committee secretary ali martins also we have four corporation council our deputy jerry shepherd moving on to any announcements so i'm going to go ahead and ask the district offices to check in is all and i officer you present no one is here to testify ok that being said members i'm going to close public testimony without objections no objections thank you moving on to the first item on our agenda e r one present for the presentation of the disposal of waste generated by agricultural operations today we have mr bobby fair he's the manager of kabul ranch and we also have bob who is an attorney receive a presentation from robert for the manager of couple ranch ltd in coordination with the state department of health on past practices for the disposal of waste generated by agricultural operations and the march twenty first two thousand and thirteen department of health notice of finding of violations in order regarding noncompliance with state solid waste disposal requirements under section three four two gosh thirty  statues sections eleven dash fifty eight point one zero four and eleven dash fifty eight point one dash six sixty one for and be of the why administrative rules members we are here today to learn from the experiences of coppell ranch about disposing of waste generated by agricultural operations coppell ranch in compass is more than thirty thousand acres on the leeward side of maui it is also working ranch with approximately one thousand eight hundred heads of cattle it is a major supplier and partnered with the maui cattle company as well as offering hunting on the property in the past couple ranch dispose of their waste by throwing it in the pits on their land however in two thousand and twelve a complaint was made to the state department of health which initiated their journey to compliance and learning better ways to dispose of waste  we are fortunate here to have bobby who is the manager to tell the history of what transpired as well as any improvements that we that our agricultural district a community can learn to become more environmentally sound and also to comply with state laws we also have mr bobby talk of matsue who is the attorney for cop on ranch that assisted in this matter that can also serve as  a resource person so we have here today you can go ahead and start with your opening statement and i think you have a power point is that right ok the floor is yours well  oh you can you can sit down if you don't that's ok oh members and good afternoon and i want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to i can come here and she'll always be spiritual for what we went through in hopes that  you know it may avoid issues like this with my other fellow ranchers and farmers it was a very rude awakening for me just a little bit about myself i was born and d the western region grazing land stewardship award that compromises off california vanno all all western states one of two people got that in a white myself in great fear from ocular range but after this happened to me i had to take my scion though because i did not feel it was appropriate for me to hold it sign because of what i did  was responsible for my going to cope or in two thousand and ten when i got there i needed to make the place right i needed to clean the place up there was a dum that was actually there for free because they did not have a place to stay and they were there for a couple years and i needed to have them removed and when i removed them they turned the scene and i got a call one day that i had the department of health officials from all that were wanting to see where the holes were that we buried the rubbish well this first item that i got and you know basically i really didn't know what to do so i got the help of bob and through bob he steered me to an environmental specialist that came and started to document what and this is he the documentation that needed to go along with this to start this off of where the sites were identifying the sites on the bottom screen keep popping  this was another area that were of concern this is where the old dum we needed time so that we could figure out exactly what what we were up against saying what we needed to do so we asked for time and the department of health was very very open to working with us so we said we will clean up the entire range not only the two holes that they were concerned about so we went after that  and these were the areas dumped three say this this the stump that was used for years and years and years sat on us got small and right below that is the national park trail and we have people from all over the world called and i was concerned because you know this is not right so we looked at the entire range we looked at where all problems were and we were going to put a plan in motion to attack the problems and that's what we  you know that's the report from the environmental specialists that we had you know how we were going to approach these the areas that we needed to take soil samples and there were many many many many many many soil samples taking luckily we were we were in compliance with all levels and did not find anything that was a figment of concern storage in the shops and we found the two batteries that were buried one was laying on the ground next to the dam and we had to we had to take samples of all those  and that was the receipt of returning training in the batteries in school more this is all the receipts a fall off the construction material all dump sites and this is what helped me the most on the stand what i need i did wrong and what i needed to do apply for that to get that through the p a so we would have a small generator number before we could do anything we got all that in auto and my reason for showing you this is just to show you the amount of see anybody go through each it's brutal in one ranch in operation i counted every tire that i have on vehicles before i came here i have fifty two tires right now on all of the vehicles that we have so you can expect that to get turned over at least every two years you dealing with fifty two tires so you better know what to do with it tire that is found buried boy a battery that is found buried is a ten thousand dollars fine for each one of them and this is the guts off and this is what we went through this is where we started we had we were able to take care off that damn site itself without so we brought then machining and we started to go after it and as you see the pile starts to grow that was all this is looking from the bottom and we had to dig through that pile of we had cars down there and they were worried about if they were all in engines and if the engines was leaking out of transmissions was leaking so on the every spot that you see a car or tank we had to that's all a meadow that had to go through the metal recycling it started to grow by the hour starting to look a lot better we getting some headway still need to go through all that now you see that track great deal that come off of a caterpillar that was the first caterpillar that ever went into cocoa they brought that caterpillar onto canoes we playing stretched across i got the picture and that is the tracks that came off of that so everything was all separated tires one place metal one place housefull debris one place and construction degree one place remember that pile right there because we're going come back for a second round we try to pull everything off of that pile that was the next that was hole number two we went to hole number two and we started to the hole number two and that was the rubbish that i thirty gallons on the report but there wasn't thirty gallons in there we were lucky that when the back hope pool the tank out it made a hole in the tank but it made a hole in the tank in a way that th are there was in left in a tank fell into the bucket and did not touch the ground if not everything would have stopped right there and next would be to people in a white suits from honolulu to come do with these everything had to be that green top there with the plastic is where we put the dirt from the bucket strick straight scrape the bucket that was contaminated with oil and that contaminated soil had to be shipped to the that was what was coming out of the us storage sheds around the house that was what was around the house also garbage was just thrown in the back of the house tanks and paint all had to be separated and distributed to the rightful places of the rubbish he says up it called village we've got to go through the whole range but we can i get big trucks up there so we had to shuttle everything down in smaller trucks road because i wanted to make one statement i wanted everybody that passed their road to see that coal poor range was doing the right thing that's the trucks the big sam ice waiting in the morning they did two loads each other day for two days all gone all cleaned pieces of material that wasn't supposed to be long and that seemed pulling them out now we went after the pile to break the pile down to see what was actually on the pile and yes indeed there were more household rubbish  cop it starting to come up some range material started to come out so we had to go on morrone in clean all that up again there's my foreman disgusted with having to go through this again we started to separate everything iron and there's the trucks coming in for the second aro all that was the end product what you just seen all clean up that was before we went in for the second file when he's all cleaned up that area are now is just used for our yard all of our metals fanzine rails why are gates pipelines all of that is piled in once one area all of our construction materials pile up in another area in one place our disposal of oil for oil to dispose when we have the amount required not over the limit to travel in your car we will haul it out saw we've cleaned it all up but my point here in this video is that when all this was going on we still had cattle to tend to we still had fences to repeal water lines to to kill off and we had coming with their goats and sheep because they ran out of feed we had to feed so we accommodated them and this was happening the next day after we  generations i was wrong for what i did and i'm truly enjoy it i was never the same after that now i am oh mindful and i really want mirror we don't enemy trust them no height they will work with you they worked with us and helped us get through these that's all i got to s are out there or ranchers that are in similar situations prior to ever getting hit with a violation are there certain steps that they can do to clean up or avoid again so to adjust the question raised by a chair who's been let me just say this first of all when this was apply and bobby was going to make his presentation and steve chang who's the chief of solid and hazardous waste branch of the state department of health was going to be here as a cool speaker steve called me yesterday to say he was sick