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+--- Thread: Important questions about the PCDP (/showthread.php?tid=4291)
RE: Important questions about the PCDP - Rob Tucker - 07-29-2008
No one's voter registration is checked.
RE: Important questions about the PCDP - EightFingers - 07-29-2008
Are there any maps to show the proposed changes? Am I missing something? I would like to see if and how our land would be affected by any changes.
RE: Important questions about the PCDP - Seeb - 07-29-2008
I glanced thru it and its hard to follow all the twists and turns ( and reading this stuff use to be part of my job).
But you will usually find the winners and losers in the mapping , especially since there cutting that floating zone concept .
The devil is in the detail
RE: Important questions about the PCDP - JWFITZ - 07-29-2008
If I were running the show, at this point I'd withdraw the plan from consideration. Removing the "plan" from consideration would be a powerful tool exposing special interests and corruption. As well, as such a bold move it would be very media worthy, more so than a pass or fail.
I'd greatly simplify the plan, so that the "community" at large would understand and accept it.
I'd tell the council they need to pass it, no ifs ands or buts, and without amendments,
And rather than advocate the plan, I'd start advocating a general strike on the island as a powerful jawbreaker "or else." Labor here could shut the island down completely. I believe that such an event is very possible here, and due to our removed location such strikes are nearly unbreakable. If the people of Hawaii want to pretend to claim any sort of control or sovereignty of their land or their future, such actions and robust confrontational advocacy will be required, I expect.
Just a thought, or a possible strategy for round two.
RE: Important questions about the PCDP - Seeb - 07-29-2008
What?
The devil is in the detail
RE: Important questions about the PCDP - Rob Tucker - 07-29-2008
One of our FoPF members of long experience in Hawaii reminds me that some history of the PCDP might be of interest to some of you. I will let her jump in and identify herself and correct me if I misquote some facts....
This PCDP is the result of lawsuits filed in years past which threatened the release of Federal Highway Funds in Hawaii. On a State and County level it was determined that the General Plans in use at that time were basically produced with input from large landowners with minimal public participation.
The Federal Government required, in settlement, that community members be consulted on development plans. Hence, things like the Puna, Kona, Kohala Community Development Plans.
It may be that once the "input" is taken it doesn't actually matter if the community planning is actually implemented. The input was gathered, records of meeting attendance documented, and with the failure of the "community plan" the original General Plan survives intact.
I am not the one to know in full truth what is taking place in Hilo tomorrow..... but I do intend to be there to watch.
Make of this what you will.
I will say that if the above reflects the situation then FoPF is proving to be a real pain in the okole to someone. You may take that as an invite to join us if you are like minded.
RE: Important questions about the PCDP - JWFITZ - 07-29-2008
That is an interesting take--
If I read you clearly, you're asserting:
A) It really doesn't matter what the plan looks like at this moment, only if it passes. At the moment, there is no "plan" at all, the major importance is that one is established.
B) If a "plan" is established, the FoPF is confident that no matter what amendments or other "embellishments" are made to the plan behind closed doors in the short term, that the political system is fair and sound enough that "corrections" may well be able to made in a timely manner to support the community good, through public input, and that further special interest "easements, variances, and amendments" will be possible to be blocked, again, by fair and broad based public input.
This much is possible, depending on how much confidence you have in the political process, as well as the staying power of the community advocates. I expect very serious hardball will need to be played to win THAT game. You may be well right that there is at this point no other game to be played, and no other option.
It is a dangerous game, but again a possibly winnable one.
RE: Important questions about the PCDP - Rob Tucker - 07-29-2008
Aloha Jay,
I would amend [
] a line in your item B as follows:possible to be blocked or supported, again, by fair and broad based public input.
There is usually a back story...
and sometime very soon we will know if history is to be made or repeated.
