not sure about it being so close to all these people right in there. And I’m, I have hesitancy in the sense of knowing how many cell towers are gonna go up every two miles, so. GONZALES: All right. Thank you, Mr. Strickland. Does anybody have any questions for the gentlemen? ONO: Excuse me. Aesthetically, you’re saying that the towers seem to be well, appearance wise, it looks good, but I’m kind of confused. Are you objecting to this tower or are you in favor of the tower? STRICKLAND: Well, my son-in-law asked me look into it, and I didn’t hear about it. They didn’t give me any information, and so a, I’d like the idea of it being appealing in a sense of looking like a pine tree—that type of thing. And I understand coverage being out there in Ainaloa. I’m just kind of hesitant in having this thing there, next to it, and wondering if it can’t be a ways away from more people up there because there’s Orchidland which I have property in also, off Auli‘i Drive, that is bigger lots, humongous lots with less population in ‘em. That’s a quarter, just a little ways away, not very far. So, you know, I’m kind of hesitant in this thing. Thank you. GONZALES: Thank you, Mr. Strickland. ARAI: Mr. Chairman, I just want to make sure. As you may have noted, the Director and Deputy Corporation Counsel, William Brilhante, had to leave the proceedings in order to attend to another matter. In their absence, I think, I just want to make sure with the Commission if it’s ok that you are all right with offering me the ability to work with the parties to schedule the submittal of the various documents and statements needed for the contested case proceedings that hopefully we’ll try to shoot for a May hearing. GONZALES: Fine with me. ARAI: Ok, I just wanted to make sure just recognizing that the Director and his attorney is not present so— 16 EXHIBIT B GONZALES: Very good. GONZALES: Ok, if we could move on to Item No. 3. DARROW: I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman. If we could entertain a motion to defer this application until May. Thank you. GONZALES: Commissioners. HENKEL: Motion to defer 14-000046— ISHIBASHI: Second. HENKEL: --to the first convenient-- GONZALES: Very good. DARROW: The May hearing is ok? GONZALES: Yes. DARROW: Deferred to May. And, I’m sorry the second, — GONZALES: The second was Chairman Ishibashi. DARROW: Ok, thank you. With that, we’ll take the roll call. Commissioner Henkel? HENKEL: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Ishibashi? ISHIBASHI: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Heaukulani? HEAUKULANI: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Moses? MOSES: Aye. DARROW: Commissioner Ono? ONO: Aye. 17 EXHIBIT B DARROW: And Mr. Chair. GONZALES: Aye. DARROW: Thank you, the motion passes six to zero. This discussion ended at 10:35 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sarah Y. Hata-Finley, Secretary Windward Planning Commission 18 EXHIBIT B