Hawaii County Council FINALLY Questioning The Hawaii General Plan (Locals should watch this!)

➡ Michelle Melendez from BlossomInnerWellness.com and Stand Together Hawaii.com discusses the Hawaii General Plan 2045, which is now being reviewed by the Hawaii County Council. The plan has been criticized for being vague and confusing, with actions not clearly linked to policies. The Council is now taking a closer look at the plan, with particular praise for Council Chair Ashley Kirkowitz’s thorough examination. Melendez encourages locals to share the video and participate in a testimony on August 20th.
➡ Last week, with the help of Corporation Council, a spreadsheet was created to track the evolution of development plans over the last 50 years. This spreadsheet, which includes every goal, policy, standard, and course of action from the General Plans of 1971, 1989, and 2005, will be provided to the public and the Council. The new 2045 plan includes elements from previous plans, but also introduces hundreds of new actions, raising concerns about the county’s capacity to implement them all. There are also concerns about the lack of district-specific actions in the new plan, a feature present in previous plans.
➡ The Planning Department is taking on many new tasks, including amending codes and increasing tree removal, despite struggling to complete annual reports. There are concerns that the Office for Sustainability Climate (Oscar) will limit public input as all planning departments would need Oscar’s approval. The department is also planning to implement 398 actions, which some fear will lead to more rules, regulations, and fines. Despite these concerns, there is reassurance that the plan is not set in stone and can be amended.
➡ The speaker is concerned about potential constitutional violations in Hawaii’s General Plan 2045, which is much larger and more complex than the previous plan from the 1970s. They urge residents of the Big Island to attend county council meetings and voice their concerns, even though these meetings can be boring. The speaker also expresses a deep faith in a higher power, asking for guidance for the council members and for all people to do what is right for the land and its inhabitants. They encourage everyone to mark their calendars for the next county council meeting on August 20th and to share their message widely.

Hi everyone. Michelle Melendez with BlossomInnerWellness.com and Stand Together Hawaii.com this video is on the Hawaii General Plan. I have some really, really good news. If you live on the Big island of Hawaii, you’re going to want to watch this video. This is about the County Council. The Hawaii General Plan 2045 is now in the Hawaii County Council’s hands. We have been speaking out against this plan since September. So almost a year. We have gone to different local meetings, the planning commissioner meetings. We’ve been sharing how this plan is basically modeled from the UN 2021 and UN 30 goals.

And that, that is a treasonous document is what what we’ve been saying. The County Council is actually going deeper into looking at the general plan soon. So much Mahalo Nuoa. Thank you so much to the County Council. I’m going to be sharing their there what they are looking at, especially Ashley Kirkowitz who is the chair and the, the presiding officer over the general plan that’s going through County Council right now. And she is rocking it. She is really just taking it apart. And you guys, this is so, so such good news for us because we’re talking.

She’s looking at the 1970s general plan, which was 50 pages, and now our 2045 general plan, over 300 pages. So the very first thing I want to show you guys is one of the County Council members talking about how, how it’s, it’s, it’s vague. It doesn’t really make sense because there are objectives and there’s policies, then there’s actions and the actions are not corresponding with what which policy that they go to. And this makes for really confusing document. So this is just the first part of this, of this amazing meeting that I’m going to share with you guys.

So please share like and subscribe. If you live on the Big island, please share this video with everybody you know who lives here because we’re going to need to have a massive testimony. August 20th. Mark your calendar. August 20th. You can do oral, you can do testimony via email or you can be there live. So here is the first part of this amazing meeting that I was not there for, but some other locals were were then mostly done under the Mayor Roth administration with now it was under Director Kern. Yes, that’s correct. Okay. She was asking about the different plans and that was a different topic.

So let’s go on to the topic that I was talking about. Thank you. Thank you, Council member. Council member. Inaba, any manao from you? Yeah, sure. Regarding the points brought up by council members Hous and Viegus here, wondering when, when we’ll be able to get a version that kind of aligns these actions with the policies. I know, Ms. Morrison, you said that, you know, we could look into different versions. Is that something that the planning department is going to do or. You folks have just handed it over to us and we need to take care of it? Council member Inaba, I’ll answer that.