RE: Important questions about the PCDP - frankiestapleton - 07-29-2008
I know that I am making lots of people uncomfortable in that I don't beat around the bush about what I've seen going on with the Puna CDP. But I've spent 25 years in this state as a daily newspaper and TV journalist and the last 8 years as a school teacher. And everything I've stated is based on my 1st Amendment rights. So here is the testimony I'm sending to the County Council. And feel free to exercise your 1st Amendment rights as well...just don't go to the 2nd Amendment[
]___
Aloha Chairman Pilago and fellow Council Members,
Having worked literally hundreds of hours on the Puna CDP, I am dedicated to the passing of a plan that truly represents the needs and visions of the diverse population of Puna. I was pleasantly surprised when the Federal Highways Administration upheld the claims of the civil rights suit that state and county long-range plans did not reflect input by the community beyond those plans put forth by the district’s large landowners. So I took the opportunity after years as a working journalist and public school teacher to do volunteer work in support of my home communities, that of the Island of Hawaii and my home district, in managing growth and coordinating the delivery of government services. Thus my involvement as a member of the Puna CDP Transportation Working Group. There were numerous participants (including a world-renowned geologist) who were not retired but juggling families, careers, et al but felt the call to public service through this process.
In my opinion, the Puna CDP in its holistic view truly represents the majority of the Puna population’s desires and needs for maintaining the district’s rural and cultural roots, its ever-growing need for transportation, social services infrastructure (particularly medical), and connectivity to the island and the world. It represents researched visions for short-term, midrange and long-term goals and objectives for Puna’s entire population, not just its entitled citizens. It’s apparently in the actions that the Puna CDP final draft seemed to take on a form of its own, not seen or reviewed by those who spent so much time working on it.
The County paid a very able, dedicated, and in my view, honorable consultant, John Whalen, about a third of a million dollars to hear, then advise the Puna public. His three working papers that respond to the input of the working groups as well as the Puna Steering Committee delineate how to achieve the Puna vision. However, they are quite thick and require real diligence in truly absorbing all the information. But they were not included in the Puna CDP Final Draft, which I am told was passed without actually being seen in written form by a Steering Committee that barely got together a quorum for the final vote!
Regarding this whole process in Puna, I definitely believe it was deliberately manipulated and mismanaged by the County Administration for its own purposes. Working group requests for input from public officials and other information was seemingly stonewalled and/or misrepresented while a less-than-6-months deadline for the working groups’ reports was pushed on us. So the reports the Steering Committee got to discuss were already a year old when the committee started publicly reviewing them! For most of the 2 years I was involved in the process, there was one County Planner having to manage the whole process as the other assigned planner quit in frustration! In my opinion, this haste and often contradictory direction from the Planning Department served the purpose of the County Administration of giving lip service to the public input while actually undermining their needs and desires.
Punans have been described as mostly retirees or farmers throughout the latter part of this process. That simply is not true. Young local families who do not inherit a home in Hilo often get their starts in adult life by living in Puna. Although we are zoned agricultural, we really are a residential community dependent on Hilo for most of our services. Puna has the state’s fastest growing population and it is one of the largest indigenous, most economically disadvantaged populations, with growing percentages of senior citizens, children and disabled living at the far end of one-way in and one-way out roads in a district that rivals the size of the entire island of Oahu.
There is validity, in my opinion, in many of the proposed amendments to the Puna CDP Final Draft. But as we were told by our County advisors, the plan could be amended after passage.
Yes, it is best to do things right the first time but this was a huge undertaking pushed to completion in a very small timeframe, covering all manner of needs in a district with the least infrastructure, a district that was mined by the real estate industry and the County for decades while ignoring the needs of the public living here.
Therefore, I am convinced of the arguments put forth by Rob Tucker and the Friends of Puna’s Future in support of passing the plan first, then amending it. That process keeps the community at large involved.
Thank you for this opportunity to respond and your consideration of my comments. Malama pono. Frankie Stapleton,
Member of: Nanawale Community Association, Hawaii AARP, League of Women Voters, Hawaii County Democratic Party, Friends of Puna’s Future
RE: Important questions about the PCDP - DickWilson - 07-29-2008
Well reasoned and succinct! Wish my own testimony to the council was as well written. Kudos
dick wilson