telephone interactive communication that enables individuals from honna lanai and molokai to provide testimony from our district offices individuals who wish to offer testimony from honolulu and i end should now sign up with the district office staff of individuals who wish to somebody just money in the chamber please sign up at the desk located on the floor in a lobby just outside the chamber door testimony at all ok she is limited to the item listed on today's agenda and pursuant to the rules of the counsel each testifier is allowed to testify for up to three minutes with one minute to conclude if requested and when testifying please state your name in the name of any organization that you represent on  office please identify yourself in introduce your first testifier good morning that those don't belong on it and there's no one waiting to find it thank you not a office please identify yourself  qaida and there is no one here waiting to testify thank you mystic chair we have five individuals who have signed up to provide testimony kinda chamber and the first person to provide testimony this morning dam thank you i'm here to speak about the budget and the in particular are ready to the vineyard street improvement project it's been suggested that's been requested money by the public works department from the county it appears that you for jech did that and i hope you would reconsider if be here what i have to say i've sent my testimony to everybody a it's a real problem on being your street my family owns the building at the corner of market and vineyard and i have a store there and we've had to close the store frequently when it rains the water comes rushing down vineyards tree and right into the building a lot of the problems we're having are due to the gentrification of market street about five six ten years ago when they redid market street and the water just funnels right in i attached to my written testimony you tube clip if you take a look you can see what's going on i've just really i went on my lunch walk and walked up vineyard street and noticed that her name karen a law firm further up we have very very poor to non sidewalks and we're trying to improve and invigorate why lou we can't have this going on we have to have real sidewalks we have to have water and it's a very important thing for commerce for the people as i think it's the responsibility to see this happen thank you and question thank you mr denham and even for clarification of the testimony good morning thank you for nora seeing me again my name is patricia kids isn't here to talk about curfew i sent a letter to each of you and i don't want to take any more of your time just to recap we are there i don't think there are any multiple activities so that we can provide reliable employment to our good instructors and i just thought and i would offer myself if you have any questions from my letter before you deliberate thank you chair council members morning again i'd like to speak in support of item sixteen on the agenda for the fuel tax rate increase for some of the items gasoline and diesel i think as is appropriate if you could please state your name for the coal i'm sorry bob king from pacific biodiesel my apologies  i would ask again if we could send a stronger message on renewables by going back to a an exemption at this time for biodiesel on the tax rate it doesn't generate a lot of money for the county to have that additional money in there that at the additional tax rate and there yet the message is i think very strong when you exempt it like oh i like the big island it's important to the fleets to know that is the council is supporting them who are supporting the renewable fuel so later when we get other other ways to support the industry maybe by purchasing fuel by the paved by getting picking up this tax but right now the price of fuel word petroleum fuel where it is where the industry is at i do request that we go back to the exemption for rotax for biodiesel thank you very much about the feds the federal government gives a an exemption through a different form although it comes up there is try to make this easy answer if there's a federal excise tax credit it's not a called road tax federal excise tax on bio on all fuel is twenty four cents a gallon there's a tax credit for biodiesel one dollar per gallon so we actually get the federal road tax back for biodiesel that credit is on a year to year basis so it comes in it expires it comes back again expires we just came out of a year of no tax credit and then and then this year we have it next year it's gone again looking up and down on the federal thank you land to farm on maui right now actively and we're not serving that but the game is changing this year and so we're working with several and tatoos to acquire some lab but that currently we are not growing oil crops but there could be a possibility of it i think it's a tremendous possibility i think there's from all of the work we've done over the past eight years with oil crops in hawaii we see  we see that there's a very viable path to grow a significant amount of oil crops here and help the farming of the ranching industry as well as put a lot of people back to work so there's a there's several different components but i think collectively this is the the economics of that are in fact good right now thank you need for clarification see none relates to the land acquisition we submitted written testimony steve did on may fourth on behalf of the landowners and he was unable to be here today so he asked me to come in and just it's to date one hundred forty eight acres have been purchased and there is a thirty seven acre parcel remaining to be purchased that stretches from london poco beach park to put them on a beach park and we're asking that this i have to permits climb a park surfing and kayaking the surf since are my bread and butter and the characters are not very popular there but i keep the permit just because i cherish it ten years ago this coming january i'm a navy veteran i took my life savings and purchased an existing business that had the corps of permits and it was my dream come true to operate a family business here on this beautiful island in doing this i opened up a retail store across the street from climate park to follow the rules of korra and have a place of