The general plan is now in the hands of the council for our review and action. So any changes that we would like to see in this draft would need to be initiated by the legislative branch. Yeah, and that’s unfortunate because I think there’s been as much work that has gone into this plan. Simple, simple things like having actions connected to specific policies are not here in this plan and it’s not an easy fix or something that we can throw together in a simple amendment. So I have concerns there. And I’m assuming, Ms. Morrison, is this how it’s going to be throughout the entire document with regards to actions not necessarily being tied to specific policies? The numbering system that I laid out is consistent throughout the plan.

So you have an objective number, then you have the policies underneath that objective, and then you have the actions underneath that objective, all consistent with the numbering system, the numbering system that doesn’t connect the actions to the specific policies. That is correct. And again, not all policies are going to have associated actions, and some policies are going to require many actions. So that there is that additional complication there. Thank you. All right, well, we have our work cut out for us, it seems. Back to you, Chair. So this is the same county council member. This is the same county council member right here that literally said after all of us did our testimony in June, that he was going to still put forward the Hawaii General plan because of how long it took, because it took him 10 years to do so.

They’re still going to put it through, even though everybody who testified in June, and I think it was like more 40 or 50 people were saying, don’t put this through, don’t put this through. And this was the, this was the county council member that said, hey, these guys worked on this plan for 10 years, so we’re gonna, we are gonna move it forward. And now he’s looking at the plan going, wait a minute here. These actions don’t line up with the policy. So in it, throughout the whole plan, and we’ve been telling him that this plan is vague, it’s not clear.

And now they’re finally getting it. They’re Looking into it. Super grateful about that. The next part I want to show is Ashley, who I’m super grateful for because she is doing above and beyond. She. She is going above and beyond. So grateful. Finally we have somebody in the county council who actually gets what the heck is going on. I love this woman. Here we go. Okay. One thing I noticed in the 2005 General Plan, Section 15.3, it was mentioned that there should be an annual report to the council that the planning department created in partnership with various county agencies to measure progress made in implementing the various actions in the general plan.

Do we have a link to those annual reports? How many were completed? She’s asking for. Since the 2005 General Plan, there’s supposed to be annual reporting of what has been done and what still needs to be done. And she’s asking for those reports. I’m checking on our website right now. I know that once we initiated the comprehensive review, we did not do any more annual reports. So probably the last one would have been in 2014. I don’t see a link to them here. They’re probably in the county council’s communications. That so 11 years. 11 years without annual reporting of what’s been done on with the Hawaii General Plan 2005.

11 years it has not been done preceded reports. Everyone’s time here on the council. Is there a record from planning department of all of your annual reports? Yeah. Compiled and shared so we can also share it with members of the public. And I. I guess I don’t know who can answer this question, but I. I question the wisdom in pausing on submission of the annual reports. I question the wisdom on pausing of submission of the annual reports. That’s a really good. That’s a really good thing to question. Really good thing to question. They’re supposed to be showing people, hey, this is what we’re doing with this general plan.

And they decided just to stop doing that 11 years ago. Even though the comprehensive review process had been initiated. I still think it was. It is very important to share with members of this body and the public what has been achieved through the 2005 plan. And I think it’s really important because as we go through this current process of planning for the Next says here 25 years. And we’ll talk about that in a second. How do I. How do we know what’s been done? How do we know what there is left to do? Why certain things didn’t get done? Was it because we couldn’t afford it? Did we not have the staff capacity? Was it something that was really not within the county’s Kuleana.

I those are the questions that are soiling in my mind. Kuleana means what is yours to do? Like what’s your responsibility? But it is even more than that, what’s your. What’s yours to do? Because I. It’s hard to create a plan without understanding what’s happened in the past and how. How we’ve kind of evolved. So those reports would be helpful if it can be compiled. Yeah. And I think that I’m just going to stop this for a second. I think that she’s asking that too is because this is a whole new plan. This has over 398 actions compared to the 50 page plan in the 70s.

So what they’re finally getting is that what we’ve been saying is this is a completely different plan for the Big Island. So let me go back to her because she just rocks it. Really appreciate her. And I can just from my recollection want to scroll a little bit forward. Asked for a number of times and Councilmember Kimball sort of alluded to this earlier was a Ramsey or format. Right. Like what’s changed between what is before the council now and our current General Plan from 2005. You know, we’ve had and I was told that staff just did not have capacity to prepare that.

