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HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-21-2010 Special Meeting Minutes SPECIAL MEETING JULY 21, 2010 The Special Meeting of the Council of the County of Kauai was called to order by the Council Chair at the Council Chambers, Historic County Building, 3371-A Wilcox Road, Lihu`e, Kauai, on Wednesday, July 21, 2010, at 8.38 a.m., after which the following members answered the call of the roll. Honorable Tim Bynum Honorable Dickie S. Chang Honorable Jay Furfaro Honorable Lani T Kawahara Honorable Bill "Kaipo" Asing EXCUSED- Honorable Daryl W Kaneshiro Honorable Derek S. K. Kawakami Council Chair Asing: Before we start the meeting, I'd like to note that Councilmember Kawakami is on the mainland attending a NACo conference, and Councilmember Kaneshiro will be here shortly; he called-a little stuck in traffic, but he'll be arriving shortly APPROVAL OF AGENDA Upon motion duly made by Mr Chang, seconded by Mr Bynum, and unanimously carried, the agenda was approved as circulated. INTERVIEWS KAUAI COUNTY HISTORIC PRESERVATION REVIEW COMMISSION • David Ernest Helder - Term ending 12/31/2012 (Architecture History - Council Appointment) Council Chair Asing: David Helder please Good morning. How are you this morning? DAVID HELDER. Good. Council Chair Asing: Good. I'd like to open up the interview process with having you give some. any background information, anything that you care to share with Councilmembers. i SPECIAL MEETING 2 JULY 21, 2010 Mr Helder I've been a member I was on the historic preservation review commission for several years before and was chair at one time. I went off the commission about four 5 years ago, because I was appointed to the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts for Kauai, and that appointment just ended last year Ordinarily I wouldn't have gone back on this commission, just because I was going to take some time off after having been on commissions for 10 years, so. but I've been. it's been requested that I come back on by the members of the board, because they have some problems getting a quorum together Several of the people on the commission have projects that they have to recuse themselves from. And having been on the commission before, I know that it's difficult to keep a quorum rolling with that particular commission. So I'm coming. .1 would like to come back on and help out. It's a very, very good and valuable commission. It's one that's unsung, I think, within the county There's a great deal of pressure for Kauai not to become Maui, and for Maui not to become Oahu. So this is where it kind of meets the ground, is with this particular commission, the historic preservation review commission. In the past, the flaw with the commission that I have seen and I would bring it up at this time would be that it's probably not noted to, as much as I would like to see, what the recommendations from this commission are when the projects go forward. So if would suggest anything, it would be that the recommendations from this commission to the planning department carry a little more weight. I can see myself in the 10 years that I've been working with this particular aspect of development here that you see the loss of a lot of history, and we just don't have that much to lose. So it becomes more important as time goes on what we preserve that really keeps the history of the county and what's here in front of young people so they know what their background is. Anyway, that's why Council Chair Asing: Thank you. With that, Councilmembers, any questions for David. Councilmember Chang. Mr Chang: David, good morning, and thank you again for stepping up to the plate You mentioned earlier that, you know, a lot of the members need to recuse themselves quite often? Mr Helder It's not just that. We have some people that are on that commission now that are involved in projects on the north shore. They are involved in those particular projects and must recuse themselves. It's also a commission that, as is the instance now, there are positions available that are not filled. So you have a 9-member commission, you have two of those that are not filled, you have somebody that is sick and two people that need to recuse themselves, and you have to have five people to conduct a meeting. It really needs to have all of the members filled all the time, as far as I'm concerned, in order to conduct the county's business. Mr Chang: And how often are the meetings? Mr Helder They're once a month. or they were? SPECIAL MEETING 3 JULY 21, 2010 (from the audience): They still are. Mr Helder Yeah, they still are month to month. And then often enough we would.. in the past when I was on the board, we would go out and actually look at project sites to get a clear view of what was going on, so people. We would spend time doing that as well, so it involved more than once a month quite often. And then in terms of actually being on the board, we would. on projects that would come up, we'd go over to the Historical Society and look up information about a particular project site so we were familiar with what the surrounding circumstances of a particular project were, historically, and to be able to make recommendations to it. So the time involved is actually more substantial than you would think for this particular kind of a commission if you do it right. Mr Chang: Well, I'm glad that you once again volunteered, because you live in Hanalei, so that's going to be a commitment also to be driving in for these meetings. So I want to just thank you for, you know, reconsidering and coming onboard, because people like yourselves are obviously very, very well needed. needed for this