couldn't make it i asked him whether there was any message he want communicated and he said to let everybody know that this should not hide from the department of health the department of health is there to help individuals and businesses and he says this is a good example of private businesses working collaboratively with the department of health in having a successful result so he wanted to have that message communicated and so far as what can be done to prevent a situation like this part of what bobbie was trying to do was get the word out to the community so the first meeting we had was with farmers and ranchers up in  council woman gladys bi so was there in attendance and this is actually i think the presentation that bobby has made so he's made presentations to other groups here on mali as well as co  spreading the message that this is an experience we hope nobody else schools through i think that's an important part of what we're trying to do total number of attendees in those presentations but sixty five to total number of individuals who got the message well in excess of one hundred individuals so that's what we're trying to do that you know if there is a problem deal with that upfront try to wor  districts that are comparable to the h r s disposal waste disposal solid waste provisions that they have yes thank you chair thank you members  in general why you vice statutes and hallway regulations are very similar for any type of landfill so the i reviewed the letters from the state deal wage and the chair and each r s regulations are very similar to what we have to abide by for all of our county amount landfills and that's including landfills that are on agricultural private lands for those type of lands they would have to apply for a permanent head of time that would be the normal procedure prior to disposal of anything they would need to have thank you for that miss i think that is probably the most important message of all of the messages you gave to us the first question i have for you real quick bobbie is you know in two thousand levin they started very you know everything twenty one to ninety six and you know can do nothing about it because it was the already you know it was there but then they had these new ones that there were a status thing you know it's like two and three right and as dole cites what was exactly buried in those sites i know i saw what you know i the respect of asking for you mediate cleanup on a given year the time frame to get everything don and where you could take all because then you have to think this way someplace right and i know our our land feels not exactly acceptable household right whatever could be put in you don't feel it so yes and if you are able to disclose just i would be curious what kind of experience did you and the ranch courtroom as far as this cleanup  issue up but we felt you know we needed to do the right thing and i'm thankful that i work for onerous that things like that and you know what a hard part for me was after we did all these you know again we got heat with the fines and the fines was eighty thousand six hundred dollars well what we did do is we did go sheet thanks to bob and steve we negotiated to what i'm doing for you right now the educational component to this because we said you know how do you guys educate you know what what you know could be done will we can educate and that the figures that we came out with was on excuse me called purse property for people coming out of a credo but i believe that that is a bad idea and we are still in negotiations of that my idea of what i want to do with that and that is to be the amount of thirty five thousand dollars we also paid five thousand in the buttman of health fees penalties we paid five thousand to the western region training fun and we watching the mass listening to them do molly and why so beautiful church very well done the problem they face is the road the road is in terrible shape they fixed the road so that they could get the people down there for this weekend but it's going to wash out with the next three so i'm trying to see if i may be able to steer this part of the fine into helping will or church seems we can do for giving the committee this time to see the presentation when i saw it i just couldn't get over it and i talked to bobby and i said i'm going to try to get this on the floor because i think it would be really good for the public to see you know we all think that it's so innocent to throw in an old pirate through an old battery or park you know car someplace where when you see this and you realize what a big deal it can become it really makes you aware and i just really was impressed with how they did this and with all the support and community input and i think it's important that people realize that you know you just can't go through insta for run because sooner or later we're running and firemen and there's hell to pay and so again i want to thank everybody i think you also sir for coming that was really wonderful and thank you very much chair i think everyone will benefit from this thank you i think so too thank you miss by this congress thank you and you are thank you to ransford moving forward and doing the right thing and you know it's past practices were done the way we were never thought it was do you no intent to harm or anything but now we know better and thank you for stepping up to do your share in cleaning and making it right before the department i notice the complaint was brought forward generally love and then only like fifteen days later you actually sent people out to the site what i mean what did they have to show or prove was it like photo was or what enticed people from all to come all the way maybe people that came over here i'm just asking this because in reference to a complaint that was brought forward to myself on a project in west maui and department of health never really felt the need to come out and inspect and see so i'm just wondering what out because of some activities at the ranch didn't appreciate the community didn't appreciate and that disgruntled former tenant called the department of health and so it started from that must have been a very aggressive complaint that was made to the department because a right off the bat at least from our perspective the department was very aggressive on this matter came out immediately they had a tough inspector that bobby had to deal with first hand and so it was we knew it was a serious matter from right off the bat probably while we can probably share more of the facts relating to that i think the question is what what what procedurally triggers the department of health to pursue an investigation is it just a written complaint formal written complaint that triggers investigation or is it more  than my understanding is that and i may be wrong it was in a written complaint made by that former tenant they had called the department of health and we wiil what they knew about what they considered to be eagle dumping what happened was these people who are involved in drugs and stealing and treating the people in a co op ovi feel it's very badly and i needed to remove them so i did them i gave them forty five days notice but they didn't want to move so i had to go and have a share of issue a notice go through the whole process permit even ok for instance if you are for ready buried material can you go off and get a permit and then not not have to worry about that area that you buried the stuff and to be other farmers around here is that how buried material in their lands what advice would you tell them in this position if you nor of something that he's buried fuel i wouldn't worry about them right now i mean i wouldn't go digging up every hole because you're going to have holes all over the place because we know this was the practice you know get libby to be in the long as there is no hazardous material on any deal then but if you look at yourself now and say ok from here on i go and dispose of this rubbish in the rightful places  tires get rid of your tires paid a fee and you buy one battery you go to not buy and buy one battery your medically paid one disposal feat so change the battery take the whole battery to napa you paid for it every get rid of  there's no place around that would take that you say know what to do with your stuff he couldn't get rid of it until i guess one one disposal company finally said  locations can only take there may be areas where commercial people can dispose of they will pay  a pretty penny for that the county does offer from time to time i don't have the date of the next event that we have but the county does offer a vent based areas where we will take  household hazardous waste oil zz batteries tires i believe as well and some solvents that people have in and around their garages and stuff so what i would suggest is in the meantime if it's just a few gallons how much ever it was was twenty five gallons so yeah if it's that amount i'm not sure what the requirements are for what he can actually hold at any one time or how long they have to hold  deal more with residential and that amounts but as far as that's concerned i can probably get information if you have the gentleman's name i can have one of my staff get back to him to give them options of where they can properly dispose of the right several people who he in his trying to find it several people said oh yeah it's ranch you know whenever i have to change oil on the tractor or whatever nobody can depends too if it's mixed viscosities or if it's mixed with solvents if it's just straight up oil the charge is a little bit cheaper if it's mixed with solvents perhaps mr fair can echo this but if it is mixed with things then it then it becomes a different category and that normally does get shipped out of the state in fact but we can if you get to give me some information i can get back to the person and also for those of you out there that have h hazardous waste keep an eye on the newspapers radio and flyers in your area and we will have another event shortly we believe we have two per year and some of those are you know lying areas as well  thank you i think the issue comes in the amount of disposable waste that comes out of agricultural lands versus household properties and i know that your department handles more of the residential side but we don't have in our county anything that deals with the amount of waste materials that come out of agricultural lands and i think that's one of the issues that we need to be looking at as well i know the state take care care of it you know through the department of health but we're at our level we're kind of void of it in our ordinances so it's something that we need to probably look at maybe in this co committee could shed light on it and maybe research it but that's you know my my two cents on the topic but is there any other questions for the members  i guess with the department as well as yourself missed it for