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I think that would uh greatly improve the chances of this passing at referendum because when September rolls around or October and people are asking questions about the referenda, my guess is there would be more people there would be fewer people talking about this getting shoved down their throat, more people acknowledging what happened and saying, "Yeah, you know what? We we should move forward with this." Because I do think it's maintenance. I do think there's a safety concern. Um, so my request, um, is an amendment to the motion to, and Jeff, I don't know if anyone's going to second this, but I'm going to say this, so correct me if [laughter] if it's helpful at all. Basically, uh, I want to request a $7,500 special appropriation from the council to pay for this. And really the idea here is for the council to have a discussion about this and to acknowledge what happened because I truly believe that this is much more likely to pass if there's an acknowledgement of what happened.
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I'm Charard Freighus, public policy advocate with Office of Foreign Affairs out of our Hilo office. We stand on our written testimony, and I will also highlight key points as provided in our comments. Much of the district consists of seated lands and OHA has long sought to ensure that the state does not alienate seated lands that it maintains seed lands to ensure corpus's viability and availability for the future looi. We appreciate and recognize the importance of the cultural specialist and also recommend the inclusion of a lineal descendant member as done in HB2616 honor this place and redevelop in a way that acknowledges the history in a more balanced restorative and responsive to community well-being. OHA recommends being included as a member of the Banyan Drive redevelopment agency and for the governor to appoint the cultural specialist and lineal descendant members after consulting with OHA and considering our recommendation.
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So we'll just do that. >> And you are ready. >> You're good. Member Dyman, >> yes. >> Member Goodwin, >> yes. >> Chair Ston, >> yes. >> Member Webb, I'm a yes. Vice Chair Childs, >> yes. >> Member Deniv, >> yes. >> Marriages or >> yes. >> All right. Items A and B with the exception of the January 14th uh minutes has been approved. Um okay. So now we can talk about item C for a minute. The first read of the reverse policy JNDB. Um I look for a motion to approve to be able to bring it to the table for discussion. Okay. I'm going to motion to approve this item and I'm looking for a discussion. Second. >> I've got a motion, a second. Jeeoff, can you mute yourself for just a minute? >> Thank you.
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I I don't know what happened. I know last night we're having a planning meeting and uh Vin Masiano was he was talking about the users who who put this forward and I said right away I'm like my immediate reaction was the users it's not my interest. It's the elected officials that the voters um address who the electorate is the boss of the town council. So that's who's relevant here. I think it's important for the town council to be involved in this. Truthfully, I mean, spending $7,500 on this, we can do it. But it's also entirely possible that the town council simply says, "Nope, we're not doing it." Do I expect that? I tend to doubt it. But as far as I know, we haven't even had a conversation. I have not had any conversations with anyone on the council. um with with council leadership about it.
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Mahalo for the opportunity to testify. >> Thank you. Uh up next also on Zoom VOI Lao Foundation. >> Aloha. Mahalo for having uh me testify in um opposition to SP20001. We oppose this in regards to the specifics that it's not including lineal descendants at this time. Uh we also want to recommend that including the lineal descendants on top of the authority um is essential to what the initiative was when we proposed our uh support for HB2616 and I think that needs to be very clear that lineal descendants do support 2616 which is not you know this is 201 but it's also related because now recommendations from all the same parties are going back into this bill. So, we would appreciate that you folks recognize that we would like to be a voting member, not part of an advisory group. And um I think if we can do this as a looi and community to recognize our voices, we would greatly appreciate that for our kuna.
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Um, and now any discussion? All right. Member Childs, I would really prefer it if the policy subcommittee would look at this and have a hand in it so that it is indeed coming from the policy makers as elected. Also, I would change it personally, but we don't need my soap box. Yes. Oh, sorry. Did Were you raising your hand? >> No, I didn't. But I feel the same as Ann. >> Okay, great. Any other All right. Um, I withdraw my motion and I make a new motion to refer this policy to the policy subcommittee. >> Second. >> Okay. Trying to get my Roberts rules. Does my original seconder have to also be good with that? I'm pretty sure you're I see you're nodding disorder. So, you're good with that. >> With the withdrawal of the motion >> with the withdrawal of the earlier >> the original.