So in the last week with the help of Corporation Council we’ve been able to create a spreadsheet. This will be provided to the public and the Council. Going back to our first General Plan of 1971, 1989 and 2005, we took the time to copy and paste every goal, every policy, every standard, every course of action over the last week. We’re almost done. But I think it’s very, very important that as we think about what will this new plan look like, we look at the evolution of plans that have guided development over the last 50 years. So happy to share that resource with you.

And I also just really want to thank Corporation Council Renee Schoen and Kaylee Iremoto for their diligence coming in on the weekends to help support this effort. So we will provide that to you because I know that you mentioned that there was just no way the planning department was able to help facilitate that request. So the no way the planning department could do it, but they did it in a week. I just find that interesting. Interesting from there you mentioned that the 2045 plan includes all the elements of previous plans. They’ve just been categorized into the four different chapters.

Is that correct? So all the elements that have existed in previous plans are contained in this draft 2045 plan in addition to new elements. That’s correct. Okay, so from here now, we’re going to start to plug and play based on previous versions, what has been proposed for 2045. This is very painful and tedious to do, but I think it’s very important for us to have all of this information to help guide deliberations and discussions. And I’m sharing this with my colleagues because I. These, these spreadsheets are quite massive. The list goes from three goals to eight.

Right. And we now have dozens, if not Hundreds, of actions. 398 actions. So it goes from five goals to eight in the prior general plans to 398 actions in this 2045 plan. And I. I worry about our capacity as a county to actually do all these things. And what is the liability that we assume as a county if we fail to act? I’m going through the table in the back of all the agencies that have been identified to carry certain actions forward, and I’m. I’m frankly really worried. There’s a lot here that’s assigned to planning, and this is not meant to be disrespectful at all, but if I can’t get a spreadsheet that evaluates the actions of plans over time, where, where is the capacity to implement new programs and initiatives and monitoring systems and everything else that’s been laid out here? And monitoring systems.

You guys hear that one? And monitoring systems. They couldn’t even do annual reports for the last general plans, and they’re putting in all these programs. I’m going to show you that page. And monitoring systems. Interesting. Interesting. It’s. It’s just a fundamental question that we have to ask ourselves, and we need to be honest about. Right. What, what can we actually do the plans over time? In just my review over the last week, again, we’re going through three different plans. In the 20. 20, 2045 plan, we went from very simple, very clear objectives of what we will do for island community.

And I noticed a lot of coordination and collaboration with the state. Things happened, and over time, these plans, they’ve. They’ve gotten more specific, more prescriptive. Prescriptive. What did I say? Specific? Prescriptive. Very aspirational. That’s a nice word. And, and that, that just. That has me worried. It. It just. It frankly has me worried. So I. I feel that in good conscience that this analysis must be done and we need to really evaluate where we want to go. You know, Council Members asked earlier, so what is, what’s the process? Right? Do we send planning department our ideas and then you flesh out the amendments? The answer is no.

The answer is no. The answer is it’s now in the council’s hands to formulate the general plan. And in reviewing. I’ll just show you 1971, the actual general plan, the goals, the policies, the objectives, the courses of action, they were in an actual ordinance format. There were pictures. There wasn’t all this narrative. It was an actual ordinance. So any. There wasn’t all this narrative. In our general plan. 2045, there’s a ton of narrative. Is talking about the UN and the UN goals and climate change and how people are, are harming the, the earth. It’s all there.

It’s a bunch of narrative. But. And she’s talking about in the 1970s plan. I’m just going to stop. Screen share real quick. In the 1970s plan, there wasn’t. She says there’s no, there’s no narrative in here. It was just like boom, boom, boom. This is what we’re going to do. These are our goals. This is what we want to do. This is how we’re going to do it. But in this 2045 plan, we got story time, we got storybook here. Story time, you guys. With the UN being the author, in my opinion. But anyway, let’s. I’m gonna keep going with her because she’s just killing it.