and i guess your negotiator good negotiation to bring forth the education because we take so much for granted  you know especially i live country and the rural areas you know and then you know our our fields are not open on a regular basis and you know so but i think speaker simply steve chang who's with the department of health who was going to be a speaker couldn't make it so that short blurb i said came from mr chang but i'm the attorney for a couple right ok sorry it was a mistake sorry chair that's ok that's why i was going to actions that maybe mr if you know the answer to that if you you know if you have been comments to whether you can actually i guess dispose of toxic waste particularly in a maori land in pineapple case i know these things ever occurred in west maui back in the day and so how that relates to today's practices could be i don't know and that's why but a that could be for another future date to discuss more details about that but i am aware of places that have such sites i know that we have like like i mentioned i think there's a disconnect between the state regulations and what we have here in the county on the weather you can bury disposal waste on cultural lands you know so i think that's a topic that it's right for your committee you know and maybe we can pass out some legislation possibly and explore it it's good we are there any other questions that we have in the member seeing none without objections members i'd like to defer this matter  like to thank our guests for being here and having a great present thank you for having me all members i'm going to take a short recess before we begin to the next item because we need to reset the chambers will be in recess for seventy eight minutes agenda are thirty four open space natural resources cultural resources and scenic view preservation fund the committees in receipt of the following a miscellaneous communication dated may twenty sixth two thousand and fifteen from the county clerk on the matter relating to the open speech natural resources cultural resources and scenic views preservation fine this is from our budget and finance committee correspondence a is a correspondence dated august tenth two thousand and fifteen from the director of finance providing information on the fun a members of the little brief background the open space natural resource cultural resources and scenic views preservation fund was established by ordinance in two thousand and four under the author authority of section nine nineteen of the revised charter of the county of maui as amended for the county to purchase or otherwise acquire land for land conservation purposes the charter provisions added by the voters in two thousand and three require the council to appropriate in each year's fiscal budget a minimum of one percent of the certified real property tax revenues to  which is maintained as a separate account by the director of finance under section three point four four point zero one five c the maui county code the finance director has a responsibility for negotiating the purchase of real property in public interest when the purchase price is more than one hundred thousand the council must authorize the accu acquisition by the passage of the resolution the fund has assisted the county in acquiring properties and provided grants to nonprofit organizations for the acquisition and stewardship of properties we have examples of that here today we have representing them out coastal land trust in our as well as representing haas that will be serving as independent sources the county and the county council referred this matter with the charge to review section nine nineteen reviews to review the charter of the county as well as the code itself under chapter three point eight eight members it is my intention today to examine the history and the intent of the fund and i have several just to frame our work this is going to be one of many meetings that will have regarding this fund i have some questions that you may want to ask  frame the process or the procedures that we're going to go through so like number one how is it how how has the fund been used since its creation eleven years ago  number two is the process of accessing the fine including the designation and vetting of the potential land conservation properties to receive funds number three the constraints in the use of the fund number four issues that have arisen related to the fine number of five improvements that we can make for the process and number six any recommendations for the future use of the front so those are some questions that will kind of frame our discussion and further meetings on this matter we also have i anticipate that we'll have some questions for our independence source and they'll give a presentation as first question i had was please detailing the account of all revenues credit to and all expenditures made from the fine since its inception in two thousand and three i would like that  explanation just as your attachment exhibit one but i'm having difficulty the ciphering exhibit water and i'm sure you members would also find it difficult to try to comprehend so i'm going to ask the finance department to go through the packet summarize what has been presented here mr walker thank you chair committee members  before you have a two page i guess when you were talking about what is going on with the fund and what you have is a report of our general ledger transaction when he going out money coming  in i would point out on page one you'll see a big a big transaction about eight hundred ten thousand that was a grant to the molly coastal land trust below that another fairly large one four hundred seventy nine thousand just i'm sorry mr record can i get a little bit of foundation oh how many recipients are there currently in the fight and maybe mr abbas could have the answer or either one but i believe we have we funded two grants out of this fund or that since two thousand and three there was a three ok so to grants of those of the two i just mentioned you have also in your packets copies of each of those grants for your information additionally the the fund has been used primarily for land acquisition and you have an exhibit i believe it's exhibit two which lists  yeah properties acquired out of the open space fund which lists i believe six separate land acquisitions of have come out of the fund since its inception so six can you name the maui regional park and percy near the bottom of page one you'll see basically a recap of the money coming in from the various budget appropriations over the years  as of when it's as of six thirty fifteen the the balance in the in the fund was almost eight point two million during the last budget appropriation we appropriated a little over two point are you appropriate a lot more than two and a half million to go into the fund which would get in the it its balance in excess of ten million dollars  and again you have copies of the two grant agreements under the granted priem and so when i requested to review all the grant at least the annual reports your response from the departments is that you're not you don't manage your department doesn't manage the grants but then when you look within the grant agreements on and i'm sure these are boilerplate type grant agreements basically say that the the mayor and his submit the made to the mayor's office the annual reports and also each report shall be incorporated into the director of finances quarterly reports to the county council so i was wondering whether this has been done over the years and i know i didn't receive in your reports because the department said it was it your responsibility but where are those reports it's kind curious i couldn't tell you when at this as we sit here ok so when we were looking at the grants the grant agreements were would be see those copies from trust for the old very purchase on page three it does say that for the first three years they are required to provide annual reports to the mayor or the mayor's designee i so that would have ended in two thousand and seven i am not aware of those files who wasn't asked to review look for them i'm not sure if the front office now i just was no reason why i'm asking that line of questioning is because in within the grant agreement they have management plans as well as access access plans and whether those are being followed through with not sure so i  don't have any reference to it but it's something that we could like i said members this is just the beginning of a few more meetings to examine the fund itself but we can move forward so if you'd like to request that of the mayor's office administration we can look for those reports of that committee right with that information on there so it's just for the members information it's more than just acquiring land there is a management plan as well as as the details of what the expenditures were for this fund up until june thirtieth two thousand and fifteen and in the budget ordinance for two thousand and sixteen million five hundred fifty five thousand eight hundred forty two dollars was added to the fund as per the county charter requirement that one percent of the real property tax revenues go into the open space fund so along with that appropriation  revenue there is also items listed in the budget ordinance that have been defined as appropriate items that the councils to fund for fiscal year two thousand and sixteen this was only appropriated a thousand dollars basically for us to go and investigate that land in the village and maybe do a an appraisal basically that was just to start the process rolling three million dollars and that's the item that has been requested for further information as well so we're we're also working with that so those are the items that are currently appropriated use of funds for out of this theoretically ten million seven hundred fifty one thousand dollars available for fiscal year two thousand and sixteen out of the open space fund just two for the committee's information  organization will request to us through a grant proposal you know use of the funds for certain purposes and three point eight eight point zero seven zero kind of describes  what would be in that management plan that you discussed in mr bonior is has lived this life and you probably describe this way better than i can but basically it's the the ownership us subject to because of the use of the open space fund for the purchase they're subject to the regulations and criteria of three point eight as well so those are the items we do have mr parsons here and other county agencies that deal with environmental resources including open space he can provide some some other information for you as well he is well as myself and the director of finance did sit on  one the county acquires it all our number two through the fine we can a third party a nonprofit can receive a grant from the fine to purchase property is that correct  agreement