commission. So thank you very much, David. Thank you Mr Chair Mr Helder- Thank you. Council Chair Asing: Thank you. Any other questions? Councilmember Furfaro. Mr Furfaro: Yes. David, first of all thank you very much for offering your services again to the county I have been involved with a few projects, and some of the details that you've just explained to Mr Chang are reminiscent to some of the eye-opening events I had as resident manager of the Moana Surfrider in Honolulu, the first lady of Waikiki, which was built like in 1908. And the preservation aspects of the details that encroach on some of your background as an artisan, dealing with the type of molding, into the corners of soffits, and the window types and so forth, I agree with you that the kind of detail that we want in the preservation process consumes a lot of time, and I just wanted to say thank you very much for your willingness to serve again to make those kinds of evaluations so important to preserve all of those parts, and really document the arts and culture that are associated with various buildings and, you know, places that are wahipana here. So thank you very much for your willingness to serve as an artisan. Thank you. Thank you Mr Chair Council Chair Asing: Thank you. Any other members have questions? Councilmember Bynum. Mr Bynum. Morning. Good morning, and thank you for your willingness to serve and your comments about the importance of this commission, SPECIAL MEETING 4 JULY 21, 2010 and I think the unsung comment was on point. or I think, you know, realizes the significance. The provision that sets up the commission has people fill certain roles, and I wasn't able to see from the paperwork, are you fulfilling one of those specific roles? Mr Helder I think the role that I'm being appointed to is architecture, and I have a Masters Degree in Fine Art, and my minor was in art history I have also a Masters Degree in Aesthetic Education from Stanford, it's specific to teaching and understanding the qualities of things. So in this particular instance with art and historic preservation, the qualities of what amounts to historic preservation and how it fits in to the history of a place is something that I've actually specialized in. That's why I was on the board before, and actually, in this particular instance, the problems associated with Kauai are more gross problems than finite problems. In other words, working on historic preservation is larger than details; it's how historic preservation fits in with the planning department, how it. you don't want to resist development, on the other hand, you want to see it in harmony with what exists, and that's a more significant portion of what historic preservation does-how to integrate the two. And there are a lot of provisions under which State historic works and national historic preservation work, and that's the measure that we need to apply to this particular commission. It has been done quite well by my colleagues before, you have some excellent people on that particular commission. So I think just the familiarity with that lends a lot to it, for me. Mr Bynum. I appreciate those comments, and it looks like we still have a couple vacancies to address. Mr Helder- I would love to see those addressed as quickly as possible, actually Mr Bynum. And you know, I think that who. having your appointment helps bring at least certainly my attention to that issue. So I appreciate your comments very much, and your willingness to serve, and obviously your history and your expertise is going to be a really valuable to the commission. So thank you very much for your willingness to serve. Council Chair Asing: Thank you. With that, any other questions Councilmembers? Councilmember Kawahara. Ms. Kawahara. Thank you. I don't really have questions, but I just want to thank you for your willingness to serve, and I can tell from the thought that you've put into already the preser the commission itself that you're going to be a strong proponent on this commission. So thank you for being willing to come back and willing to serve, and I look forward to seeing good things from you in the commission. SPECIAL MEETING 5 JULY 21, 2010 Council Chair Asing: Thank you. Councilmember Furfaro. Mr Furfaro: I just wanted to add.. Dave, thank you for expanding on your last comments dealing with the historic portion of preservation and the aesthetics that go along with it. It wasn't focused just on cold base and porte-cochere interest and so forth. Mr Helder No. Mr Furfaro: But I am past president of the historical society two times going, and I really appreciate your focus as I keep my own historic documentation of the north shore, and it's. I just thank you for expanding on that. Thank you. Council Chair Asing: Any other Councilmembers? If not, Dave, I really don't have a question for you. I have more a statement, and the statement is, just thank you very much for stepping up and helping. Much needed help, so thank you for all the things that you've done in the past, and I can see in the future you will be contributor also. So again, just thank you very much, appreciate it. And that's it, I don't have anything else. Dave, you want to say something? Alan? Okay, thank you Dave. Mr Helder Thank you very much. Council Chair Asing: And I'd like to recognize Alan Faye. Alan is a sitting member now Yes, go ahead, Alan. ALAN FAYE. I think from what I hear, all the Councilmembers had nothing but praise and acceptance of having David come back to our commission. And I don't know how many years I was on at the same time with David, but when he went to this job on Oahu, it was a huge loss for us. I just want to tell the council one thing, David and I started a program