2024-07-29 Jeff Silva, Colony 1 Testimony PL-CCH-2024-000022

Home

From: Jeff S. To: WPCtestimonv Cc: Jeff S. Subject: Testimony Re: PL-CCH-2024-000022 and PL-SMA-2023-000046 Date: Monday,July 29,2024 7:43:19 AM Aloha Honorable Commission Members! My name is Jeff Silva and I am a resident of Ka'u in Wood Valley and an owner of a condo at Sea Mountain. I am licensed by the State of Hawaii as a Grade 4 Water Distribution System Operator and a Grade 1 Water Treatment Plant Operator. I am a member of the Board of Directors of Colony One AOAO and currently the Vice President of the Board. My condo is directly affected by the SMA application and is surrounded on all sides by the proposed development. As an individual owner I am also a partial owner of the land owned and controlled by the Association. The subject development plans are within 300 ft fully surrounding Association property as well as my personal condominium. I am therefore directly impacted by the proposed plan. I am also impacted as a resident of Ka'u. Punalu'u is the beating heart of Ka'u. As you know, the Association of Condo Owners has filed a Petition for Standing in a Contested Case Hearing regarding the SMA application at hand. The Association represents 76 units and I am one of many owners. I am also one of a handful of owners that are full time residents of Ka'u. Hereinafter, I will continue as the designated representative of the Board of Directors of Colony One AOAO. The Association has submitted documents showing my authorization to act as Representative of the Association in this matter. I will also refer to documents submitted with the Associations Petition for Standing, many of which are public documents. The applicant, BSB LLC, has operated openly and notoriously under the ownership of Eva Liu who also owns and operates Punalu'u Water and Sanitation LLC (PWS LLC). The two entities effectively operate as one entity and their own public statements and documents back up this assertion. Eva Liu purchased all of the lands included in the application as well as all of the water, wastewater, and fire suppression systems from Roberts Hawaii but separated the titles to the land and assets under different LLC's which are owned by Eva Liu. PWS is BSB and BSB is PWS for all intents and purposes and the managers of one entity shift to be management of the other and in many cases serve both simultaneously. This is why PWS is directly involved in the application even though BSB is the named applicant. The Associations concerns stem from a clear lack of the mention of the poor condition of the water related infrastructure at Punalu'u. This infrastructure currently supplies Colony One, the homes at Kalana Estates (above the highway), Kuleanas and homes down by the beach, as well as the County Beach Park. Punalu'u Water and Sanitation LLC is owned by the applicant and I will hereafter refer to PWS as the owner and operator of the water related systems. PWS acquired the Potable Water System, Wastewater System, and Fire Suppression System on or about May 13, 2020. Their purchase of the systems involved a lengthy process with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) which generated many hundreds of pages of documents with the goal of ensuring PWS had the Technical, Managerial, and Operational capacity as well as the Financial capacity to properly upgrade, operate, and maintain the Public Utility in a compliant and safe manner. PWS made many assertions in this process. The documents the Board has submitted with our petition contains just a tiny fraction of the documents they submitted to the PUC as well as documents we secured from Hawaii County Fire and direct correspondence we had with the PUC and PWS.