and the process on for the third party that would have to apply for the grant so basically mr parsons receives inquiries from land organizations and  you know if it's something that looks fairly viable we're get a grant proposal from them they gets transmitted to my office and to the mayor that we will ultimate decision if that should be forwarded down to the county council for review and approval ok and then you mentioned on the other side we could either as a council appropriate monies from the budget during budget session but the you had mentioned a group that i guess a group that you're through the administration that you're looking at  it included federal funds they're available in multiple different funding pots as well as the or private in of course the the county ones that are mentioned from favor of the county for that land does the mr parsons do you have any comments regarding this fund from the environmental coordination perspective thank you chair rob parsons and county environmental coordinator with the mare's office of economic development thank you for the opportunity to comment on this and i'm really pleased to hear that you're interested in taking in depth look at this matter this is something that has served the county and its people very well but i definitely think there's room for improvement and it seems like every time a question for potential acquisition comes up there are some new questions that arise or some old questions that arise and it may been of benefit everybody to hear mr bourne r s presentation and and go then go through the list of six questions or areas that you that you said you'd like us to focus on i didn't get number two but how the fund has been used number three was how the constraints for issues that five are possible improvements and six future recommendations and i think that we can fine tune this funding process mechanism to make it a little more or  particular interest to council member victor reno being in his district and one thing that i would note about this process is that we have as director boss noted kind of a parallel process where we either award land for conservation preservation protection purposes to grap process and the two examples of how that's happened in the eleven years of this fund and then also  the county itself can and can acquire in rereading maui county code three point eight eight it's it it is implied more than it's crystal clear in my mind that when we acquired that we should go down the parallel process that a grant t would follow and so we do need to county when the administration sends down a request to the council for consideration of utilizing this fun we need to do a tremendous amount of inquiry into is it the highest and best use would the would there be a community group that is capable of doing management what's their track record what's their vision what's the management plan and in some cases years after these properties have been acquired there still is the need to award a grant or a lease that contains all those and i know that you've been reviewing morally a point and finding that there's a tremendous amount of details that need to be covered to accomplish that that's all the comments i have right now thank you thank you thank you mr parson i gree with you once we we acquired the county side the maintenance i'm not so worried about whether when the grantees maintain it because they're under the the grant agreements but when the county owns it what the part which department maintains that property that is the sixty four thousand dollar question we've had this discussion in the past and if you read the purposes of utilizing this fund it's preservation protection conservation and there is not any one department that i'm aware of that this perfectly fits in so with morally a point there grant and and lease went through housing  human concerns but that doesn't seem like quite the right fit are parks and recreation directors here and in some cases there are park like recreational usages but in others it's more restoration or just you know mor point doesn't invite a lot of people there except for scientific and cultural purposes so i know that when we were considering the k who property at there was a meeting with a dozen or so different administration representatives saying well where where will this be managed once we acquire this and at that time  it was kind of the advice of our corporation council that since we were moving forward trying to develop the capacity to address environmental protection and to sustainability that that would be the department that would do that sort of management and as you heard a couple weeks ago and i am committee that has proceeded forward very slowly so i hope sometime in the near future that we will have that division of environmental protection and sustainability that the charter amendment from the twenty two a ballot in visioned and that that would be the perhaps the most  appropriate place thank you very much i'd like to hear from our department of parks our director there and i know that we have some properties that we have bought through the fund designated as park share regarding the open spaces and they did for parks itself currently you know we are in a sense for the department icepick not maintaining it i mean at this point we purchased these properties  properties are purchased and put on the parks however no funding or manpower or any kind of other sources are made available to the department to maintain the issues that we come across with parks with a more public all areas while beach park areas  again is some of the squatting that goes on and again with all the manpower the funding and all those issues it's hard to maintain so i think that's the part we're totally in a greens for the department with achieving open space and getting those two parks however if we're not going to maintain them how it should be on a standpoint of funding it and there are those are some major issues and we come across that with river mouth or public hollow has a big problem there how the house is there so that's not an issue as of yet but again the parks that are being designated as parks open space we're all for it let's just figure out a way how we're going to maintain a police that until we can develop it thank you i have other questions but i'm going to open up the floor for the members on the administrative questions and then after that after we've asked those questions i'm going to have the trust as well as molokai trust do a presentation on and because here we have two to two ways of acquiring lands the county side and also grantee granting the lads through the granting the funds to a third entity to manage and go forth with it so you know so the parks it comes down from administration or from our own parks open space funding which we have allocated but as far as the parks department no it is not we don't go in there's a need he want this piece of property for parks color came into office he relieved the parks department from those duties and brought it up to the mayor's office thank you very much is there and mr victory non science i think they do have and they've been working at putting a group together the civilian on the others have you know because i've met with them so i know that's happening but i guess the question really amounts of this we put these monies aside and we buy species which is really good and i think many times we buy it because we know in the future if we don't somebody else will as he cannot had demonstrated to us that we ended up paying more for one lot that we could have got ten and so that's been our history i think that's what's has predicated the councils for doing this but i think you're right mr chairman we need to have it in a department for which we can then go until everybody knows that's what the money is that this is what applications need to go but not the parks in not the environmental management and not here not there but one even a division if you want to call that i think the time has come that we have enough money expended nearly sixteen million dollars fourteen point one million to go into because parks i know it at times when we ideal environment the management may be ideal at times but this doesn't work every time so we have this quandary so my question to you from the administration side and again well he t actual what we what would you like to see this money manage from and being where everything any application would go there for that purpose of open space and then decide later what the partner would be involved in helping steward the lame you know as mr parsons described it is something that could cross multiple departments and i think that's why america decided to pull it from the parks department and run it out of the mayor's office and that's where he wants what he felt it was the best to be in the mayor's office i'm not sure if that's the best place in my opinion probably is currently the best place to have it stored because then you'll have some oversight over all the departments you know from the mayor's office in providing that for continuity and for the ultimate stablish ment of the environmental protection sustainability program fiction it's called their department is called the department department of environmental protection they do waste water they do solid waste and they do all the environmental protection stuff that's kind of what we were looking at and so if that's the case then i believe that that fund being managed by that program would probably be the best but at this point i'd say the mayor's office is the best recommendation i thank you for your candor and you know i appreciate that and i think more discussion will be held for so i'll let others ask questions public lands yeah vision right yeah so yeah you know we could take this in many directions but i want to do what you know what the administration what was right before mr bosley so i just wanted to ask one last question lester what what do you perceive as three fund i think that would be helpful mr parsons is a good job in trying to do that along with a million other things that he does but if we did have dedicated resources to that i think that would be a good thing  fund if yeah if we had a department of like the state has a part of land and natural resources right i mean that would be wonderful if we had that somebody to manage county properties that are that are otherwise not necessarily accounted for in other departments is not a parks issue it's not a harbors issue it's not a beach issue or a myth it's a just general land issue so if we had a something like that in our county i think th over to follow up on that that's number one and then number two i think probably this is going to be answered are sort of spoken about in mr boone ours power point here but i think we had a testifier from our you tomorrow who mentioned do we have kind of more of a proactive approach to open space purchases because when