Update on 2% for lands.

PLEASE FORWARD TO BIG ISLAND FAMILY AND FRIENDSHello-
Thank you so much for your help and tremendous support on this campaign to save our treasured lands on the Big Island! The County has once again changed its instructions to our Citizen's group, and it is now clear that after collecting over 9,000 signatures in favor of letting voters decide, that a final decision on the fate of the Land Fund ordinance will rest with the County Council on July 19th.There are two specific things that we are asking ALL Big Island citizens to do, since we've just been instructed that we can't collect any more signatures (see why below) :
Attend the July 19th Council Meeting in Hilo at 9:00 am (or the Kona Council office to testify via teleconference).
Write a letter to the Mayor and Council at 25 Aupuni St., Hilo, Hawaii
Call your council person and the Mayor OR
PLEASE E-MAIL THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL (cut and paste these addresses):
cohmayor@co.hawaii.hi.us, fholschuh@co.hawaii.hi.us, dikeda@co.hawaii.hi.us, jarakaki@co.hawaii.hi.us, shiga@co.hawaii.hi.us, gsafarik@co.hawaii.hi.us , jjaco@co.hawaii.hi.us, phoffmann@co.hawaii.hi.us, kapilago@co.hawaii.hi.us, visbell@co.hawaii.hi.us, counciltestimony@co.hawaii.hi.us, PLEASE use your own words or cut and past the following in an email. ASK THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL TO HONOR THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE : Dear Mayor Kim and Hawaii County Council:PLEASE PUT THE QUESTION ON THE BALLOT AND LET HAWAII COUNTY VOTERS DECIDE IN NOVEMBER TO MODIFY THE EXISTING Open Space and Natural Resources ORDINANCE BY MAKING THE FOLLOWING CHANGES: 1-To set aside 2% of the property tax each and every year for Open Space and Natural resource acquisition and 2-to eliminate the limit of $5 million that can be held in the fund.

WE ASK THE COUNCIL TO HONOR over 9,000 people who have signed this Petition. Citizens have been frustrated by conflicting instructions from the County as to the timelines and the stringent application of the arbitrary and ambiguous criteria that the County has imposed on this process. We ask the County to include signatures of voters that: 1- forgot to write the st. ave. or highway suffix as part of their residence addresses2- forgot to put the year 2006 in the date column. Both of these criteria are clearly implied. We believe that the County should be using petition information to qualify signatures not looking for insignificant reasons to disqualify voter's signatures. Please put the question on the November 2006 Ballot now!Sincerely,Name:______________ Address:________________ Date: _________________
Here's the latest: One week ago, we were told by the County Clerk's office that we had until August to gather just 800 more valid signatures to officially approve our Petition. Unexpectedly, just a few days ago the County Clerk reversed the County's position and told the Save Our Lands Committee that we didn't have more time to collect signatures, couldn't amend the petition again and that our last submittal of signatures on June 19 was the end of the campaign. As of today, our Committee has gathered over 9,000 signatures in favor of the petition. Officially, we need 4,864 valid signatures to qualify.