of education of historic preservation, and we made a PowerPoint presentation which we want to share with the community at different levels. To give you one example, we were sitting in our commission meeting and somebody from German Hill comes in, wants to change. make a drastic change to some building, and David's expertise would show very strongly that his architectural input would make the changes had to be done.. or make the decisions of. recommendations. I guess we never had the power of decision, we had the power of recommendations to the planning department and the council, so what happens often is that you have an architect and a buyer for an old house, and so the buyer for the old house brings his architect in with his plan to really change it. Now they happen to be the old house. I'm just generically talking about an old house. I can think of examples that we've had to deal with. So the architect has no idea about preservation from architectural standpoint or other reasons, if it has to be cultural as well. SPECIAL MEETING 6 JULY 21, 2010 So what we attempted to do and will attempt to continue to do, and one reason I'm so happy that David would be coming back to us is to finish the presentation that started out as a PowerPoint, and make it into a short DVD And Dickie Chang knows all about DVDs. So what would happen with the DVD? Well, we'd make several versions. One would be what you might call an executive overview so that people that. like see you have a new council, or maybe change the council, then so you'd like to bring the council up to date on what this commission does and why So we have a short version like maybe only 10 minutes or less. You look at the DVD and you find out that the procedure is the architect should come and find out what the criteria is before they get. come in with this elaborate plan. They spend a lot of time and money and then we tell them it's not good. So we want the council to know what our and we have certain you know statutes we're working under, under the rules and so forth, but so you start with the council and with the administration, various departments, planning department, etc., then you carry it one step further and you make a copy of this available to architects. So when someone comes in to see Ian Costa and says architect.. Then Ian Costa says here's the DVD, go look at this before you start working with your client, and then that architect now has a different feeling, because we're going to show them some examples of before and after, Seto building or some of those buildings that have been preserved, places that maybe somebody want to take it down, but because we persisted, they didn't take it down. So we want to make it clear to architects, students in college, so it could be available, education, KCC, other places where they can look at this DVD at different levels, like you have executive version overview Then you get in more and more detail, and more and more examples for the people that want to spend 30 minutes looking at the DVD Most people maybe 10 minutes, right? Maybe the council 5 minutes, but whoever has the time to look at it, we want to gear it to that. Now with David back onboard, something we started years ago, and by the way, we did an interview out at. with Randy Wichman at Limahuh, and we have some of this video track right now that we can take out of that and add to this, because he goes into some. he's our chairman right now of our commission, and so want to have some personalities involved. In fact, we want to have some Hawaiian cultural personalities, and I had talked to Kehaulani Kekua about doing something about, you know, her culture, about the K6'e. you know, the heiau up there. Anyway, we want to go everything from culture heiau to architecture to rights of passage to gathering areas and to Koke'e, anyplace on the island where we got to preserve something. So with David back on our commission, we're a good team. Because we worked before, but then he was gone all this time and I've been limping along, but now with David back, maybe we have a chance to get this DVD out. And it's probably going to be. have to be manuahi because the budgets look like zip yeah? So we can't expect a whole lot of money; it's going to be a lot of sweat in making these things, but that's my goal, and I was so glad when David said yes he would consider coming back. So. and the council sounds like they're in agreement too. So I hope we. we have our next meeting on the fifth of SPECIAL MEETING 7 JULY 21, 2010 next month, and we really need him because of two issues that we can't have a quorum. Okay, you got it now? Thank you very much. Council Chair Asing: Thank you. Hang on. Councilmember Bynum. Mr Bynum. Mr Faye. Mr Faye: Yeah. Mr Bynum. Yeah hi. I just wanted to thank you for your comments, and you know, this. I'm really glad we had this meeting today, because when I first came on the council, I talked with some of the historic preservation commission members to try to understand more about the work. So I just want to get a couple clarifications. So you worked on a PowerPoint that you'd like to turn into a DVD, and the right place to intervene would be when people first come to the planning department to let them know about the commission. And so I really applaud that initiative. You know the county I think this is really, really important, and I'm familiar with some of the work, not recently however, so I'm remiss in not staying up to speed. But. you know, because the county's in the middle of a historic renovation right now, which I think is important, and I know my first. one of my first discussions with the commission members was about the Shell station on Rice Street that