the whole you know the  strategically beneficial to the community if it's a park or if it's open space for environmental cultural protection whatever the case may be so that's where i think he's sort of asking to create a committee of some sort of through to figure these things out ahead of time versus we all of a sudden get bombarded with ours a testament oh my god please save this right right i think that makes sense because this money is sitting here for that purpose in particular my other question i guess is rare reference to are ready purchasers and it falls into the parks department we purchased them in intent to have them as parks of some kind and that maybe where is the plan for that and i mean you know director statement that we need mitt we need money we need management or you know a plan we need but we're not presented with anything so we during budget time don't know what the department needs for these particular areas and i'm sure if there is something organize and written now for us to look at and thereby help fund to implement it that would be very helpful or do so is there needs assessment tap add on another part i'm not sure that you to your partner but i'm kind of focusing on the to the regional park and then of course the properties which we purchased and i understand we sort of  that and seeing what we can consolidate with what we have in other areas and make it one sensual complex kind of similar to the seeming field marine corpse over in white people where they have tennis with elisa aquatics was hillary's all of your fields from softball baseball and soccer so again getting that assessment as well and we are actually starting that plan already for the central regional and then again for a lot i don't believe i don't believe we've gotten to that stage yet but mr couch think of this chair and i know at least from the intent on the committee how many purchased because i was heavily involved in that one the intent was to preserve that land for the ultimate realignment of home appeal on the highway and then once that got done and then deal with mainly passive parks but possibly campgrounds and i think that's we discussed a little bit on the floor  for the wanting a poker purchases to have the land so that when they decide to move home appealing the highway that we have control everything that was was going to be much of the highway for the most part so yeah the the intent was eventually and in the long term eventually to do some sort of passive parks campgrounds for me and in no time in either discussion i don't think that we talk about active you know baseball fields soccer fields that kind of things in those kind of parks they're going to be more of a passive park type situation not completely ignored but you know finally get some paths in there some bypass and i think there was some discussion on the a poker possibly leasing out for question type center and all kinds of possibilities but nothing was we got to do this next week i'm referring to and i think mr boz commented during a budget so and said probably but in west maui as we all know we have beach access issues and they've been definitely hounding my office in regards to this and what can we do what can we do so i'm wondering if this is could be a solution in the purchase scene which you know is not going to come cheaply but if there is some funding source recreation and education preservation of historic or culturally important land areas protection of significant habitat or ecosystems including buffer zones preserving forests beaches coastal areas and agricultural lands protecting watershed lands to preserve water quality conserving lands for the purpose of reducing erosion floods landslides and runoff and improving disabled in public access to and enjoyment of public land open space and recreational facilities right so that's where he stated i am seven that last one that you mention doesn't particularly say beaches but i'm figurine public access to public land public beach you know open would that be well the similar insane beaches where the beaches are state property but there are many many places where we abut state property beach so it would probably depend on the specific is going up and saying that it's fact based case by case basis so i guess i'm looking at the point the beaches are public and it's not only one person it's yeah we have jurisdictions high watermark you know ocean but i think where this easement or land will take you can access to becomes a public area which is a b h or a short rocky shore line because the language is so bad that it could and that's why i'm not big but it's specific to the point work i think you need to have more analysis on a case by case basis so if you have a piece of property we can in our our ordinances under chapter under three point eight eight point zero four zero the council may also make appropriations from the open space fund to provide grants to any nonprofit land also he's going to present a power point presentations concerning the history of the fine and then land trust experience with the fund we also have butch haas here today he's the executive director of the land trust will also present history of this how this came about i arrived in maui in two thousand and two i had previously been involved with both the one particular land trust i was present in the board of up and see in washington i ended up working for the national land trust alliance and worked with land trusts primarily throughout the northwest and so during all of this had the access to an awful lot of the types of structures they were using in the different the different states the different counties for land preservation when i got down here one of the first things on my plate after i walked in the door was the fact that the charter commission was underway and there was a movement to put an open space funding provision in the two thousand and two charter election which ultimately did go in and got passed this was supported in great part by trust for public land the nature conservancy we got actively involved in it helping spread the word helping  details that would go in there providing them a lot of examples from around the country where there are similar types of programs that same year koichi did there's the following two years after that i believe it was  we had the other counties whoa wait you county stepped in and eventually wahoo about two years after that a wahoo came in with their open space fund and on the handout that you have of this power point are the links to those particular funds so if if your council services gets assigned these things at least they can they can find the major ones where  all of these work in a similar manner but there are some specific differences and that's the sheet there that if you take a look at it you can see the comparison in addition the state of hawaii in two thousand and five established the legacy lands conservation fund and the fund itself was actually established as land conservation fund in one thousand nine hundred seventy eight it was never funded and it thousand and five that the ordinance finally went through the state that assigned part of the convenience fee going to this legacy land fund at the time i was the chair of the natural ors reserve system commission and the law included that the natural areas reserve system city chiefs should also be the head the chairman of the legacy lands commission to be corrections what the the challenges were the white a which the county supported was put together like virtually all our projects as matching with other funds coming from federal sources foundation grants from private donations things that were put together the county had previously by the time i arrived indicated their interest in way and would offered a million dollars to go to that one day so that was by two thousand and two when we got the the money for identified from u s fish and wildlife for other parts for some of our private donors because the total cost was was well over four million had come back to the county the open space funding was in the process then and so we ended up with with one of the first grants there  d i should mention that if we look over the years at what the land trust has done what the the now the hawaiian islands land trust the if you look at the amount that we had disband on either purchasing land or purchasing the easements on land that the match there comes to about a ten to one we spent during during the eleven years i was there we preserved over sixteen thousand acres most of it on maui here but also on mobile as well that we spent a total of just over eleven million dollars the conservation value alone of those lands so this doesn't count the underlying fever alue that still layer this residual fee value that conservation value somewhere between one hundred thirty one hundred fifty thousand or million dollars one hundred thirty to one hundred fifty million dollars that we got for eleven point something million dollars and this is the kind of leverage that you typically see in a good organization that has good contacts knows about w sources are and works carefully with a whole variety of sources almost all of the federal agencies most foundations most other things want to see the matching monies there a lot of those things were ended we ended up adapting as we put the administrative rules together for the legacy lands commission one of the concerns there as it was here is that the money was actually spent on the land you know being able to acquire the land that's one of the really challenging parts and that it be designated for acquisition and not for management there's a limited number limited percentage of very small percentage that could be used for management of the property prove it previously obtained through the land legacy funds that's one thing we we should think about here and the same was true worrying about administration wanting to take off more off the top and so there's a limit to it there and that's worked very successfully one of the other things that they as we compared what the other counties were doing one of the other things is that all the other counties and now the legacy lng fund have commissions and those are commissions local commissions represented the whole area that's being covered there and those that run this a typical commission does scott set term limits it's got staggered terms that the chair is selected from the from the group itself commission itself that's turned out to be quite successful because it does encourage turnover give good represent representation of all areas there now the  other suggestions here which are are up there in you also have with you is that we do set up a commission or structure draw them around the county the way other commissioners are done commissions on what the term limits  suggest adding in our ordinance that for the non governmental organizations any way that they be required to show some