business in the vicinity i try to run a busy this with integrity i pay over five thousand a month in rent and i have a competitor almost across the street from me in the park that has been doing cash rentals for almost ten years now they have no place of business and they're operating rent free in a county park and they're even doing the lessons for everyone else and but that's just the beginning of it and my point is the rules of korra are not being enforced now that the word is out that the county parks can't find anyone or do anything there's just lots of on the low down activity companies popping up and and there that they knew all the loopholes and they're the ones that are thriving because they're not regulated we even have mobile units now delivering gear in the parks and as you may know it is crazy expensive to operate a business here on maui high rent the g t texas federal and state taxes payroll taxes liability insurance advertising electricity the resort commissions cetera et cetera fees taxes and bills just take everything i can't even afford a full time employee and pay their health care  work really hard i work six days a week and to provide fun memories safe and fun memories for our island guest matter of fact my wife's shop right now singlehandedly we're definitely not a million dollar entity far from it and every year our permit fees are raised and they're even questionable you know if like the rumor to disappear so i honestly feel sometimes that you guys don't want us to succeed it's hard for me to look into the future and feel secure because i'm cautious to invest because i don't know if these permits are going to be there every year and it's hard to grow a business like that you know i want to be successful i want to hand over a thriving family business to my son one day please do not attack us core operators for trying to run a pono and legit business go after the businesses operating illegally and force the rules in conclusion please do not raise our fees again and see commissions were not all million dollar entities please see that the rules can be enforced models for listening to my opinion and happy aloha friday god bless america a lot focus on this one i testified last time and in the last year after fees were raised we received barely any services i've i've i'm submitting today pictures sticking out of park benches down trees deteriorating barbecue it's and in over and over all disregard of it mommy beach park our instructors are always picking up trash after weekend users especially after the holidays what is our part fees really going for if we barely receive services why bother why am i bothering pain a permit when our park is in shambles and there's minimal enforcement of the legal schools there are over thirty service schools online when go surf lessons maoi there's a i haven't confirmed that permit holders with the parks yet but i believe over half of those schools are illegal why go through all the efforts to be legal pay my fees for sixteen years now and i have to compete with fifteen illegal search schools island wide online why am i bothering pain my permit and the permit hikes every year when illegals are getting the same services that i do if you continue to raise my car permit each year i'd appreciate park services and regulation so i just took some photos of our beach park recently i think all the beach parks on maui have water but beach park my customers every day are like oh can we shower after the class and i'm sorry we don't have water here and i'm happy to provide on my own so that's what i've been doing and there's no grass and it's pretty bad sides want to and it's actually dangerous there's some rebar coming off that someone walked by and got himself on so down there and and then beach boys is down there with the big corporate group this week as well so we had a lot of activity the numbers aren't good i counted probably about sixteen to eighteen students in the water and i think our permit regulates to fourteen total so even if they are legal permits they're not following the rules of korra and my my school is small i have a four to one ratio and  my customers notice that and they're like wow what's going on and you know we get a busy season to where we run our surf camp and i organize our camps and phases so i don't i feel like if there's a corporate group in town and they have a legal permit and like i do you know make it smaller more frequent groups they're not organizing it right and it's just it's dangerous their boards flying out my instructors there's not enough instructors in the water and so it's stressful it's frustrating that just having that raise in the the hikes every year and not having enforcement or the downed tree issue is two months that no one clear that tree and it's still kind of tripping people and county everywhere so i feel like it could be a liability for the county if no one comes and cleans things up and my and my business they could sue me to thank you for accidents of the fifteen or so sort of schools that you mentioned or is there any way that you can verify whether the front where we are illegal to teach and we can't of course regulate the ocean but you know they're in our way too and in front of the park in the ocean so they go around the park and the county park rangers that i've spoke with said that they are in touch with the dion are and i've called them i hate to be the whistle blower but i've had to call and say hey there's some illegals down here and then same question are they on are they in a park and i say no they're on the other side of the park well will contact the d n r and then i'm waiting around and no deal in our shows up so it's just business as usual and they've grown and they're competing with me on mine and it's been really fresh if they're a small school it's like ok but like they're getting really big now appreciate your additional individuals in the council chamber or at the district offices would like to offer testimony please identify yourself to the appropriate staff and proceed to the to the testimony lectern or district office phone at this time chair there's no other individuals in the district office nor the chamber but wish to offer testimony thank you mr clerk members we've received a written testimony that direction received that into the record