Except for a few questions from Land Board members about spill containment measures and ownership of the fuel storage facility, the easement to Summit Biofuel, LLC passed with very little discussion of the project itself. Debate focused mainly on a matter raised by Dan Purcell, a member of the public, regarding what he saw as inappropriate actions by Hawai`i island Land Board member Stanley Roehrig.<\/p>\n
Almost immediately after the DLNR\u2019s Land Division had briefed the Land Board about the proposed easement, Roehrig \u2014 a paddler for the Keaukaha Canoe Club in Hilo since the 1980s, according to the DLNR\u2019s website, and a member of its board of directors, according to the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs \u2014 pushed Summit owner Charles Barker to do something to benefit the children who paddle in the area.<\/p>\n
Roehrig said that Summit\u2019s facility is about 200 yards from a children\u2019s paddling program and that his canoe club had tried for 15 years to solicit support from businesses around the pier.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not often issues come before the board where we have a say,\u201d Roehrig said, then asking Barker what the chances were of Summit helping the kids at Keiki Kai<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout being inappropriate, I would like to have a condition on this [easement],\u201d Roehrig said, suggesting that Summit be required to work with the community and a charitable organization to help the kids\u2019 paddling program.<\/p>\n
Barker replied that he himself was a canoe paddler and expressed a willingness to help.<\/p>\n
The only person to testify on the matter was Purcell, a member of the public who often attends Land Board meetings. Purcell expressed his concern about Roehrig\u2019s \u201ccontinuous effort\u201d to get applicants appearing before the Land Board to accept conditions regarding items of particular interest to him, \u201calmost a quid pro quo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen this in the past. [It\u2019s] always things he\u2019s particularly interested in or affects his part of the island,\u201d Purcell said. (Earlier in the Land Board\u2019s meeting, Roehrig had, in fact, pushed a representative from Hokukano Ranch to accept a condition on the conservation easement it was requesting that would require the ranch to allow non-profit groups \u2014 the Moku o Hawai`i Outrigger Canoe Racing Association, for example \u2014 to take koa logs from the property \u201cat a nominal cost.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Roehrig defended his actions, stating, \u201cPart of my role as being a board member is to try to make an effort to make the community better.\u201d He added that he had no personal interest in any paddling program.<\/p>\n
Although he said he accepted Purcell\u2019s criticism, he said he was sticking by his recommendation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to put a condition on this motion that the applicant will use reasonable efforts to provide eleemosynary assistance to keiki and makule paddling programs at Pali Kai. \u2026 If there is a spill, the first place it\u2019s going to go is the beach where these kids practice,\u201d Roehrig said.<\/p>\n
His motion to amend the Land Division\u2019s recommendation went without a second.<\/p>\n
Land Board member Chris Yuen, also from Hawai`i island, said that while he respected what Roehrig was trying to do, he thought the board would need to discuss with its deputy attorney general the appropriateness of requiring an applicant requesting a lease to make a charitable donation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you have a good justification for it, there\u2019s a lot of businesses we could put the arm on a little bit to make a charitable contribution, [but] at some point it\u2019s not appropriate. It\u2019s fine to encourage people. \u2026 I am concerned [about putting] this on as a requirement,\u201d Yuen said.<\/p>\n
Board member Ulalia Woodside expressed similar concern, adding that there had not been a thorough discussion of what group and what activities should receive assistance.<\/p>\n
Roehrig clarified that he didn\u2019t necessarily want Summit to make a financial donation, but that he just wanted the company \u201cto help in some fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a nexus between the request and the program. If nobody\u2019s going to second it, my motion to amend is going to fail and I\u2019ll accept that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In the end, the Land Board approved the easement without Roehrig\u2019s proposed amendment. However, Barker on his own committed to supporting not just paddling programs but children\u2019s programs in general.<\/p>\n
Volume 25, Number 7 January 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Except for a few questions from Land Board members about spill containment measures and ownership of the fuel storage facility, the easement to Summit Biofuel, LLC passed with very little discussion of the project itself. Debate focused mainly on a … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[323],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-6116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-january-2015","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}