matching funds and to limiting the ministrations cost to you know something could be less than five percent could be whatever but it it keeps from having too much money going to just it ministry of stuff that probably shouldn't do the other thing is that it is both  land trust in our land trust have done is when money is given to a nonprofit to purchase land the county holds that back up conservation easement and there's also the provision in the gran agreement that should that nonprofit fold the land transfers over to the county and i would like to make one point is that a very good expenditure of funds like these are not necessarily for acquiring the land but sometimes it's for acquiring the eastman's because easements are only worth a portion of the value of the land we have been very fortunate in that many of the donations or many of the properties that we have protected come from folks who want to see their land protected and that's more important to them than money that's why we were able to get all of this conservation value for eleven million dollars  those things have to tax benefits for those folks at the federal level and some states say of other tax benefits too and that's something that we might consider down the road not part is this bill  the benefit we've had when i was looking at this list and talking to butch and realizing we've actually asked very little of the county for all these monies that have have come through here and part of it is because of our ability successfully discovered the other funding sources and to be a reservoir where the people who own the land can be comfortable that it's going to be protected forever and so the eleven thousand acres of little pollock who are ranch up there in which they basically gave up virtually all the development rights and that was here's a donation we're giving you this conservation easement that will never get developed it will always look like that and i mean those are the things that just stop my heart is now one of the a very important things that we did in the legacy lands commission which i would encourage you to think about it's in the contracts that we had with the county was having a good management plan because the legacy land commission gets things from all over the state from both both jurisdictions and from non profits and a lot of times you've got this good hearted community nonprofit you know who wants to get this land and they'll use state care of it and we're all volunteer run and we will handle it and what we've seen all too often both in our our jobs not only in hawaii but elsewhere is that run organizations often have a hard time stepping up to what's required to do appropriate management and so when we would ask for a management plan and this would be part of their application you know it didn't have to be huge detailed but it had to show how are you going to pay for this in the future you know how are you going to pay for things that need done and those are very important things to know the point that was made about you know what are we going to do with lancer the county is acquired now but there isn't a budget for taking care of them and the departments are getting swamped with oh here's more things but they don't have the resources to address them there from a land trust point of view we would much rather hold a conservation easement on your land so that you had to take care of it but it limits what could happen to the land in the future as a last resort which was why hay was will go out and purchase a land because now we're the land owner of a large chunk of land and responsible in perpetuity for its care there so i encourage the looking at the thing within our eye to how do we ensure that in the future these lands will be taken care of if you look around the different counties here typically the the monies are running through a certain department and it's usually finance we don't have a lance division unfortunately you know d l in our is the land of vision for the state my personal view would be i think the best thing to do and i think i saw guy over there unless he dashed out is to is to have this be the finance department and have somebody in it that's responsible for overseeing lands i mean after all our finance department is technically the one that shows the assets or holds the assets for all the property that the county yeomans in so i think that's my personal belief that would be an appropriate thing to work with and those are the major he's the executive director for the land trust and he's going to give their perspective on the fund as well as their experience and any suggestions for improvement in regards to the ordinance or the fund oh i'd like to think the council for having me come over and be able to present to you guys i didn't realize until we were looking over this list that there were only two grants in thirteen years of this program to n g o s for conservation and i was quite surprised by that being someone in the land trust field that goes out and looks for money for conservation programs and management programs  for this initial fund request was put in before i was hired as executive director of been been with the organization for over seven years now so i wasn't familiar with exactly the process of the initial request of funds however when it came around it was designated in the mayor's budget the money was set aside and allocated for this project so when we went about to exercise the match on this there'd been a change  administration there'd been a change in the process and this program was handed over to the parks department so i understand why a council member covello was asking parks department about this process i have not applied for funding for this program  seven years or six years so i've not sure what the process is but as with any funding process i'll contact you know the county in this case and find out what do we do so at that time it was we were the first organization to go through the parks department for this funding process and and the parks department having just received this you know this job didn't have a really thorough process in place so it was a really rough bumpy road i think for both parties we got through it and you know within twelve months of reapplying and going through the process we were able to close on the property so that was that was really good these these land deals we matched it with legacy lands they paid seven hundred sixty seven thousand seventy six for their portion of the project and i have to say you when you're dealing with the state funding and you're dealing with the county funding maybe a private funds maybe of federal funds and there when it comes time to close on these things this stuff has to happen like magic and the has to come down to the specific and all come together and that in itself is a miracle i was really surprised that we were able to actually close on this project coming up on christmas of that year so i'd like to remind the county that it's as far as the public investment goes into these types of programs even if it is a grant to a land trust whether it be for a purchase of an easement or a purchase of feel ownership if you title the county receives a conservation easement which is actual tangible you know ownership in that property to to an extent so that the public is really receiving permanent tangible ownership in these lands and and guaranteeing the protect lands it is important to that with the provisions written into these grants agreements that should there ever be issues down the road that these public investment that ownership in those lands reverts back to the initial funding source on those  the state has the same type of language through the legacy lands and so that's a key ingredient one of the things that you know like to just point out also to is that it was about a two year process for us to utilize this program and to close on this property and there was a change in the whole process along the way so i'm not certain that two years is the minimum requirement of going through this i would love to see at some point an official mechanism set up assigned to a permanent division or department with you know some continuity to the program and i think what that would do is that would make it a much more smooth process not just for folks like ourselves like my but also for the county as well with their acquisition i know that from our standpoint i'm just going to come in through a few concepts here we have to submit a management plan and we have to actually map out to the county to the public you know how are we going to take care of the public's investment in this case and i'm just wondering when the county is purchasing lands with this fund do you guys prepare a management plan you know i mean because i hear a lot of questions and i'm kind of nude a lot of the other side of the fence they hear over and will look i tell you you know but i you know i hear a lot of you know i don't know is and you know and i just think that you know this is a wonderful conversation to have here to kind of nail down a lot of opened in the questions that i've been hearing for seven years on this on this funding project source but also to to help you know just streamline to make more efficient the internal dialogue within the county and the use of the public funds and you know how are these things going to pan out for the future because i would love to see you know more open space preserve more county parks especially i'm a look at we have a you know there's not a lot of county parks on what we could but more so funding to help maintain and manage those parks and make those facilities available for our population over there so back to come back up one of the things that we really focus on out there is you know the you know the public benefits that we address in the application for this you know it was a major watershed area very important watershed area also you know scenic view planes so even from you know maui or even or if you're on land i you know that portion of the small quite visible and you know it is not marred by a lot of construction or development so that was one of the main focuses of helping helping us apply for these funds was provide preserving those open plains also to a lot of  i are in large landowners holdings and they have restricted public access and had restricted public access for over one hundred years in some cases so with the use of this fund and the organizations like the land trust are able to go in there and open up these areas and prepare and provide for public access where there had been restricted access in the past and we have an access system that we have open to community members free of charge for going up hunting gathering on our moki oh preserve we have beach access we have fishing passes out there  as well really support any kind of subsistence activities out in those areas and then for our organization we're a little bit different than what it