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So I have no reason I have no idea if this would move forward. Um and so that's what I do. So, I will make a motion to amend. The motion uh for the board of ed requests a special appropriation of $7,500 from the town council to fund this expense. >> So, we have an amended motion on the table. Do we have a second? I mean, can I have a question on your Can we >> We'll get the second first and then we'll discuss. Mr. Khower seconds. Uh discussion. Miss >> Yeah. I just want to clarify when you say the town council screwed up. Can you like if you want them to admit that they like what are you exactly? >> Yeah. Basically to I mean because the board of ed didn't pass this over to them and it's like they had from my perspective and I don't know what happened.
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Mahalo. [snorts] >> Thank you. Uh signed up next is also on Zoom, James McCully. >> Thank you very much, uh Chair Lee. Uh, Chair Deco Koy. Um, I'd like to recognize Vice Chair Lorena for her longtime commitment to the improvement of Banyan Drive. I'm the chair of the Hawaii uh Banyan Drive Hawaii Redevelopment Agency, but I'm testifying today in my personal capacity. Uh, I'll stand on my testimony, but I would like to uh give a special notice to Chair Don Chang. uh aloha to her and I hope for her recovery and her department's willingness to work with uh HCDA the legislature uh to support Banyan Drive's redevelopment uh was a significant change in policy and I appreciate acting chair Kako's ongoing support for uh Banyan Drive's development or redevelopment in a communitydriven way. Uh thank you very much and I'm uh able to take questions should it come.
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>> I'll withdraw the second. >> Great. Um, okay. So, we've got the new motion to refer this policy to our policy subcommittee for review and recommendation has been you made it, member child's. No, I made it. I made it and member child second it seconded it.
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We didn't pass it to him and then all of a sudden it was on the referenda like Matt who's wasn't on the board but he's pretty involved and when did you find out when you got the letter in the mail the yellow letter or whatever it is. This was it was a in my opinion a really bad process advocacy for this should have been sort of baked into it. I think even if even if we move forward with the $7,500 tonight, um we need a plan and I the what I've gathered so far is people are thinking about it and that's okay. Um it doesn't need to be fully hashed out, but I my own personal feeling is like a road show like the superintendent did with the new schools. Yeah. >> Go to the go to the Kuanas, the Rotary, the sports group, whoever it is like >> like >> Yeah.
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Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, also on Zoom, Nathan Gatis. >> Hope that >> you are. Good job. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Alohal. Um, I'm Nate Gatis. I'm referred to as Nate. I also serve on the Banyan Drive Hawaii Redevelopment Agency as vice chair, but I'm also here in a personal capacity. Um, I'll stand on my written testimony, but I also just want to kind of comment on that very briefly. there's, you know, some differences between the House version, uh, obviously, and the Senate version, both in govern governance and in some mechanisms, uh, and protections, but we'd like to see this move forward, uh, so the process can move forward and so that any tweaks can be ironed out between them. Um, you know, a lot of people put blood, sweat, and tears into this that aren't even here with us today. Um, and it's high time this uh, move forward in a positive direction.
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Any discussion on that? >> Seeing none, let's do a roll call vote. >> Member Dyman. >> Yes. >> Member Goodwin. >> Yes. Chair Sexton. >> Yep. >> Member Webb, I'm going to abstain. Vice Chair Childs, >> yes. >> Member Deniv, >> yes. >> Mayor Dorger, >> yes. >> Okay. So, the motion passes with one abstension. So, yes. >> Yeah. And if I just may, um, depending on the member, the makeup of that subcommittee. This was your input you would want to gather from assistant superintendent Steven Sullivan and Ian Edwards, our director of IT, had input on this so they could help you and explain some of their thoughts. >> Great. Thank you for that. Okay, moving on to school committee reports. Um, uh, starting with the chair's report, just a lot of these items are more FYIs than actual discussion points. So, this first update on policies voted during the 2025 calendar year, not reflected in the posted policy manual.
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There was no roll out. There was no communications. I I think it would pass. I honestly do feel like if people knew about it and knew what it was and there wasn't like 12 other referendum items, I do think it would have much better shot. >> I I do too. Um but I think it's if we don't do anything different this time than we did last time except for the board gives it to the council. >> Yeah. >> Then I think it's probably going to go over the same way. >> Um >> so you're asking for the money like they should pay for the 75. >> Yeah. And it's not even so much that. It's it's to bring it to the forefront. And it's not it's not it honestly is not intended to like point the finger in a bad way. It's intended to say this is fairly important.