I thought was historic because it had this kind of roof line that wasn't a dicky plantationary roof line, but kind of a back to the plantation days, and it got covered up with a fagade, and you know, I'm not real. I don't have a lot of expertise in this, but I know I felt like that was a kind if icon on Knhi`o Highway, I mean, right. So I appreciate that initiative, and I believe we would vote on this next Council meeting, Chair? Council Chair Asing: Yes. Mr Bynum. And so it should be in time for your next meeting, yeah? Mr Faye. Yeah. That meeting, by the way, is the 5th of August. We meet the first Thursday of every month at 3 o'clock in the Moikeha building, and we've had to continue our two items that didn't allow us to have a quorum for at least four meetings now So this time would be the chance to be able to complete these items. They're very It's sad to keep carrying an item along without everybody there. So thank you very much. Council Chair Asing: Thank you. Go ahead Mr Chang. Mr Chang: Mr Faye, thank you for coming. Hey, I wanted to ask you, first of all, so is the historic part of your commission and the archaeology part vacant? SPECIAL MEETING 8 JULY 21, 2010 Mr Faye. That's an interesting question. Right now we have. Randy Wichman's our chair, and he is. the mayor has two positions, and one position is architecture. no I'm sorry, I'm sorry One is archaeology, and the other one is planning, and they have. he is. Randy is probably one of the best that there is in. what's the word I'm thinking, not the archi.. not planning, I mean. His (inaudible) is planning, but in. Mr Bynum. Archaeology? Mr Faye. No, no, no, not. Mr Bynum. History? Mr Faye: What's that category called? I'm having a lapse. David, what's. Culture? Yeah, maybe it's the culture one. But Randy really should be in the culture one, because every time we have a discussion of something, he has so much. kind of like Jay Furfaro, he's got all the history of everything going way, way, way back, of our whole commission, and yet his position's called planning. But from our standpoint, when I came in to fill the position that Pila Kikuchi, he had passed away, I was put in in archaeology, and while yeah, I grew up in Waimea, I know some. I know the Menehune Ditch, that's archaeology, but no, the thing was I just. we don't always wind up in the position that. I'm still archaeology, I guess. Although. well there are other people who are doing architecture. We've been lacking architecture, and that's what David was very good on that, David Helder. Mr Chang: I was just hoping, you know, looking at some vacancies, maybe you folks could get together, put in a recommendation for the mayor, and then we can get those positions filled. And also, if you want to, I would be happy to look at your bullet point presentations and help you folks edit that out. Mr Faye: Oh, that would be nice. With your experience, that would be wonderful. We might even make it humorous. You know, that's one of the things. When you have a presentation that's just dry, ho hum, but if you start out with something exciting, you know that business, and I think that would be nice if you could be advising both David and myself that we could work together on that. Mr Chang: Okay, thank you. Mr Faye: Appreciate it. Mr Chang: Thank you very much. Mr Faye. Okay SPECIAL MEETING 9 JULY 21, 2010 Council Chair Asing: Thank you Alan. With that, I'd like to call up Maurice Nakahara. Thank you. PUBLIC ACCESS, OPEN SPACES, NATURAL RESOURCES PRESERVATION FUND COMMISSION: • Maurice Shizuo Nakahara - Term ending 05/01/2011 (At-large - Council Appointment) Council Chair Asing: Good morning. MAURICE NAKAHARA. Good morning. Council Chair Asing: Maurice, I'd like to open it up for yourself to give any information you care to share with Councilmembers regarding the public access open space commission. Mr Nakahara, Good morning council people. I was approached by Councilman Furfaro a while back regarding my plan if I wanted to volunteer for a certain commission now that I just retired in December So being that I figured I should give back to the community of Kauai, also the State, since I retired from the State after 32 years in department of education, I thought about it and I said fine, because we've been doing volunteer work. I live in Kilauea, and I do volunteer work with the Kilauea social club, with the graveyard association, sometimes down at Kahili Beach.. Kahili, down at Kahili rock quarry And I figured it's time for me to give back to the community I'm a registered voter; I've been voting, but I'm not a politically active person, never was, I just make sure I vote. So I'm here today in front of you in regards to the open space commission. Council Chair Asing: Good, thank you. With that, Councilmember Furfaro. Mr Furfaro: Yes. Maurice, thank you very much, and I should say to all of you, he is a nomination that I put forward. Originally, I was thinking in terms of his active participation in the north shore through the Kilauea social club, which I think he's one of the base players. But it is a group made up of long term Kilauea residents that participate in social activities in the community that deal with everything from fishing in Larsen's Beach to remembering the old hukilau at Kilauea when the whistles blew at the sugar mill and people went down with their nets to Boy Akana's facility But also, one of the things I was very impressed was the fact that Maurice actually gets around the island as a commitment to his water sports and as a surfer He accesses all of the surfing areas, he understands their importance to the surfing community for access to the shoreline, he is also a very well rounded educator He know how to