cost on later hawaiian islands and interest is that our mission requires us to restore  so we're actively out there working to reverse the environmental changes that are brought on by the introduction of alien plants and animals and poor me and poor land management practices over the last two hundred fifty years so that's where my specialty is my my background is in you know this type of native hawaiian restoration work and so not only it could back up who are we doing for us restoration  but it will keogh we have one of the largest restoration projects in the entire state being undertaken right now as well as interior low land dry highly eroded sites for watershed restoration for some of these west and s slope areas which are often neglected and overlooked when people think watershed restoration but they remember it when the floods come because those are the areas that are contributing the most sediment to your sure destruction and habitat aggregation that we see on the news after these big events so you know one of the other ways that we involve the community in this is we've initiated an entire service learning and community to program we work with every single school in the island we have a official partnership with middle school every seventh grader on the island comes out and participates on an annual basis with us doing service learning programs that tie back into their stem programs so we try to target we try to figure out how we can integrate data collection and analysis and through the science curriculums at school into real life activities out in the field and real life science and so the kids just eat this stuff  on top of that begin to pull some weeds and plant some plants and basically you know kick back and contribute and this year we had that the senior classes has caught on now at the high school we have you know we have one high school and one middle school  so when we get a class and we're talking the whole the whole pop or islands population you know so this year senior class is starting to come into the community service projects with us too so we hope to see this type of activity continue  the community is important and critical component for our organization especially going out and carrying out in conducting these types of activities restoration is an incredibly i mean deal would cause a huge liability had lots of conversations  it does force myself as an administrator for a nonprofit to go out and raise and develop funds and develop programs that will allow us to carry out our mission and this is not cheap or easy so in that sense it is a challenge however we've been able to make incredible strides in the last seven years and the organization is something that i am incredibly proud to be part of the comeback up to property of course was not the only and last time that our organization will be coming before the council for assistance with conservation on molik i there are other major land hole there's major holes in the in the protection of the east and south slope of the or currently working with trust for public land in the state of hawaii on almost thousand acre conservation easement project which is the dark orange area that you see on the map there but there are other large land sections primarily to the east directly that we will be working with landowners on future projects and one of the funding sources that we are looking at for a portion of that project is the open space fund so  when we come to you guys we're looking at big big sections we know that the needs for this fund far outweigh the availability of the funds so we'd like to judicious when we come make a request and we hope that that when we do that it's the type of program that everybody can say yes these are some photos of some adjacent lands and some other areas in the area that we're working on landowners with r we're in developing proposals to come together and start bringing in the funding sources for this these are not marginal winds these are some of the best most beautiful remaining pristine systems on the at the this is cool fish pond at the base of that conservation easement project working on one of the reasons that for our organization it's very important to implement these types of programs is a lot of large landowners on bullock i land rich and cash poor so it's challenging for them to do good management by partnering with our organization that focuses on restoration work and then the partners that we are tied very close to like the east molokai watershed partnership nature conservancy invasive species committee the milk i plant extinction prevention program and many others we work together to go about turning around that environmental degradation that's continuing on these large blocks of land and even though they may be protected from houses popping up on them there's nothing is stopping the march of strawberry g native forests a hedge pushing it up the mountain further and further so that's why an organization like our ourselves you know with the tracker that we have are able to go in and and help maintain the water quality at the base of these require plans of others but we don't have plans of our own and you know i one of the things the question i have for the two gentlemen is how can we best get land trust involved so that we better leverage the amount of money that we're spending know either one or all hardball questions day i will take and i'll take the softballs i know it was one when when there was the mention that there's the worker but i think rob you had mentioned it or someone mentioned that there's a work group looking at where are all the different funding sources you have sitting in front of you to people who probably know more than anyone else in the state and at a perhaps ted or scott from the land trust who are involved in that discussion but i think the utilizing a lot of the community experience you know to help contribute to these things can help provide a lot more specifics there so that's that's one thing  believe council president cochran asked about do we have a vision of what we want to protect in the in the island here on the islands because that's a process that's called green printing which trust for public land has been very actively involved in ottawa in particular the hawaiian islands land trust has done a survey of the different islands so i mean we're we're doing the work and especially it's identified key here is the priority projects we see as meeting the kinds of mission that we're after here and which can speak to how much of that done but you know trying to identify how is the best way we can spend based process we were able to as an organization identify what our priority lands are i was paying very close attention to the green printing process on on a watch and of course when you brought that up that was the first thing i whispered over to  sounds like rebranding and trust her public plan did an excellent job on a wahoo working together with various community groups over there and regions and putting together basically a map and it has many different layers with many different resource concerns that it's the most comprehensive and complex planning document that i have ever seen and it's also one of the most complex processes that takes to get there so it's not just this little thing like hey let's just  do this you know it's you got to really talk to these guys and get the lowdown for someplace like molokai it was a brought to my attention and we discussed it and it wasn't really appropriate for us on that scale of that island with without those development pressures merrily on the other hand might want to consider at least having a dialogue and taking a look at it because it's a different story over here so i would definitely encouraged at least taking a look at that program and getting an idea of what it can offer and then coming back and having a dialogue whether it's right for you they're quick to point  that the truss republican land had gotten a good sized grant from the duke foundation i believe and you know they needed some local matching funds but i think the whole study ended up being like one hundred twenty thousand dollars or something it was extensive they bay met with sort of all the communities around the island and big community discussions so i guess my question is more we're focused on getting the biggest bang for our buck because in the mean money yeah flush it out a little more so you know where i'm coming from we have the ability to do transfer of development rights for lack of a better term because we can do we can do it council initiated change and community plan change in zoning change and whatever we want to do without any a or an environmental impact statement so to put it in perspective for lon threw out the idea in the ministration and pick up on it but we threw out the idea that we could take a rural designation in the maui island plan and we could provide the zoning ourselves without any any difficulty and change and just by assigning a specific level of zoning in that rural designation we could have provided the owners the same owners a cash value of between five and ten million and in depressed we went all the way down to two acre rural zoning designation we could be giving them thirty to forty million dollars  value so that was never you know no one picked up on that but that to me is something that is has got to be in the quiver of whoever is doing these kinds of deals you guys understand all the federal and state buckets of money that's another item and then you all understand all the tax benefits that private landowners can take advantage of if they're doing something with the land trusts and i don't think they're going to get any from selling directly to maui county but they may be able to do it in in your in your arena so those are the kinds of things that i think you know having a commission that has at their disposal all these tools with a willing counsel and with the willing administration we can we can make our money go on whole lot further than we are we have we have the willingness and and the excitement to go and do stuff but i don't think we're doing it the right way because we're we're spending too much money when there are other pots of ailill and other benefits that can be conferred to the landowner without costing the county taxpayer anything other than not going to costa county taxpayers no no i i would agree in any both bu and i have worked in both the purchase development rights and transfer development rights in fact there was a study that chris hart's group did for the county i think so michel anderson was still here i mean no joy in johnson had them him do it was she was on the board to look at those programs how they could be adopted here how they work around the country because we've helped provide a lot of the information to heart and as far as i know that sitting in a shelf somewhere if the if the landowner sells to the cow doesn't have