Welcome to The 0.5% Land Preservation Fund

[Rob Tucker]

I spent a long eight hours at the Charter Commission hearing yesterday and testified for FoPF on a few charter amendment proposals. It was a long day.

For the most part the meeting was well run. The testimony from a variety of speakers went rather smoothly. I did notice a consistent theme from any and all testifiers who draw a county paycheck...

Don't change a thing.

Don't make our world more difficult. The financial foundations of our empire could crumble if voters were to approve a number of proposed amendments. We need more "flexibility" not less. Reminds me of a popular home style slogan you occasionally see in people's homes which say... "God Bless This Mess".

Probably the bleakest view of the future came from Planning Director Bobbie Jean Leithead-Todd who spoke at length, and I mean length, on the need to double staff, a drowning tsunami of paperwork and unforeseen and 'be careful what you wish for' effects of CA-25, a proposal to embed the Community Development Plans into the Charter for redos every ten years. What was lacking was any sense of how to work out the bugs from the proposal which there are.

The proposal calls for all applications to be forwarded to the Action Committee but the intent is merely for the Action Committee to have access to all applications. BJ basically did her own version of Fear Factor on the discrepancy. Sigh. It worked for Dick Cheney and will probably work here too. I know BJ won't like this description but it is not intended to offend. It is intended to inform.

What was most disturbing to me though was the fate of the 2% Land Preservation Fund. Having been approved by voters in 2006 it has been under constant attack by the Kenoi Administration and his council cohorts. Two years of funding had been hijacked from the fund using the Fear Factor tactics and in doing so the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and thousands of voters had (temporarily they tell us) been undone.

Well "temporary" is about to become Permanent.

CA-15 (Charter Amendment 15) was on line for first reading vote last night. CA-15 would place the 2% Land Preservation Fund before the voters again and ask the same rather simple question: Do you want 2% of county revenues to be dedicated to the preservation of open space and significant natural resources?

The majority of the Charter Commission did not gut the fund but instead gutted the question. The CA-15 language was watered down to so weaken the 2% Land Fund that they had to change the name to The Land Fund. 2% is now 0.5%. The 0.5% Land Preservation Fund doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely.

With what appeared to be little knowledge or research to guide him one commissioner decided that asking the voters to approve the amendment language was simply too onerous for the county government. So he proposed lowering the 2% figure to 0.5% and the majority fell quickly in line.

A heartfelt defense was put forth by Commissioner Jamae Kawauchi who reached back into her childhood and brought forth memories of a struggling Hawaiian family's access to the ocean and coast as an aid to survival. Those places are going away. The families that can't afford a Disneyland vacation are losing access to the natural resources of our county and these resources need to be preserved for future generations.

Not to be.

So the $4 million per year fund (about 1% actually of county budget) which was gutted by Mayor Kenoi and his team will very likely be further reduced to $1 million per year.

I am sure that a number of county folks and campaign supporters are very pleased. They will all have more "flexibility".

Welcome to The 0.5% Land Preservation Fund.

[JerryCarr]

This is rather disheartening news, Rob. Once again the entrenched incumbent interests in the county government are trying to avoid carrying out the will of the voters and constituents.

As far as Ms. Leithead-Todd goes, I had heard a lot of positive things about her when she took office, and I am disappointed to learn that she is resistant to what is sounds like a sensible approach to the CDPs. My own personal exposure to Ms. Leithead-Todd was at a recent HPP General Membership Meeting where she was the guest speaker. When it came time for the very important owner input section of the meeting, I brought up the PMAR (Puna Makai Alternate Route,) an issue which is very important to Puna and which HPP has not adequately addressed as a community. I mentioned that it was a shame the our guest from the County had already left, but someone in the audience pointed out that she was still there, but had been in the parking lot for nearly an hour having a private conversation with a couple of attendees.

***Note to Ms. Leithead-Todd: If you're going to go through the motions of participating in grass-roots community meetings, don't give more attention to one or two people than you give to the group and the issues that concern them. If you needed to talk to those people privately, there are other times and places. You didn't make a great first impression.***

And yes, I'm emailing her a longer version of this critique.

[james weatherford]

Thanks,Rob, for your vigilance at the Charter Commission meeting and for the (dreary!) update.

This was the "first reading"?
That means another reading? and another opportunity to turn it around?

About BJ: based on my observation when she was Deputy Corp Counsel and then Director of Environmental Management, she was simply doing the deed for her boss, the Mayor. Standard strategy: talk it to death and create fear and loathing. BJ is very loyal to her "appointing authority".



James Weatherford, Ph.D.
15-1888 Hialoa
Hawaiian Paradise Park