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So expressing support. Thank you. >> Thank you. That's everyone who had signed up to testify on SB20001. Is there anyone else wishing to testify on this measure? >> Seeing none, are there any questions? >> Yes. Uh HCDA, uh just briefly, can you uh tell us your your new um recommendation for amendment? >> Um so good afternoon, senators. Um so I have really kind of three amendments. One has to do with kind of a simplification of the name to um YKA. Uh the other is to do kind of a structural change which is on you know page four lines um uh page three lines 4 to 13. It was kind of a drafting error that came down from the drafting agency. So we're suggesting that it it be removed. Um there was some uh references to the Banyan Drive Redevelopment Agency. Those should be replaced to with the Banyan Drive Hawaii Redevelopment Agency, the agency that Mr.
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I'm thinking in particular the one about warrants, which we'll be talk touching on later in this meeting. um our executive assistant Becky did do a full review just to see if there were any other policies that we sort of either had discussed in one way or another even if we hadn't voted on it or if we did vote on it making sure that that was getting reflected in the manual that lives online so that we're all operating from the same playbook. Um to our knowledge is the only one that actually we never really voted on it. We discussed it, came to a verbal agreement, but because it wasn't a vote, it never made it in. So now we're going to rectify that tonight. Um, but otherwise that that was the only one that we caught or that Becky caught. If in your own review you find something else, please let us know and we'll make sure that that gets updated ASAP.
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>> Okay. >> But I also believe that uh there would be broader support among the electorate if there was an acknowledgement of what happened uh and basically a request, you know, an apology and a request for forgiveness and let's move on. >> Is it going to happen? I don't know. that that like I do believe that that would resonate with people and they would remember it and appreciate it. >> Okay. >> I would just add a couple of things. Um there's two differences to that I can think of right now that um of how we are moving this forward. One is that we've now got this in to our planning committee and it's it is moving through a process through the board of ed. So I see that happening and I think that that's a good thing because it will come it will come from us.
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McCully is on. And finally, I think to address uh the concerns raised, um I would suggest that um lineal and cultural descendants be on an advisory council. Now I I realize that uh it's an advisory council but I think this advisory council along with other community members will be an invaluable you know resource to the board. Um at the same time um to expand on that senator as you know we are undergoing a master planning effort for Waka Peninsula we had received um $1 million from the late representative Nakushima. So we're undergoing that master planning process. Uh we are going to um assemble a community advisory committee that will help us um plan do the planning and visioning for the district. I would suggest that that kind of role for cultural lineal descendants and other community members is really the heavy lift that's going to occur with the planning because they will look at uses in um the Waka Peninsula.
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Um, this other item actually is null and void now since those school tours did happen today. Um, we did have four members of our school committee and three members of city council and a few kiddos uh join us on our building tours um to look at a lot of to look at a lot of stuff and to get some insights into some of our long-term planning. So, we've got some items that aren't major issues right now, but if we don't make action on them in the next year or two could become uh issues that that will be more costly in the future. thinking in particular of some um external window dressing that needs to get repainted because if it gets down to the bare wood, which it is in some places is already and will continue to be, then we run the risk of it getting rotted.
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Uh the second thing is I I believe this is a better um this will be a a different referendum question because it's not just the turf, it's the track and the turf and the track is a really important part of the overall project and um I feel like these those two need needed to be together before it needed to be a more the the whole project not just presented as the turf. Um, I do agree. I think there does need to be some better communication out to the public and um, I feel like now we have the time to do that because this is early in the process, earlier in the process than when we were talking about it or not talking about it before. So, that's I just wanted to bring those points up. >> I have a question. >> U, Miss Cullinin? Yeah, I I guess I'm just a little bit confused because when I look on page four of this um SLR kind of report or um giving us information on this project, you know, I see the 7500 for the preliminary design, but the total right in that area is $30,000.
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They will look at um different land uses and once that master plan and rules are done it will become the plan for development for the agency uh for Waka Peninsula for many many years to come and that's really the heavy lift and where I think they can have um impactful um participation in in in the in the planning process and in what goes on uh development wise and then also c cultural resources uh for the district. So that's in a nutshell, senator, the um suggested changes we're asking for. >> Uh just a just a question uh and several concerns and it was brought up at the chambers as [clears throat] well. When you look at WA Peninsula, it's a bigger picture other than Banyan Drive. >> [clears throat] >> The concern that many in the business community and those that are interested in developing Banyan Drive is foremost.
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