to be a specific transfer a development rights program or ordinance or any of that sort if we can initiate it ourselves yeah it just we just need to have a you know a group that's willing to look at things a little bit  just as one little clarification for the federal tax benefits here are for a landowner i don't know if they if they either donate or they sell a bargain sale to you that difference to what the full value would be is deductible from mantra we always said was make sure you can manage the land don't go ahead i mean you you have lunch as it goes for conservation easements to protect the development rights but it was for legacy so we did have to put one degree or i will tell you this as the administrator for the in ins you know that is doing this management it has severely  impacted the pace at which we acquire land be it easements or because i have to go back and look at our mission which is to restore these land rights and when you're doing restoration you are literally out in the field actively in these areas and there is a capacity issue that you come across very quickly when you do that so yes  language with the states legacy lands program and i believe five percent of the fund can be used for management they haven't written the rules that it's for didn't finally get done ok division at dealing are with then look at zero we can use because they can use the phone to buy land for the state too and if they can use the money for management then all of a sudden they can start using that money to fund salaries and deplete that so i want to come i want to say that yes council merck velo that you should have some language in there that should allow for some management but be real careful because there might be other agencies and divisions within your accuracy that will start rating that fund and so i believe that that would be something to be careful and have appropriate language in place to protect and i think the other part of that is you want to make sure an organization is capable of doing that type of management raising the funds in the future not coming back every year with their hand out yeah no i absolutely agree and you know one of the things that i've really strove very hard at was to make sure that when we say we're going to do something we do it and we do it was really well the thing that i'm challenged by is being surrounded by other organizations and other nonprofits out there who say they're going to do stuff and they just never really put it they spend the money real well but go back eight hundred twenty four months later and look at the results is there anything really left and so i want to make sure that  so yes please include language in there about track record look at the experience and history of those applicants and make sure that they have the capability and capacity to pull that off one of the little thing is that  suggestion of follow up there in our contracts it talks about providing reports at one time i remember calling who does freeport go to and well just senator the mayor's office so you know for sandy i've no idea where that went and and a land trust lands at their overseeing you know if i have a conservation using your land is at least yearly you've got to go out your monitor talk with the landowners make sure the right things are being done if the wrong things are being done you address it to you if you need to enforce you do their county has never had a formal visit out to way to examine but neither is dealing are for that matter and they also share that with the county and so although with a firm to fall a couple of others are out there often enough and they know what's happening so another reason for having a identified responsible part of make conservation easement i pay you money for you pay me money for it and then but i still have to maintain it and you just kind of oversee it doesn't work so i could buy an easement from you ok so let's say for example when when we got our first easement which is out on a ranches land it but a lie that land went in value for them from approximately eight million dollars down to about three hundred thousand dollars and so they were able to write down they take that much of a donation deduction as part of their federal taxes ok so if they didn't pay you or you didn't pay them for the land no but had they said well look you know i know there's eight million tell you what for a million dollars we'll sell you the easement so they could then claim the deduction minus that million dollars on their taxes there but who actually takes care of the land and who do they do what is just the tax benefit it is to them what does your organization do then we monitor and enforce in force the easement itself because the user in itself says for example for that property you can have no buildings you can have small ag things but no buildings you can't block the view there it's meant to be used for for grazing open grazing with a good management plan if they want to change the agricultural use they lease have to clear it through us for the goal being to make sure there's no erosion none of that and so it's those kind of things whatever's specified in the guess my line of queering and thank you for bringing up the green printing aspect of it is because we've done a lot of reactive purchasing lately so if this green printing can help us assist in looking at the bigger picture view suss out all the huge land owners you know currently fell apart apple fuels are currently active cane or whatever it is and look into these you know the whole all these purchases the lonia put all this stuff i mean they were subdivided the whole point thing it was like oh my are there is this point master plan and everyone jumped got up in arms about that so i'm just trying to figure our way to look at things now as things lay out on the land and you know purchase there while they're still an egg and they're not or even rezoned it to something else at a higher market value type thing so that's where i'm trying to figure out is there a way this is a know address that aspect to and i think that would be helpful to us in utilizing our monies in a better way rather than the whole reactive oh my god list jump on it now because it's going to be sold to the you know offshore investors or what have you so that's kind of where my train of thought is going and hopefully we can nip that in the bud ahead of time rather than that's a great program to take a look at it ok answers it every single question ok i have about well you brought up excellent and i'd just like to just reiterate bang for the buck for the county you know for us a good bike up who can spend four hundred eighty thousand dollars and permanently preserve two hundred acres and the whole valley easement has has interest in the ownership of that land but it has no management responsibilities i think that's a pretty good investment so i would just like to remind the council  to keep in mind that when organizations like you know land trust or hawaiian islands and trust comes to you with projects you know pay extra special attention to these projects because i chances are i think they're going to be a great return on the public's investment you know i wish every single project that you guys considered had that same kind of you know leveraging ability but please keep keep keep the projects we bring to you in mind when it comes to that and a department that is assigned to manage this when i say man it's not so much managed to land but manage what the plans that will be used what i meant along with the money that we could really like white should get our best bang for the buck because i believe a lot of the does come forward is valid and again i used the other chronology that we had opportunities years ago mccann and other areas in this county and we just didn't do it a lot of it because we didn't have the funds now we have this will be fun that's why a lot of becomes has the ability and we've been able to partner up with the various groups that's what i really want to reinforce it's this hybrid system of ownership and management that i think is going to be the most successful down the road it's not your traditional you know i own it i manage it you know kind of thing because we've all seen it's just getting way too expensive to do that so that's one of the things i was just looking at when i was approached by a land owner about a piece of property that they wanted to use for a public park and you know it didn't really meet the criteria for us to own and manage it however there was a role for us in there because this piece of property had great public access and it would be an excellent opportunity for us to do demonstration projects with restoration that would allow the schools in the community easy access and easy visibility where right now our preserves are behind locked gates and miles of four wheel drive road it's impossible to get big groups out there and and you know the regular community driving down the highway never gets to see what's going on down there so you know for us as an organization i would be very interested in looking at some sort of you know hybrid relationship where we're partners on something we all have some something in stake in it but then each party can bring additional funding sources and resources together to help manage and turn that that vision into a success so you know thank you is that i was and i think all of your it you've taken exactly what i've always said it's not about me it's i know when the county purchase property were held to a higher level of liability but when the trust the land trust or chooses or at least controls the lad your liability is a lot less i think i believe in terms of insurance wise policy i mean we're all protected somewhat by the state public access ordinance which number i don't remember you know that if you're allowing public access without costs you get relieved of a lot of liability but you know if they point out how you were defective because you didn't fix that trail and someone fell down so hard and if we partner then there was multiple organizations and you know muscle behind each one of those that will come together because we're oversee each other so that's a members this will be the first of a few other meetings on the subject matter we look forward to working with m conjunction with the issues that are brought forth and some of the resolutions that we get to try to attempt to work together and and create so at this time without any objections member  members i'd like to defer this matter no objection thank you members this will conclude the items on today's agenda thank you very much for an interesting discussion and well conclude that you know one more thing  suggestions for the modifications including looking at a division for this county and we we have our trusty staff here that has written down all the notes and we will follow up and try to get some of that documentation for the green plan