Love her Council member could put forward an amendment like we do for other ordinances that we discuss here. The 1989 plan was also in the same form format. It’s got a nice blue cover and in the back. I think everyone will appreciate this. These hand drawn maps. Before we had all this like AI and engineering stuff. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s so interesting. These really beautiful maps that help to guide our island’s development. The first part of the 1989 plan had every single element listed with the goals and courses of actions. There wasn’t a fancy numbering sequence.

It was literally bullet points making it very easy to understand. Easy to understand. The assignment was for the county and our various partners. You know, with the help of corporation, council and our clerk and legislative research branch looking to do may have been deemed impossible. And share with all of you in the next couple of weeks. This analysis this year over year over year review of just how much has been added to the plans over time. One of the distinctions that I want to point out between previous plans, current plan and the proposed plan. So 71, 89 and 05 all contain district specific actions and elements.

45 does not contain that. And 45 does not contain district specific elements. District. All of our. We have nine districts on the Big Island. And this 45 general plan doesn’t show you which district, doesn’t talk about the districts, but all 70, 80 and oh 5 plans do. Isn’t that interesting? She’s just, she’s done her research. It’s amazing. That is because communities have. Most all communities have community development plans. Hilo’s is just from the 60s. It’s. So she’s saying the reason for that, the reason why it’s not in the 2045 General Plan is because most people, most of the districts have the community, the community plan, except for Hilo.

Hilo is the second largest town in Hawaii on the Big Island. Second largest. And it does not have a community development plan. And that’s one thing that we have as testimonies as regular people have been talking about you. We’re like, you cannot put a general plan through if the second largest town on the Big island doesn’t have a community development plan. So that’s what she’s saying. She’s saying most people do. That’s why it’s not in the general plan. But I, I think that that’s not okay vintage so that I just, I, I also want to point out that distinction that there’s been a very intentional effort for there to be an island wide view, a general view in this proposed draft.

I, I’m gonna, I’m gonna leave it there. All right. I’m gonna go to this one amazing other county council member in Kona, see if this is the right one. He also is concerned with this table, which I will show you guys in a moment. Just jump back to one point you mentioned earlier in regards to the tables in the back and the agencies that are either being assigned to or are critical in, in these objectives and particular areas. I don’t know. I feel, I want you to just notice how disturbed he looks, how disturbed he is.

He’s like, he’s like, what the heck? On par with what you’re saying. Because looking at the list of things that they would have to take on, I don’t, I have, I definitely have concerns even just looking at the long list for environmental management and Department of Water Supply. I mean we’re, we’re having challenges right now on some of the current issues that should have been solved previously, but they are current issues and ongoing issues. So it is, it is daunting to see to to see these laid out this way for sure. Thank you, chair. So let me.

I’m going to show you guys what he’s talking about. Let me show you guys the table he is referring to. He’s referring to this, which is the implementation table. Page 232, Table 53 Collaborative Biocultural Stewardship Action Agency type project. And this is for the collaborative bio Cultural stewardship. And this is a look at planning department. Planning department, Planning department. They couldn’t even do an annual report on the General Plan 20 oh 2005. But yet they’re giving themselves more things to do. Amend code. And they’re also saying that this general plan does not amend the code. But yet they have code amend.

Consider the establishment clearing of clearing limits with the code and increase the tree removal. So all of these new things. Planning department. Planning department. Planning department, Planning department. They couldn’t even do an annual report and yet they’re giving themselves all of these other actions. How in the world is this going to get implemented? That’s what he’s saying. That’s what they’re talking about. Look at all the PDS. PDs, planning department. Look at this. This is like insane. That’s why he was looking at. That’s why he looks so upset because he’s like, how are we gonna do this? Look at this PD.

Now we got climate change. Now look at the table 54 Oscar office for sustainability Climate. Some other things. This agency, Oscar would take away, take away people’s testament right to testimony because all of the planning departments eight offices would need to go through Oscar and they would have to be approved by Oscar. And I think that this would take away people’s testimony, which already does, basically. I mean we. We’ve had so many issues with. With these county offices listening to us. This is the first time the county council is actually listening to us besides the mayor.