and when to pursue information, collect it, and hopefully share it so that we can make some of the best possible decisions we can. His wife is very active with the Kamehameha Schools here on Kauai, and as he said, when we talked, now that he's retired from the Board of SPECIAL MEETING 10 JULY 21, 2010 Education as a successful teacher, I then decided that maybe he should be islandwide and not just restricted to the northshore. So as you can see, I would highly recommend him and I know with the traits I just mentioned, being a water man, being active in the groups of a northshore community, as well as being an educator, he would bring a lot to the table and I know he's not going to turn pro surfer on us. He's out of that bracket. Now that he's retired, he's a surfer and a beachgoer for recreation, and I think that was a very important item for the committee. And thank you, Maurice, for coming forward. Thank you Mr Chair Council Chair Asing: Thank you. Councilmember Nakahara. Kawahara. Ms. Kawahara. Thank you Chair It's really good to see you here, Mr Nakahara. I'm never going to call you by your first name, because you're always my teacher I also am aware of your department of education experience and your surfing, your love of surfing. I was really happy that your name came up for a nomination. I had asked you earlier, and we had a presentation from Jean Souza a couple months ago, and she wanted to be sure that people that were coming in would get a good idea or some kind of orientation about how much work it takes on this commission, and I wanted to check with you to see if you had been able to have discussions with them on the duties. Mr Nakahara: I acquired some paperwork from Mrs.(sic) Parongao, and then I read over the members of some of the members of the committee. I do know some of the members also on the commission, so I could get together with them to find out and I understand the kind of work that's involved in this. But I looked at the email that she sent me, and I believe it's to May of next year anyway, yeah. It's two-eleven, May two-eleven that I saw the email that came by I'm really interested in seeing how the process works on this kind of commission. I've been on other maybe not as political as this, and being that I raised my three kids on this island, I believe in.. Although I was born and raised on Oahu, I've been living on this island for 37 years, which is over half the amount of my age right now, and I want to see some. keep some open spaces for them here, although right now it's a. looking at it, it's going to be really hard for. them to even afford to purchase a place. I was listening to Councilman Asing this morning about his 20-year plan of getting a piece of property for all of his kids, and that was a really smart move. Me, I think I going have to extend. Ms. Kawahara. Thank you. Council Chair Asing: Councilmember Bynum. Mr Bynum. Mr Nakahara, thank you very much for your willingness to serve on this, and your varied expertise will be extremely valuable, and this commission, you know, is fairly new among all of our commissions, and you know, some of the charter members are still there, and I don't know if it gets termed SPECIAL MEETING 11 JULY 21, 2010 about, but I remember quite clearly at the beginning of this commission, you know, because the charge was where. you know, solicit information, that they've done diligently, from the community about where we might want to acquire new property or for open access, and the initial response from the community was, well that's important, but we want you to focus on where we're losing access we've had. And I know the commission's been frustrated with that, and I know I'm frustrated with that, because some of those efforts have kind of gotten stalled, and so I hope there continues to be a focus on that public access portion, not just.. because I think the way the charter was written kind of was narrowed, and there's been some back and forth about what the role of the commission is, how much latitude they have. I believe a lot of that has gotten resolved, you know That's what we're hearing from Miss Souza, so I just wanted to make these comments and say I'm thrilled that you're going to be part of the commission. I want to make sure that like the historic commission, we get it fully staffed and I believe they're. you know, could enter a new era with, you know, the optimism I heard from Jean the last time she was here. So it could be a very exciting commission to be involved in, and thank you very much for your willingness to serve. Mr Nakahara. Thank you for your comments. Council Chair Asing: Any other questions, Councilmembers? And I don't have a question. I think you're a great asset to the commission. I know that you can help them greatly, so I appreciate the fact that you're stepping up I appreciate Councilmember Furfaro for nominating you. I think you're a great person that will fill the void that is necessary for the commission to operation, so just thank you very much for volunteering. Mr Nakahara. Thank you for the opportunity Council Chair Asing: Appreciate it. Thank you. Yes, go ahead. Mr Furfaro: Maurice should know that this will come up next week? Council Chair Asing: Next week on the council agenda, and then you will be notified by the clerk. Thank you. Mr Nakahara. Thank you very much. Mr Furfaro• Thank you Maurice. Council Chair Asing: With that, is there anyone else in the audience that wants to speak? If not, I'll call the meeting back to order and adjourn the meeting. Thank you. SPECIAL MEETING 12 JULY 21, 2010 There being no further business, the Chair adjourned the meeting at 9.13 a.m. Respectfully submitted, PETER A. NAKAMURA County Clerk