Yesterday, the Committee received a call from Stacy Higa, the Chairman of the County Council, saying that he is prepared to propose and support a Resolution to grant a Certificate of Sufficiency, which will put the question on the ballot in November to set aside 2% of the property taxes for Open Space and Natural Resource acquisition and remove the limit of $5 million that can be held in the Open Space Fund. This resolution would validate our petition and put our proposed ordinance changes on the ballot in November for voters to decide. Mr. Higa stated that he thought that the Save Our lands Citizens Committee has "walked the mile" and that we have collected all of the signatures that we need. He stated that he hopes that the 1,578 voters whose signatures were disqualified on the petition because they have not updated their voter registration addresses will immediately do so and turn out to vote on this matter. In effect, he believes that these invalidated signatures should be place back into the "valid column" and count toward our petition. Our Committee has been very concerned with the overwhelming amount of voter signatures invalidated and the "reasons" for invalidation. We can only hope that the rest of the Council share Mr. Higa's concerns about the process and vote to restore the disqualified names and thereby either passing the ordinance immediately or placing it on the November ballot. When asked by the Coordinator of the Committee which Council members would vote for this Resolution he said that he would, and said that he thought Mr.Safarik would also. Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Pilago, Ms. Isbell and Mr. Jacobson all signed our petitions, so we hope that they remain steadfast and vote for this Resolution. This would provide us with 6 votes. There has been some confusion in the Council that this is a Charter Amendment, when in fact it only amends the existing Open Space and Natural Resources Ordinance. Although our Committee is encouraged by Mr. Higa's comments and support for placing the the question on the November ballot our experience has made us wary of the unclear and ever changing rulings. Therefore, we are asking everyone who signed the initiative or supported the process to immediately email the Mayor and Council to call for the approval of the petition, and then to show up in person on July 19th at the Council hearing to demand approval.
A little history of this process may better illustrate our concern. Before we began the Petition Initiative process, we met twice with the Connie Kiriu, Clerk of the Coucil, Pat Nakamoto, Elections Office and Bobby Jean Leithead-Todd from the Corp Counsel. The first time we met, our Committee challenged the County's requirement to use full Social Security numbers on the initiative citing the Federal Privacy Act and State Driver's Licensing Laws. Eventually, the County agreed to not force us to collect voters
full Social Security numbers. We then received a time line with exact dates when petitions had to be turned in to the Clerk. The time lines changed twice since those meetings and again as late as last week, when we were told that we could amend the Petition and have volunteers collect more signatures. Ms. Kiriu told West Hawaii Today and the Committee that we could possibly collect signatures until August. Then, a few days ago, we were told that in fact they would NOT allow us to amend the Petition, because of Corporation Counsel Lincoln Ashida's recent interpretation of the Charter. All of this confusion is caused because the process and criteria are not well defined in the Charter, giving rise to ambiguous interpretation. Article 11 of the County Charter states: "Electors signing such petition shall print their names, add their signatures, residence addresses, social security numbers and the dates of signing on said petition." The Save Our Lands Citizens Committee believes that thousands of signatures were invalidated because the County imposed over-stringent criteria. For instance, the County claimed that on June 19th we were 864 valid signatures short of the total required but it appears that they had disqualified over 800 signatures simply because the signing voter had simply dated their signature with a month and day (ie: 7/06) and not included the year (ie: 7/06/06). The year is clearly implied because the Committee submitted their letter of intent in April of 2006 and the notarized signature in the Affadavit on the back of each petition states the date. The County looked at the information with an eye to invalidating signatures rather than honoring voters' clear intent, creating an adversarial process:
The County Clerk and Elections Officer invalidated signatures because residence addresses did not include st. ave. or hwy. The number and street address should be sufficient to verify that the person is a registered voter. It does not say in the charter that these suffixes are required.
The County Clerk refused to accept a PO Box as a "residence address" even though the County itself has voter PO Boxes on file and regularly uses these PO Boxes to send out voter registration cards to Hawai'i County citizens.
Signatures were invalidated because they did not include the year- '06. The year was clearly implied by the start of the Petition Initiative Drive and the date of the Notary signature on the back of the Petitions.
Thank you for your help and support in this process. At the core of this Initiative Petition drive is the hope that we can save the lands that make our island uniquely beautiful and provide us with our quality of life. Caring for the 'aina means caring for the people. The Initiative Petition process provides an important check and balance and makes government more accountable. We have asked Chairman Higa to form a Committee to create an Ordinance that clarifies the Intiative Petition Process by outlining the time lines and criteria for this process. Please call if you have any questions. And write your letter or email of support TODAY. Our Committee hopes to see you in the County Council chambers on July 19th at 9am. Again, thank you for your help and support on this very important issue. Please send all petitions to the address below. WE MAY NEED THEM.
Debbie Hecht, Coordinator Save Our Lands Citizen's CommitteeP.O. Box 4148Kailua-Kona, HI 96745 (