When I went and talked to the mayor, he actually listened to me and he actually put in a letter to the county council saying he does not recommend this plan. But Oscar, look at Oscar. Climate change Oscar, Office of sustainability. What is it? Climate change. I can’t remember all of it. But anyway, it’s all the UN Poop. So anyway, look at P. Pd. There’s PD again Oscar, Oscar creator. Yep. Create. So all of this is action agency project. Another planning department, Planning department, Planning department. And the land use, this is all land use now for the planning department, for the plan.

Look at all this. PD’s the planning department. They couldn’t even do annual reports and now they’re going to do this. Okay. Amend zoning code. They’re saying how this land use is new. Land use is not going to change the code. Zoning. Why does it say amend zoning code then amend the subdivision code. If this new map does not change the zoning code, then why are they saying amend zoning code? Planning department. Code amendment. Code amendment. Code amendment. Code amendment. Look at all this. Code amendments. Hello. Action. Another one. Transportation Access and Mobility Agency project program. Code amendment.

I mean, this is. These are 398 actions, you guys. 398 actions. And these people couldn’t even do annual reports. Public utilities. Okay, look at this. Project, Program, project, program, project. I don’t know what DWS is, but these are also other government agencies and I think possibly not non government agencies. So action agency type. Code amendment. Here’s another code amendment for facility gray water use through code. Oh, this is the one that a lot of us were worried about. Facilitate who? Those of us who live off grid. Facilitate gray water resource systems through code and amendments, which means more rules, regulations and fines through partnering with the Department of Health for regulatory changes and incentives.

This is, this is the Department of Health. In my opinion, this would mean the Department of Health will come onto your property to make sure you’re doing what they want. As far as your gray water goes, as far as your water catchment goes. Code amendment. Code amendment right here. This is 27S. So this is why we’re freaking out, you guys. This is a bunch of. Look at all of these rules and regulations. Project. Another code amendment. Public facilities and services. This is the last one. Code amendment here. Program. Program Oscars in there. Another planning department, Another code amendment there.

But they’re not changing the codes. They’re not rezoning. Code amendment. Chapter 25 to require emergency and hazardous information to be pro. Prominently displayed in all transit accommodations. Interesting. This is the last, last one. Yeah. So these are 398 actions in the Hawaii General Plan. Housing for all. Yeah. Project. Look at this. I won’t go through it anymore because I. You guys. I hope you guys are going to share this. I’ll just stop it there. 398 actions. But I’m not done with the, with the county, the county council meeting because you guys gotta. I gotta share with you guys some more things about what, what they’ve said.

It’s really amazing. Ashley just. She’s my hero right now. All right, let me go back to the last part. I want to share with her. So they’re talking about. She’s. Well, first of all, Ashley, let Me stop screen share. Real quick. Ashley talked about the fact that this is a 25 year plan and she was concerned about that. And then the planning director said, you know, well that doesn’t mean we don’t check in on it. Well, they’re not, they weren’t even doing annual reports. They stopped doing the annual reports for 2005. So you know, she’s, she should be concerned.

It’s a 25 year plan. So anyway, this is the last part I want to share around this meeting. And she’s talking about the budget. Agree. And in my review of the 71 plan, it was very evident that the budget, operating and catch capital very much took seriously the implementation of the gp. I think over time folks actually forgot there was a general plan and it really has been business as usual. Well, they weren’t doing any annual reports. So it’s like, you know, if they had been doing annual reports, I bet people would not have forgotten about the general plan.

Anyway, that’s my opinion. There are tremendous vacancies county wide and folks are trying hard every single day to just deliver the critical and essential services that the charter requires. So going beyond that is really a luxury. We, we don’t have time, we don’t have resources. I’m looking at this from the perspective of we only have so much time in a day. We as a county, ohana only have so much funding that is coming through real property tax. I don’t even want to consider state and federal money because it is just so volatile and uncertain in those arenas.

I want to know what I can count on here myself, right as a county. And that’s the real property tax revenues. And we have, you know, this EPA consent decree that’s like costing a lot in order to, you know, meet the needs of upgrading our wastewater treatment facilities. That is one thing. That is like one thing. And they’re like close to 400 actions here in this plan that are going to require time, money, you know, human capital, a whole ton of resources. 398. 398 actions. So I just want to commend Ashley Kirkowitz, the chair for the, an office.

The, the office anyway, the chair for this, this planning department thing. She’s got it. She’s got it. I, I, I feel so much better about this than I did. And then the other thing she shares is that she actually picks this up and she tells, she says to the camera and I don’t, can’t remember which time timeline it is, but she says, you guys, this is not written in stone. This is not, you know, this can be amended. So she’s like, she knows that us locals are freaking out about this and she basically holds up the general plan and says we are working on this.

And it’s, it’s in my opinion she said that that’s not going to go through the way that, that it’s written. And I, I really hope. But we, we got to stay on that. We got to be at the meetings. You guys join stand together hawaii.com stand together hawaii.com and I will give you guys the next action. I will tell you when the next meeting is. I want to say so much Mahalanui Loa to Linda Fay who and everybody else who has actually printed out the affidavit, notarized it, sent it in. I, I did that myself. The affidavit of truth that literally goes over.

In fact, I’ll show you guys just really quick the, the list of constitutional amendments that this general plan violates. So the Hawaii General Plan long range plan is not a law itself but it’s, but it informs zoning, land use development policy and these are the, the violations the key constitutional amendments that may be implicated or violated in the Hawaii General Plan. The fifth and fifth Amendment the taking clause. If land use changes significantly restrict private property rights from agriculture to conservation, landowners could argue that it’s regulatory taking requiring just compensation. It could viol violate the 14th Amendment due process and equal protection.

If zoning changes are applied inconsistently or without proper notice, affected land owners may claim lack of procedural due process or unequal treatment. The First Amendment could be violated. If future zoning rules derived from plan restriction restrict places of worship or gathering certain centers unfairly. They might conflict with the first Amendment but that’s uncommon. So that’s an uncommon one. I just talked to GPT and put, you know what constitutional amendments could the general plan be violating the fourth Amendment. Unlawful search and seizures not typical. Implicated by land use plans unless enforced through invasive or warrants inspections. With the GP 2045.

So there are some constitutional amendments that we are concerned with and that is in the affidavit. So if you guys go to standtogether hawaii.com click on Hawaii GP you’ll actually see the affidavit that I created with ChatGPT to help me with the constitutional amendments that the Hawaii General Plan is violating. This over 300 pages, almost 400 actions compared to 50 pages with eight actions in the prior 1970s plan. So I just want to, you know the county council has a really big job and you guys, it’s our Cooliana. If you live on the Big island, to stand up and to be at these meetings, are they kind of boring? Yes.

But that’s our Kuleana. That’s, you know. Do you want to have your freedom? Freedom isn’t free. You got to sit down and do your part. Okay? Please share this, you guys. Share, share, share. Infinite Creator, Great Spirit, of all things, thank you so much for Ashley and for the other County Council members that are looking deeper into this plan and going. Not on our watch, looking deeper and going, how in the world is this. Does this even make any sense? Great Spirit, this is such a time of awakening. And we know that awakening isn’t always easy.

But we trust in our guidance. We trust in our own Kuleana, of what’s ours to do. And we take part in the things that we can take part in. And the other things that we can’t, we leave to you. We trust you. Great Spirit, you are moving the sun across the sky. You’re beating our hearts. You’re guiding the honeybees to their flowers. We’re going to do what’s ours to do. We’re going to do what’s in our heart and what we feel is right. Not what is easy, but what is right. And we leave the rest to you.

We leave it also to the County Council that their hearts be opened, as it looks like they are, to see the truth of this plan and how it will harm the island and the people here. Great Spirit, we know that’s not an easy task. So we just send so much guidance, so many angels, that each of the County Council members be guided to doing the right thing for this island. And we ask that also happen with all of the other states in the country, that their County Council members, their hearts be turned to doing what is right for the people and for the land and to honor the Constitution and to honor freedom and people’s private property.

Great Spirit, we give so much gratitude because we know that it is already done and this world is becoming a better place each and every day. Thank you so much, Great Spirit. And we know it is done, so it is sending you so much aloha from the Big island. Please, like, subscribe, share and be get joined on the stand together, Hawaii, because you got to be at the next county council member meeting, August 20th. Mark your calendar. All right, you guys, much aloha.
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